Gears of War 4, which shipped last year on Xbox One and PC, was the first brand-new entry in the series made internally at Microsoft after it acquired the series from Epic Games in 2014. It was also the first entry for the new developer of the series, The Coalition, and notably the first game that creator Cliff Bleszinksi did not work on.

Now, a little over five months later, Bleszinksi has spoken out on the new entry, revealing a rather mixed bag of feelings about. Bleszinksi specifically said the following to GameSpot during PAX East 2017:

"What [Gears of War developer The Coalition boss Rod Fergusson] did was give the people what that want. He did the J.J. Abrams Episode VII. I've watched Episode VII five times. I still get misty-eyed and get all excited but when I think objectively about it, I'm like, 'There wasn't a lot of risk there.' So I'm hoping they take a little bit more risk in the future."

Bleszinksi went on to reveal that when the team at Epic Games talked about the future of Gears of War, it talked about it existing beyond being just a shooter. Bleszinksi continues:

"I think there's multiple ways that you can tell that story. Multiple gameplay genres. I think it's a really big IP and it's an IP that could exist in linear form, in books--we've seen that; in different gaming genres."

As you may know, Bleszinski's current project is LawBreakers, a shooter for PC which is poised to enter closed beta this Thursday. When GameSpot asked one of repeating hot questions about the game, will it come to consoles, Bleszinski reiterated that Boss Key is talking to people, but couldn't confirm anything. In the past Bleszinksi said that bringing the game to consoles would be very difficult, because it's insanely fast and very twitchy.