Cliff Bleszinski Reveals New Look For Lawbreakers At GDC
Former Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski has his own game studio now, Boss Key Productions. For the last few years they’ve been working on their debut title, knowing it had to somehow stand out from the crowd yet still please the AAA shooter audience. Their initial idea? That the game be freemium — free to start, but expensive to continue (like a typical phone game).
Bleszinski changed his mind, however, when he realized the mechanics of such titles require a lot of moral compromises — and necessitate annoying your audience to some degree. “We did a lot of discussions and even more research. There are some core free-to-play games that do well, but for us, we didn’t want to go down the well of players buying ‘energy’ or other sleazy things,” Bleszinski said. “A lot of core gamers have a negative reaction when they hear free-to-play because they think they’ll get ripped off.”
Having to use a launcher would have been an additional problem. “We don’t want people to have to jump through hoops and sign up with their emails to play our game,” said Bleszinski.
Gameplay-wise, Lawbreakers will largely be inspired by Valve’s Team Fortress 2, and like that game, be a Steam exclusive. A final price hasn’t been announced, but Bleszinski is promising they’ll find a way to avoid the $60 tag. In the meantime, Lawbreakers can now be added to Steam wishlists.
[Source: Polygon]