He will start his own studio I guess. There will be one cliffy B. game for the next years and this is sad news to me. I really liked his work with the Gears franchise.
Look at Bungie (an established studio) and how long it takes them to create a new game after they left MS. 5 years ago they decided to leave MS. 3 years after their last game (Reach) and nothing new is even announced. 2 years since they signed a 10 year contract with Activision. It really takes some time to reorganise a studio our build an entire new one.
Look at the Infinity Ward guys (opening a new studio - Respawn Entertainment) and we don't know anything about it except they signed a contract with EA in April 2010 and we don't know anything yet.
So it sucks that a new Cliffy B. game is years away - even more so if he actually takes a break for a couple of months.
Imagine not having GamePass on your console...
