Clifford Bleszinski, of Gears of War fame, has announced that his designer role on the Xbox 360 exclusive mega-hit has come to a close. Fired? No. Quit? No. He's just done, as the game moves into the final stages of development, debugging, manufacture. Whatever.

Cliff updated his personal blog to let us know...

My job as designer of Gears of War is, well, more or less done. I can't speak to the status of gold or shipping but those of you familiar with development know that at a certain point you've just got to let your baby get on the school bus and hope for the best.

Yay! No validity to those Gears of War delay rumors!

I'm sure we'll all celebrate Cliffy's and Epic Games' achievement in getting Gears out the door by enjoying a nice tall bottle of wine. Or is that just me? Fortunately, Cliff can now look forward to taking a break from game development and focus on his love, eating adorable puppies alive. Michael McWhertor

CliffyB.com: fin