New Gears of War steward Microsoft Game Studios says the franchise needs to be reignited.

In a series of tweets, Microsoft's Phil Spencer said new developer Black Tusk is “still working through [the] plan” as the game must “reignite [the] franchise, and grow it.”

“I believe we’ve built the right team to achieve that goal,” said Spencer. “I just want to give them the time.”

In January, Microsoft acquired the rights to the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games, including rights to all existing and future games, “entertainment experiences”, and merchandise.

Vancouver-based Black Tusk will take over development on the franchise, much in the same way that 343 Industries took over Halo when it was acquired from Bungie.

Earlier this week, Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinksi said, “As far as [Gears], at the end of the day, you’re shooting fucking lizard-men in the fucking face with a fucking chainsaw gun. It didn’t wind up what I’d hoped; I’d pitched it as ‘Band of Brothers with monsters’ — you know Band of Brothers is well-done and emotional, telling the story of the Greatest Generation and what they did in the war.

“Yet somehow we landed on ‘Predator’… the characters being all ‘buff and manly’, I’d never planned on that. You can’t plan for that,” he says. “With game development, it’s like doing a Ouija board. With [dialog barks] it gets easy to slip into Schwarzenegger territory.”