Will Santa and Marcus meet in 2010?

Even though most gamers are just now really getting their chainsaw bayonets warmed up properly, attention has already begun to turn towards the next entry in the Gears of War franchise. Already folks around the industry are asking when Marcus and friends will take on the Locust horde once more, and according to CVG the answer might just be Christmas 2010.

Apparently, work on the next edition of Gears started before the current project even wrapped up, and now the team is roughly 24 months from completion of the story’s third act. While there obviously aren’t many details about the game yet available, CVG is reporting that the title is set to feature five-player co-op, meaning that now gamers will have a full squadron at their disposal for campaign missions.

In related news, the same story states that Cliff Bleszinski’s rumored multiplatform survival horror title is alive and well, and that Epic has a full team working on the project to make it a reality. Of course, when you’ve made the studio as much money as Cliff has, you’re allowed to appropriate a team in order to make your pet project -- just look at what happened last time.

Still, the question at hand is if Gears 3 can make a release date roughly 2 years away, and the answer is that it’s possible, but right now it’s impossible to tell. Games are such complicated things that it’s fallacy to try to nail down a release date this far out, not to mention the fact that since this is one of Microsoft’s flagship franchises, everything has to be absolutely perfect. Still, the first two games were almost exactly two years apart, so it may be that the third will manage to keep to the same schedule. And thus we wait and see when we will be greeted with a red, red Christmas.

TGR Verdict: Rumor Somewhat Likely