Interestingly, however, Cliff Bleszinski – the now defunct Boss Key Productions’ co-founder, LawBreakers director, and the original Gears of War trilogy’s director – seems to be angling for a revival for the failed hero shooter.

Taking recently to Twitter, Bleszinski said that Nexon – LawBreakers’ original publisher – still owns the rights to the property, and tagging Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney, asked to “talk about a resurrection”. In follow-up tweets Blezsinski said that though he’s no longer in leading a project’s development, he would be open to being involved in a LawBreakers revival as a consultant.

Whether or not anything comes of this remains to be seen. The multiplayer shooter market is one that publishers are always looking for a foothold in, but the genre is also a crowded and competitive one, and has seen more than a few casualties over the years. Does the LawBreakers IP have enough cache to be able to compete in that space? Maybe that’s something that Nexon might be interested in looking into at some point down the line.

Well, turns out Nexon does own the rights to LawBreakers. @owenmahoney how about sliding into my DMs so we can talk about a resurrection?

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) April 19, 2023

I'm over being CEO and lead designer. Shiz is exhausting.

But if a 3rd party wants to resurrect it with Nexon I'm down for consulting.

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) April 22, 2023

The point is: Nothing is set in stone and people’s interests are constantly shifting. The battle royale shooter that everyone was playing last year may be a blip in a sea of more successful imitators. A hot new debut may fall by the wayside in a matter of months, if not weeks or days. Sometimes, even if you have a good idea, the timing of release can be one of the biggest factors preventing its exposure.

When Cliff Bleszinski left Epic Games in October 2012, it was somewhat surprising. On the one hand, the industry legend was instrumental to the creation of Unreal, which would lead to one of the best competitive FPS titles, Unreal Tournament. He also created Gears of War, a third-person shooter franchise that revolutionized the use of cover and became one of the flagship titles for the Xbox 360. With Gears of War 3 released in September 2011, Bleszinski’s departure was due to wanting a break from making games.

However, in 2014, he came out of retirement (as it were) and announced the opening of a new studio, Boss Key Productions. It subsequently announced a new free-to-play arena shooter code-named BlueStreak, published by Nexon. Very little was known, save for some concept art, but it felt like a throwback to Bleszinki’s roots.

In 2015, Bleszinski revealed that his break was motivated by a couple of factors, namely “gamers” feeling jaded and having worked with people at Epic who also felt jaded. The latter resulted in him pitching ideas to Epic and seeing them go nowhere. The company had sold the Gears of War IP to Microsoft in January 2014, and subsequently did little with Unreal Tournament, whose last major release was in 200. Its newest title entered alpha in August 2014 before receiving its final update in June 2017. Bleszinski’s frustration was understandable.

LawBreakers was pitched as a class-based arena shooter with zero-G gravity and a focus on twitchier shooting action. There were 18 characters split into nine roles and then further separated into two factions – Law and Breakers. Each had unique abilities and weapons, fulfilling different purposes in combat. However, this wasn’t necessarily a super-coordinated affair – you could very much lone wolf if you were good enough, retreating for a few seconds to restore health. Teamwork was encouraged, especially in modes like Blitzball and Occupy, but not mandatory.

While LawBreakers seemed intriguing, it already faced a major hurdle – Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch. Despite apparently being in development before Overwatch’s announcement – which is a whole other rigmarole, given the latter’s origins as Project Titan – Blizzard’s hero shooter was released first. Though it didn’t invent the hero shooter genre, the debut of the first major new IP in years for the company, combined with charismatic characters and sharp cinematics, immediately made an impact. Its closed beta period was also massively hyped, driven by fans desperate to get in.

The open beta saw nearly 10 million players jump in before its release in May 2016, and the overall gameplay was massively praised, even if some felt the content and features were a bit lacking. Such was its success that the more MOBA-esque Battleborn from Gearbox Software, which launched at the same time, quickly faded away.

Though its fundamentals and game speed were very different from Overwatch, LawBreakers nonetheless faced comparisons against the same. In June 2017, Bleszinski announced some major developments for the title that contributed to sealing its fate.

First, he confirmed that LawBreakers would be released for PS4 and PC, and not Xbox One. This caused some backlash, especially since Bleszinski was synonymous among Xbox players with the Gears franchise. However, he also confirmed that LawBreakers was no longer free-to-play – it would cost $30 at launch to play, making sure to emphasize that it was, “None of this $60 multiplayer-only bulls**t.” For reference, Overwatch cost $60 on consoles and $40 on PC.

LawBreakers had an open beta later that month on Steam with a second beta following in late July for PC and PS4. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much enthusiasm behind the same – the open beta saw low player numbers on Steam and the official release on August 8th had an even lower number of players. The reviews were solid but not exceptional. Though praised for its twitch shooting, many elements of LawBreakers just felt…fine. Nothing remarkable or memorable but fine overall, and the higher skill floor meant only a specific segment of FPS players would thrive.

But even if LawBreakers was an incredible game in its own right, Overwatch was still massively popular at this point, hitting its stride with new maps, heroes and cinematic shorts. Also, for its focus on coordination and team play, it was a lot easier for non-FPS players to get into. The charismatic heroes that dotted its marketing through the years only grew more beloved over time.

This isn’t to say that other hero shooters didn’t fare well – Rainbow Six Siege launched in 2015 and is still going strong today. But it was another genre that took the gaming world by storm in 2017, further drawing attention away from any potentially new competitive titles – battle royale. Epic Games quickly jumped on the bandwagon, using its PvE-focused Fortnite title as a base to create Fortnite Battle Royale. It garnered more than 10 million players just two weeks after its September 2017 release and, well, the rest is history. Various developers scrambled to release their own games in the genre with only a few seeing success.

Following pitiful player numbers since launch and the departure of Boss Key co-founder Arjan Brusse to Epic Games, Bleszinski finally released a statement in April 2018 acknowledging LawBreakers‘ failure. While Boss Key would release its own battle royale title – the abysmal and quickly forgotten Radical Heights – LawBreakers went free to play on Steam in June. Servers were then shut down on September 14th and the title was removed from purchase. The closure of Boss Key Productions occurred in May 2018 and Bleszinski has since retired from game development.

While the writing was seemingly on the wall for LawBreakers, some – including myself – had hoped that it could offer something unique and interesting to keep players engaged. Blame it on poor timing, lack of marketing, no free-to-play (something which even Overwatch has been forced to adapt with its sequel) or even its gameplay niche.

But to this day, LawBreakers is a testament to the fact that a “cool idea” and decent gameplay aren’t nearly enough to sustain a multiplayer title, especially in a highly competitive climate where trends can change on a whim.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

The Alien franchise got one of its biggest games in years earlier this generation with the release of Alien: Isolation. While the game was beloved in some circles, it failed to really find an audience. But apparently, another game based on the franchise could have happened. It would have been from the studio behind LawBreakers, Boss Key Productions, and had a much more direct tie to the films’ canon.

As revealed on his official Twitter, Cliff Bleszinski (aka Cliffy B.) revealed that his now defunct studio was at one point in talks with Fox to make an FPS title based on the IP. It would have followed an adult Newt, with Ripley as your guide. Presumably, that means it would have taken place after Aliens and invalidated everything after that.

But Boss Key Productions is no more, after LawBreakers was something of an infamous flop, and now that Disney owns Fox, it probably would mean any kind of interest would have to go through a new party. An MMO based on the series is apparently in development, so there’s still something in the pipeline at the very least.

https://twitter.com/therealcliffyb/status/1226905493463076869?s=20

Cliff Bleszinski, the creator of Gears of War, known most recently for the failed hero shooter Lawbreakers, has apparently posted in a very emphatic statement on Twitter in response to a fan that he will not be making any more games going forward. Bleszinski has always been an outspoken personality, and it looks like he is not holding back in this case.

Speaking in response to a fan complaining about never receiving a refund for Lawbreakers, a game that was taken offline in a little over a year, followed shortly by the closure of Boss Key Productions, Bleszinski noted how he spent money out of pocket to ensure his employees didn’t get a raw deal from the closing down of the company, and that the toxicity of the gaming community is the reason he will “NEVER” make another game again.

When informed by GamesIndustry that he was responding to what was likely a troll tweet (the account that tweeted at Bleszinski has so far made only this one tweet, and is likely a throwaway created expressly for this exchange), and asked how serious he was, he simply replied “I’m done”.

Bleszinski, for all his faults—he is abrasive and obnoxious—is at least a talented game designer, and if this is the note he will leave on, it is a shame. With that said, hopefully, this is nothing more than a minor outburst on social media on a bad day.

https://twitter.com/therealcliffyb/status/1063145769321013249

LawBreakers is a game that seemed to just come out at the wrong time, and under-performed as a result of this bad timing. In fact, the game performed so badly that the developer Boss Key had to shut down earlier this year. However, instead of letting things lie as they are, a former executive at publishing company Nexon decided to add insult to the injury of the game’s failure.

Nexon America’s former Vice President of Marketing, Vlad Coho, was scheduled be delivering a talk titled ‘LawBreakers: How I Blew Millions Marketing the Biggest Flop of 2017′ at DevGAMM in Seattle at the end of the month. Based on the title, we can assume that the talk was going to be about what a mistake it was to bet on the game, and what he would have done differently.

Earlier this year, we learn that Nexon had faced some layoffs due to LawBreakers’ failure. Perhaps that is something Coho’s talk was going to dive into? It still seems in bad taste to phrase the talk in such a way that insults a former partner. Clearly, this is something Coho eventually realized as well, because Destructoid now reports that the DevGAMM talk has been cancelled.

“I have a ton of respect for the Boss Key Productions team,” Coho told Destructoid. “Games are a risky, difficult business even when everything goes well, and BKP did their best. My talk was going to be about my lessons learned from the mistakes I made, not about what the devs could have done better or differently. That said, out of respect for the BKP team, I’ve pulled the talk and won’t be mentioning LawBreakers or Nexon if/when I do speak at DevGAMM.”

Based only on the title of the talk (since we can’t possibly know what the actual content would have been), it seemed pretty apparent that a large part of it would have been about kicking something when it’s already down, so it’s good to see, at the very least, that that’s not going to happen anymore. What are your thoughts on this? Tell us in your comments.

Despite this pedigree, and despite having a relatively interesting gimmick of defying gravity more often and more stylishly than any game in recent memory, Lawbreakers failed to live up to expectations. Falling below its forecasted results so much in fact that Nexon’s financial executive Shiro Uemura noted that their entire third quarter was brought down as a result. Nexon’s displeasure is more than understandable, with overall attendance in their new multiplayer shooter being reported to be below 1,000 people at times. Uemura went a step further and elaborated on the disappointment by, perhaps hastily, generating the rationale; “the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for Lawbreakers.”

"This is not to say that Lawbreakers is a bad game, surely it’s not. Reviews largely have been positive, graphics and gameplay are all finely tuned, and most who have played it would describe the experience as fun, even though it is best in short bursts and small doses."

This is citing the release window, which is a common issue with games underperforming these days, but the choice to place blame on the existence of another specific game ruffled a few feathers in the endless ocean of comment sections and gaming forums out there, and does seem to avoid responsibility to a degree.

One might understand why Uemura’s assumption could occur initially, with Agents of Mayhem also launching in August and suffering a similar fate. The frustration of seeing a well-made game perform poorly after years of blood sweat and tears is understandable. An important thing to note, however, is that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds didn’t even fully launch until December 20th; over four full months after the launch of Lawbreakers. Sure, PUBG was in early access and had built an audience prior, but perhaps the question Nexon should be asking themselves isn’t “Why did PUBG do this to us?” but rather, “Why did our game resonate so poorly that we got pummeled by a different game that wasn’t even fully launched until four months after ours was?”

I suppose it turns out that, while the timing of a release is absolutely a factor,  the quality of a “hero shooter” isn’t entirely predicated on it. People play hero shooters because they want to play heroes. People are still playing Overwatch in droves not because it was launched with no competition (Battleborn, anyone?) but because it was full of personality,  memorable distinct characters, and brought its elements together to form a timeless experience that stands out from the herd. Characters like Winston, Mercy, and Bastion are probably on their way to being icons for many years to come, but will you remember who Axel and Sunshine are in six months?

"Sure, PUBG was in early access and had built an audience prior, but perhaps the question Nexon should be asking themselves isn’t “Why did PUBG do this to us?” but rather, “Why did our game resonate so poorly that we got pummeled by a different game that wasn’t even fully launched until four months after ours was?”"

Can you even describe them without having to sit down and think about it? It’s fair to say that these are two very different tiers on the scale of memorable characters, and perhaps that is part of the problem for Lawbreakers. You can have an engine from a Lamborghini implanted in a ’98 Ford Escort, but people aren’t generally going to be very interested when they also have flashier, more instantly appealing options on the table.

This is not to say that Lawbreakers is a bad game, surely it’s not. Reviews largely have been positive, graphics and gameplay are all finely tuned, and most who have played it would describe the experience as fun, even though it is best in short bursts and small doses. Lawbreakers‘ main gameplay hook is that it essentially extends the idea of individual ground-to-air combat, a trend popularized many years ago by Titanfall and recent Call of Duty games, to a new level by sending you boosting, double jumping, and triple jumping through the air during battle. Not only is that gameplay element executed well, but it is implemented expertly within the design of the maps, and clearly was kept in mind when the developers were balancing out the weapons.

The extended time in the air is a great idea for a multiplayer shooter and makes perfect sense on paper. There is no denying that Call of Duty and Titanfall are both respectable multiplayer franchises. However, as many reviewers have stated, Lawbreakers does get stale fairly quickly when soaring through the air more than usual is about the only major thing distinguishing the game from the franchises it’s clearly inspired by. Entire multiplayer games can rarely rely on just one great gameplay element to achieve success. Even with PUBG and Fortnite, which are not games I would call terribly complex, there are many factors that players can describe when discussing why they keep coming back to them. They are excellent games with many facets, despite their simplicity.

"People are still playing Overwatch in droves not because it was launched with no competition (Battleborn, anyone?) but because it was full of personality,  memorable distinct characters, and brought its elements together to form a timeless experience that stands out from the herd."

The bottom line here is that, while the multiplayer shooter genre is a crowded space, and that doesn’t look to be changing, that is something that any game publisher worth their salt should understand going in. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a multiplayer shooter is going to have competition. Even if PUBG and Lawbreakers were to launch on the exact same day, it’s ultimately up to Nexon to make sure their game does well. It’s not the responsibility of another franchise to be nice to them and make sure their projects succeed.

If you are making a game, and you don’t think your game can survive with the current state of the genre, maybe its worth it to take a step back and re-evaluate what you’re doing. Maybe Nexon, like all of us at times, should try to remember that the greatest lessons are learned not by looking out and blaming your circumstances, but by looking inward and deciding to learn your lessons so you can do better next time.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to GamingBolt as an organization.

Lawbreakers is a game that had released last year in August and never managed to gain widespread attention and as a result, was not commercially successful. The publisher Nexon has cited PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as being the reason why Lawbreakers was not able to receive commercial success.

It was Nexon’s Chief Financial Officer Shiro Uemara who had stated this during the company’s financial earnings call with investors. According to him, the company had high expectations for the title but it had not performed as expected. He went on to say “Our results in North America in the third quarter were below our outlook, mainly due to the sales from LawBreakers being below our expectations. LawBreakers is a unique FPS developed for core users. We had very high expectations for its launch; however, the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for LawBreakers.” It is quite unlikely that this was the case since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds had released earlier in March on Early Access while Lawbreakers had released only later in August. Additionally, Lawbreakers never managed to garner mainstream attention as a First-Person Hero Shooter, a genre completely different from that of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. 

As both titles are fundamentally different, there is no reason why PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds must be blamed for Nexon’s lack of success with their game. Let us know your thoughts on this issue in the comments below.

LawBreakers developer Boss Key Productions witnessed the departure of co-founder Arjan Brussee who revealed that he would be working on a “secret project” for Epic Games. Brussee had worked at Epic Games along with Cliff Bleszinski once upon a time before founding Guerrilla Games of Killzone and Horizon: Zero Dawn fame.

Having acted as COO for Boss Key, Brussee handled a number of aspects for the studio including production, finance, strategy and much more. His replacement has yet to be announced but Cliff Bleszinki chimed in on Brussee’s shift, wishing him well on future endeavours and noting that development was still on-going.

LawBreakers launched earlier this year in July for PS4 and PC but has met with numerous difficulties. On top of a meager player base at launch, the studio has been struggling to attract any more potential customers despite free weekends, large content updates and much more. There’s more content planned including a new class and maps so stay tuned for more information.

https://twitter.com/arjanbrussee/status/939176233245511681

https://twitter.com/therealcliffyb/status/939165178398150656

Boss Key Productions’ hero/arena shooter LawBreakers is having a free weekend starting on November 9th, 10 AM PT and this will run till November 12th, 1 PM PT. You can download the game for free on Steam and play it to your heart’s content during those days.

The developer has done its best to support the game with a massive update that adds new maps, Ranked Play and much more. However, initial player counts for LawBreakers were pretty dismal and have only bottomed out in the past few months. The fact that this is the second free weekend for the game in six weeks should tell you something.

Regardless, if you can find people to play with, then LawBreakers should be somewhat fun. Those interested in picking up the full game once the free weekend is over can avail of a 50 percent discount on Steam. This will run from November 8th, 10 AM PT to November 14th, 10 AM PT and the game will be available for just $14.99.

Boss Key Productions’ LawBreakers hasn’t been doing well since launching in August. Despite decent critical acclaim and Cliff Bleszinski making his return as director after a lengthy absence, the game has struggled with player counts, especially on PC. This has been acknowledged by Bleszinski on a few occasions including one where he promised to continue supporting the game.

However, the multiplayer hero shooter is probably beyond saving on PC at least. A recent look at Steam Charts for LawBreakers indicates that only 26 players were online in the past half an hour as of this time of writing. The 24 hour peak was a whopping 97 players, which is only eclipsed by Battleborn’s peak player count.

LawBreakers does have new free content coming later with a new class, Ranked Play and new maps so there’s plenty to look forward to. You can check out our official review of LawBreakers to see what it did right (and what it got wrong). What are your thoughts on plummeting sales though? Let us know in the comments.