In a recent press conference at the New York Comic Con, Joshua Ortega, the writer of Gears of War 2, let loose that we may be in store for another decade of Gears of War.

During a questionnaire, fans grilled Ortega about the series, including the future, and where future games might take players. Some asked if future Gears games might deal with “E-Day” which in Gears of War lore is “Emergence Day” the day when the Locusts rose from the ground to slaughter the human race.

To this, Ortega was indirect, but perhaps told more in doing so than he actually covered up. "You will not be disappointed in the next ten years," Ortega said. "It’s a ten-year plan. Gears is long-term. The lancer is the new lightsaber."

Moving on to other questions, some asked about the possibility of new Gears 2 single player DLC, to which he replied, "Keep watching," Ortega said. "You won’t be disappointed." Is that too vague to call that a “yes”? Certainly sounds like a “yes” to me.

First of all, nothing will ever dethrone the lightsaber. Second, if they’re planning on at least 10 more years of Gears, we can expect at least three more games. Lately they’ve switched to a two-year development cycle, but that will become much longer when they start developing on the next generation of console hardware. Personally, I can’t decide whether this is a good thing.

On the one hand, it is somewhat disappointing to me to hear that all of these hundreds of incredibly talented coders and artists will be stuck developing sequels rather than being able to contribute to developing in exciting new territory. Sequels have their merits, but if there is one thing they do not do, it’s break new ground.

On the other hand, it’s always beneficial to the gamers that a company has a cash cow. They more sure-fire money makers they have, the more likely they are going to be to experiment a little bit on new IPs. Between, the Gears of War series, and the truly unbelievable profit that Epic makes from licensing the Unreal Engine 3, Epic has more than enough money to throw around on new projects. Let’s just hope we start seeing them take some risks with that extra cash.