Cast your mind back to this time last year, and you may remember that rumours began to surface about a potential Gears of War remastered collection coming to Xbox. This rumour was courtesy of journalist Nick "Shpeshal Nick" Baker over at Xbox Era, who believed the collection could have been arriving in 2022.
Obviously that didn't end up happening, with no kind of reference made to a Gears of War collection at the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, but Nick is still convinced the collection is in the works.
Here's what he had to say on the latest episode of the Xbox Era Podcast this week:
"I got in trouble for mentioning [the Gears collection] because it was so early. That's why, when that rumour mill first happened, I was only supposed to say another Xbox franchise is going to get that Master Chief [Collection] style treatment."
"But yes, I'm not backing down. It's still happening."
Nick then went on to discuss the rumour a little more on Twitter:
"I’m currently not allowed to give much more detail than “it’s happening” at the moment (I’m working on loosening the grip) but even as someone who isn’t a big Gears fan anymore, what this is should be really awesome. Add even better adjectives for Gears fans."
Fresh doubt was cast on the existence of a Gears collection by Windows Central's Jez Corden last year, who suggested he didn't think a Gears collection was happening ("maybe some day, but not now"), but as you can see in the quote above, Nick still seems confident that we'll be seeing at some point.
We'd suggest not getting your hopes up for a Gears appearance at the Developer_Direct event this January, then, but who knows? Maybe we'll get a tease later this year from The Coalition — we're really hoping it's the real deal.