Gears of War Creator Criticizes Killzone and Infamous Sequels for PS4

Cliff Bleszinski, the former creative director of Epic Games and the creator of the Gears of War series, has criticized Sony's decision to focus on sequels at the PlayStation 4's reveal conference, saying that new iterations like Killzone: Shadow Fall or Infamous: Second Son, should've been completely new properties.

Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 to the world last week and, despite not showing the console, it did reveal a variety of games and features, not to mention the DualShock 4 controller and the PS4 Eye camera.

Now, Cliff Bleszinski, the creator of the Gears of War saga, has offered his thoughts on the PS4 announcement via his personal Tumblr blog, emphasizing that Sony needed to focus more on new properties instead of sequels.

According to him, both Killzone: Shadow Fall and Infamous: Second Son needed to be standalone properties instead of sequels in existing franchises.

"I think there’s a ton of talent at Guerrilla and I was hoping they’d make a brand new property," he said about Killzone.

"The new Infamous Second Son trailer was extremely exciting. It felt like Watch Dogs Superhero Edition. Very Warren Ellis vibe to the whole thing initially… and then, to have to rest upon the 'Infamous' brand bummed me out."

"Infamous games are fantastic but never seemed to sell as well as they should have and it feels like someone in marketing got nervous launching an all new world so they had to fall back to the Infamous branding. Watch Dogs stole E3 last year partially because it was a whole new 'thing' and not 'Assassin’s Creed: 2024' edition."

Bleszinski summarized his thoughts by saying that "There is never a better time to launch new Intellectual Property in videogames than at a console transition. Gears and Halo 'got' this."

Sony did reveal a few new properties, including Knack or The Witness, and more titles are expected to be revealed as we get closer to the console's second reveal at E3 2013 in June.