Cliff Bleszinski believes that developers are under increasing pressure to provide a constant stream of sequels and transmedia content for big franchises, in order to keep their fans engaged.

Indeed, the Epic Games Design Director told X360A that, “It’s almost like you’re not creating fans, you’re creating your own religion over your franchise.”

Bleszinski told X360A that he isn’t concerned about Gears of War suffering from franchise fatigue, despite Gears of War: Judgment representing the fourth title in the series since 2006.

“We’re not annualizing right now or any time soon,” he said, “but we figure that there’s room for a great prequel that has great feature parity with previous Gears games within this time frame. Sooner or later it’ll be time to move on to the next consoles and we want to make sure we have one last Gears game in here.”

However, he does feel that developers are under increasing pressure to keep their franchises in the limelight. 

“Industry wide, you’re looking at a world in which a game every two years for some developers is actually… they worry because in our ADD generation we’re going to forget about it,” he said.

“So you’re seeing Dragon Age animated shorts put out because there’s been no Dragon Age game announced recently. They want to remind people about this IP. ‘Love it and work on your cosplay, because there’ll be more down the line,’ right? 

“It’s almost like you’re not creating fans, you’re creating your own religion over your franchise.” 

Bleszinski recently told X360A that games are getting “easier and more linear.” So with Gears of War: Judgment the Epic and People Can Fly collaboration is dialing up the challenge.

Gears of War: Judgment is out next year. You can read out latest preview here.