Boss Key Is ‘Gears of War’ Designer Cliff Bleszinski’s New Studio


Cliff Bleszinski spent the majority of his game development career at Epic Games before officially retiring in October 2012. He recently announced that he’s coming out of retirement and teased a new game announcement, but shared no details on what Boss Key, the new game development studio created with Guerrilla Games co-founder Arjan Brussee, is up to.

The BossKey website launched late Thursday, as pointed out by internet sleuth superannuation. It included leaks to Bleszinski’s Twitter account, the official Twitter account for BossKey, and to a Twitter account for something called Bluestreak. The website has since been updated to remove all of the links.

Meanwhile, documents filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office show that BossKey was established on May 30. They state that the studio was setup to create “downloadable multi-player interactive computer game programs; computer and video game software; downloadable computer and video game software; downloadable electronic games via the Internet and wireless devices; downloadable computer application software in the field of games; interactive computer and video game programs.”

This and previous statements from Bleszinksi indicate that Project Bluestreak will be an online PC arena first-person shooter.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Bleszinksi said, “PC is where I’m going to wind up. That’s where the community is,” said Bleszinski. “The trend will always be the core. If I start a studio, I want a community manager there day one. I want weekly video or podcasts; I want task lists available on the subreddit.”

It also looks probable that BossKey and Bleszinski will take a community development approach used by games like Minecraft, DayZ, and Rust.

“Your game is as good as how many YouTube videos it can yield,” Bleszinski said. “My wife and I are totally hooked on Rust right now. It’s not about the ‘new user experience’; in these games the new user experience is utter shit, and it’s okay. There are two lessons people have not learned from Minecraft: Get the game out there and build it. Some kid will put out a video. Players will teach each other. You don’t need the ‘press A to jump.'”

Further back in December, Bleszinski was a guest on Kevin Pereira’s podcast where he stated that he wants his next game to be a “PC-only first person arena shooter.” This would take him back to his Unreal Tournament roots with his project, and he hopes to use the Unreal Engine, the engine created by the company he worked for so long.

We’ll get the official announcement on what Bluestreak is from Bleszinski and BossKey on July 8. But, he did tell Polygon Friday, “I do not comment on rumors and speculation on the birthday of the nation that could allow a game designer to have a fantastic 20 year run at his first studio and then take nearly two years off only to seek out funding and start his new lean, agile, fun startup in Raleigh, N.C.”

Bleszinski’s formation of a new studio was inevitable since his split with Epic Games. As one of the few celebrity-type personalities in game development, what kind of impact do you think his return will have?

[Image via AGB]

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