Six years after the untimely demise of first-person hero shooter LawBreakers, the game’s director explains why he thinks Overwatch played a part in its failure.
You might know game designer Cliff ‘Cliffy B’ Bleszinski for his work on Gears of War or his time on the Unreal series. You may also remember the studio he headed after his work with Epic, Boss Key Productions – or its 2018 closure following the commercial failure of its debut title, LawBreakers. LawBreakers launched in 2017, a little over a year after Blizzard launched its own hit multiplayer FPS, Overwatch. Bleszinski now says that this unfortunate timing contributed to the downfall of Boss Key’s debut game and that the title otherwise could’ve “had a shot.”
Speaking to Edge, Bleszinski states that various factors likely fed into the shooter’s demise. “Whenever an airplane crashes, it’s usually multiple cascading failures.” From a “crowded” market to a poor marketing campaign, the dev notes different reasons for LawBreakers’ short life but points to the arrival of Overwatch in 2016 as the biggest of all. When Boss Key devs saw Blizzard’s trailer, Bleszinski describes the collective thought process: “Oh god, we’re fucked.” While the studio’s decision to include heroes and abilities in LawBreakers was inspired by its devs’ hours playing MOBAs, it felt too close to Overwatch’s style for comfort.
Hoping to draw a line between the two games’ similarities, Bleszinski says his team tried to “zig” when Blizzard “zagged.” No matter how many distinct features unique to Boss Key’s game were found in everything from LawBreakers’ heroes and their abilities to the shooter’s overall aesthetic, nothing proved enough to prevent accusations of copying Overwatch. Bleszinski admits If he had known how, despite receiving generally positive reviews across the board, LawBreakers would fail to maintain an active audience, he’d have handled development differently. “I wouldn’t have hired as many people,” he explains. “I wouldn’t have gone for a triple-A shooter.”
Instead, the legendary dev says he’d “have made a little simple game” with a small team “to get something out the door” rather than spending a few years on a project like LawBreakers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Boss Key Production’s title will spring back to life despite the designer’s cryptic reference to it in 2023. Whether or not we see the Gears of War mastermind return to game development at all is yet to be determined, too. Bleszinski previously implied that he would be working on a new game, but later went on to delete teasers regarding the project and post that he’s “kinda over the whole making games thing.”
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