Storied game designer Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski, who worked at Epic Games in the Unreal days and was lead designer on the first Gears of War trilogy, recently celebrated a bittersweet anniversary.
"11 years ago I started Boss Key. Sigh. It was amazing at first and then, well, it broke me for a good long while," he wrote in an on July 21. "Still bitter about the internet finding it hilarious that my studio folded."
Bleszinski, at the time a dudebro figure in an industry tiring of dudebros, had a lot of confidence in LawBreakers as an idea, and it wasn't baseless: a $30 FPS with cool movement abilities, classic arena modes, and no FOMO was a real good time. But in 2017, getting people excited about an arena shooter was about as likely as a teen buying a flip phone. Overwatch was the biggest FPS in the rummy new app world and PUBG was in the middle of exploding.
To fully illustrate how surrounded Boss Key Productions was in the summer of 2017: Just a month after LawBreakers hit shelves, Bleszinski's old friends at Epic released a little side mode to its PvE co-op shooter called Fortnite Battle Royale.
Would LawBreakers, or at least something LawBreakers-shaped, work today? It didn't work out for , though that $40 FPS had more problems than its price tag. And considering the price of trying and failing is becoming a laughing stock, it doesn't sound like Bleszinski is eager to jump back into game development.
"I'm happy consulting at this point," he wrote in an X reply.
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