We all knew that a Halo 4 was coming. No way Microsoft would ever let go of its moneymaker simply because Bungie was out of the equation. The question was who would take over for them and when? Today rumors have started to fly thanks to a little note in the Official Xbox Magazine that said Gearbox Software would be in charge of Halo 4 and would be pumping the sucker out for Microsoft’s next system.

Simply a rumor, yes, but it becomes all the more convincing when this quote from the CEO of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, on the Gearbox forums. “I’ve started a new project,” he wrote back in February. “It’s big. It’s, like, look-at-our-line-up-and-imagine-something-even-bigger kind of big. I’m directing it myself. I can’t mention it publicly yet. When you find out what this is, you’ll likely agree that I can’t oversell this one.” Halo 4 is big, and it’s definitely bigger than Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Aliens: Colonial Marines or Samba de Amigo, all of which the company has in development. Plus Gearbox ported the original Halo to the PC for Microsoft.

Still a rumor though and we really have to wonder what Gearbox thinks about all this. Actually, we don’t. After letting the rumor fly around the net for the good part of the morning, Gearbox has opened up and continued to let the rumor fly around the net by stating, “We’ve been hearing from a lot of people regarding that rumor, as you can probably guess! We haven’t made any official announcements regarding any work with the Halo franchise – if we haven’t put out a press release announcing a title, it is just a rumor.” Smart move — if they don’t have it, they’ll continue to get a ton of free press, and if they do, well, let’s just say it’s a win/win situation.