Cliff Bleszinski Says He’s Done Making Video Games

Cliff Bleszinski, the co-founder of Boss Key Productions and former game designer at Epic Games, has proclaimed that he will never make another video game.

When someone on Twitter took offense to the fact that refunds weren’t being offered for Lawbreakers, which shut down in September, Bleszinski responded with the following tweet:

I paid my employees, their 401ks, and their health care – even months after the studio folded. So they could care for their families.

I didn't take a salary myself for two years.

I get you're sad, but god, this kinda shit is another reason I am NEVER making another game. https://t.co/RtS7l5WcAl

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) November 15, 2018

Bleszinski worked on the Unreal series and created Gears of War, but that success didn’t follow him to Boss Key. He founded the studio with Arjan Brussee, a co-founder of Guerrilla Games, roughly two years after leaving Epic Games in 2012. Boss Key’s first project was Lawbreakers, a fast-paced hero shooter that was released on PC and PlayStation 4 in August 2017.

Despite being more similar to Bleszinski’s previous efforts with the Unreal series, Lawbreakers‘ hero-based nature immediately drew comparisons to Overwatch, which still dominates the genre to this day. In an interview with PC Gamer leading up to the game’s release, Bleszinski was hoping that “people maybe want to try something a little bit different,” even though Lawbreakers was launching in a period where Blizzard’s shooter was attracting tens of millions of players. That didn’t happen, unfortunately, and the game went offline a little over a year after its release. During a conference call in January, publisher Nexon actually blamed the game’s demise on launching in close proximity to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which set off the battle royale phenomenon.

Bleszinski and his team at Boss Key made a quick pivot in the wake of Lawbreakers‘ failure and released Radical Heights, a free-to-play battle royale game, in April as an early access title. The developer stressed that the game was still very early in development, and while the core gameplay was complete, animations, textures, and other assets were still being worked on. Many accused Boss Key of releasing Radical Heights as an attempt to cash in on the red hot battle royale craze and it didn’t manage to capture a sizable player base. The game was shut down a month later when Boss Key closed its doors.

When GamesIndustry.biz reached out to Bleszinski for a comment on his tweet, he reiterated that he’s done with game development. It’s safe to assume that the closure of Boss Key still weighs heavily on him, but we can only hope that he reconsiders. Cliff Bleszinski is a gifted game designer that had a rough go with Boss Key, even though Lawbreakers was a well-received game. Furthermore, his accomplishments at Epic show that he can make significant contributions to the video game industry.