According to Cliff Bleszinski, a Kinect-controlled Gears of War/Infinity Blade spin-off is in the works, and it's coming "sooner than you'd expect."

Unless you've been living under a rock since late 2010 (or on an Android device), you're probably no stranger to ChAIR Entertainment's Infinity Blade. Despite the "on-rails" gameplay that inspires much Kinect criticism, Infinity Blade quickly became the fastest grossing app of all-time, and a testament to the potential of mobile gaming. 

"Gamers really responded to Infinity Blade's fast-paced, frantic hack-and-slash gameplay on the iPhone," Bleszinski said in an interview with Gamepunx Magazine. Its success is proof that, yes, there is AAA life on mobile platforms -- but what about on Kinect? Core gamers remain polarized with motion controls, citing Kinect as a shovelware device hardly capable of carrying a hardcore game. 

Cliff Bleszinski, the self-proclaimed "Tony Stark of videogames," wants to change all that with his new magnum opus Gears of War: Infinite.

"Epic has been trying to figure out how we could make a Gears Kinect game that wouldn't be just a rail shooter, and then we suddenly realized, 'Duh! The answer's right in front of our faces!'" said Bleszinski. The result is Gears of War: Infinite, an unlikely mash-up of two distinctly different franchises. Though Gears of War and Infinity Blade are worlds apart in both story and gameplay, Bleszinksi is determined to make the two worlds sync up in a significant way. 

The mashup is set to take place between the second and third installments of Gears, relying on, and expanding upon, cannon from both the Gears and Infinity Blade franchises. After Gears of War 2, Marcus Fenix stumbles across the legend of the infinity blade: a sword stained with the blood of countless generations of vengeance-spurred knights. Curiosity piqued, Fenix embarks on a quest for the mystical sword and finds himself disarmed outside of an ancient castle crawling with medieval baddies.

"Marcus gets ambushed and his gun gets damaged so it can't shoot," Bleszinski explained like a child explaining a game to his father. "But the chainsaw still works, so suddenly the man who brought a gun to a sword fight is forced to get his hands dirty."

The Utah-based developer responsible for Infinity Blade, ChAIR Entertainment (a subsidiary of Epic Games), will work closely with Epic on Gears of War: Infinite. Epic is counting on ChAIR's "experience incorporating motion controls into a game using the Unreal Engine" to help smoothen the transition from iDevice to Kinect.

Whereas Infinity Blade relied on quick swipe and tap finger gestures, a similar Kinect experience will almost certainly utilize full-motion slash and stab arm gestures. Although the transitioning of the trench style of Gears into the point and tap style of Infinity Blade is a concept many might see as gimmicky, the always out-spoken Cliffy B remains enthusiastic: 

"The best thing about Infinity Blade is that -- as anyone who's played through it can tell you -- the game has some serious sci-fi elements in its plot," he said. "There's also a ton of stuff that's been left vague up until now, like what planet [Infinity Blade] takes place on and when its events occurred. Now we get to fill in those gaps in an incredibly exciting way." 

    

Bleszinski also teased the possibility of unlocking new content for Gears of War 3 while playing through Infinite: "When you hit certain milestones in Infinite, you'll unlock new content for Gears 3," Bleszinski said. "I don't want to spoil things, but it's possible that Marcus might get some new weapons and armor to use against the Locust hordes."

Though Cliff Bleszinski may not have succeeded in convincing Microsoft to let him dismember Master Chief in Gears 3, controlling Fenix in fully decked-out God-King armor might just make up for it.