Boss Key Productions' gravity-disrespecting multiplayer shooter is gonna turn the genre on its head.
Alright, let’s be honest. 10 years ago, who the hell thought I’d be here? Well, here I am writing a guest column on the PlayStation Blog.
So yep – I’m back on console, and it’s pretty awesome TBH. PS4 is a new audience for my studio and me (although many people who work with me have shipped PlayStation exclusive titles before). Fun fact: my COO and colleague Arjan Brussee helped found Guerrilla Games. We also made the original Jazz Jackrabbit together, like a bazillion years ago. Small industry. Don’t be a jerk.
We worked out this little writing arrangement with Sony so I could do a proper introduction to all of you and share information about LawBreakers. I feel like it’s something I should do.
Soooooo…
Hi.
I don’t want this to be some lame marketing garble. I’m going to be honest about where I’ve been, what we’ve been doing and where we all are going.
So where have I been?
KINDA SORT-OF LAWBREAKERS ELEVATOR PITCH:
During my “retirement”, honestly, I was bored as hell. My waifu and I were ready to strangle each other. I was getting fat. Ultimately, I couldn’t ignore the creative need to make something new. During this time, I was inspired by a childhood dream about gravity being disrupted in a BIG way. I also took a Zero G flight once. That was pretty crazy. So, LawBreakers is the culmination of my dreams as a kid, my career in this industry and my lifelong passion for games. So there we have the inception (HORN SOUND) of LawBreakers. A new futuristic world where the Moon mysteriously exploded, an event known as The Shattering, that devastated Earth. Afterward society recovered, using new gravity anomalies to rebuild and advance.
The setting is the perfect backdrop for a super fast, omni-directional team-based FPS where we challenge players to get the hell off the ground. The floor is lava, bruh. It’s the skill-based competitive shooter made by shooter fans for shooter players that my team and I have always wanted to play. It honors the old and embraces the new. Old being the feeling of soaring through the air at mach-speed and rocket-jumping and such. The new as offering a variety of characters each with different movement abilities, multiple weapons, combos and more.
For example:
Our “healer” in LawBreakers can be an offensive powerhouse. In the hands of a skilled player, this role can simultaneously heal two teammates at once, all while lobbing grenades from high above like some flying human artillery cannon. Stuff like that is what LawBreakers is all about. Also we’ve added a few new things too, like being able to blind-fire behind you with any ranged weapon. Yep.
So, about where we’ve been: We’ve actually been working on LawBreakers since 2014 after founding my new development studio, Boss Key Productions, with Arjan, and let me tell you, creating a studio and a game from scratch is tough AF. Back then it was PC only and free-to-play. Yes, I can officially say we “course-corrected” (to use awful corporate speak) to pivot away from things like F2P. Why? Because we’ve been listening to community along the way and are trying to do what’s best for players, and in turn, best for the game. Funny how those two things work together, right? Our publisher Nexon has supported us along the way, working with us to do what’s right for gamers, and we respect that. Besides, they got tired of making kart-racing games.
After a few twists and turns last year after our initial Alpha, the game really got in front of a lot of players. There was no NDA so people could post footage, and we found that there was a lot of interest from console players for this very fast, competitive multiplayer game. To be honest my Twitter feed was one part “Bring LawBreakers to console!” or “Fix Gears!” (hah) So, we made something spectacularly vertical. Something heavily skill-based and super competitive, with our twist on game modes that haven’t been done before. We were making the game we wanted to play, and it seemed to resonate. When deciding which platform to bring the game to these players, it was a hard choice. I’ll leave it at that. The choice, obviously, was PS4.
Ok – here’s where we all are going. LawBreakers is coming out this year on PS4 as a digital-only title. Discs are like voicemail, so ten years ago. It’s important to know that something that’s important for the studio and me is to create a game with no season passes and no “pay-to-win” mechanics at a price that is what we feel is fair to players. It will be $29.99. We don’t want to fragment our playbase with silo’d season pass BS, nor do we want to pollute matchmaking with “pay-to-win” incentives. We want to create a game ecosystem that’s all about highly skilled players competing on even playing fields, and a landscape for average players to aspire to become better. More details on launch date soon. Right, PR?
So, in conclusion, I’m excited to ship this bad boy and get it into your grubby hands later this year. Remember to look up!
-B
Cliffy B speaking of things that where 10 years ago pretty much your games. Sorry dude im gonna pass. But hey still play your original games every now and again not mentioning any titles ;) ;) though the new game in the series blows your games out of the water
Gears 4 is the worst one. Apparently you never played the old ones.
@DethFuse
I played all 3 including judgement. And to me Gears 4 kills them all i cant wait to see what The Coalition has instore for Gears 5 coming soon. But thats Xbox and PlayStation so i’ll save that 4 another time
And this is PlayStation*
Me and my friend play through ever Gears game together. Gears 4 was the first time we stopped halfway through and gave up. The story was extremely cheesy with some of the worst characters yet. The gameplay and graphics were good but that it. I did force myself to finish it in solo just in case it got better but unfortunately that never happened. I bought it for $30 on sale and still felt completely ripped off. I hope they just kill the series but they won’t since Xbox doesn’t really have anything else besides Halo and the annual Forza garbage.
Well I hope you try the new game, dude. Myself and 65 people worked really hard on it for the last 2.5 years.
Lauren and I played through G4 and enjoyed it. No need to hate on it, Rod and co did a good job.
I am super pumped for this news! I played this a couple times at PAX east last year (missed attending this year :( ) and I enjoyed every moment of it so this is huge for me, i know i will have several friends of mine on PSN that will be looking forward to this as well thank you cliff you rule!
Four was great!
Two
Four
Three (’cause glitchy)
One
Judgement
And that’s the waaaaaaaaaay the news goes
You’re conveniently not naming any titles because you’re full of crap and nothing but a bored, hungry troll, who can’t grasp enough of the English language to clarify anything with an ounce of credibility. You don’t actually play any of their games, or else you’d have things to say that we’re more productive and encouraging. It’s okay to have your own opinion of what their past games were like, but without having played their new one, you feel qualified to judge it based on nothing concrete, without any input as to how they should improve upon any past mistakes you think they’ve made…? As I said, you’re full of crap. The developers didn’t deserve your post, nor your needless presence here. They were “the bigger man” in your exchange with them, however, because they didn’t resort to stooping to your below average level of idiocy. Don’t let me catch you here again, cretin, or I’ll smite you into the bowels of oblivion, from whence you came.
lol can’t expect much taste from someone that says “Gears of War 4 was better than previous titles.”
This poor guy probably got his ass handed to him in beta because he couldn’t keep up.
Oh no, i’m a PlayStation super fan but Gears 1 and 2 were masterpieces. The original trilogy was cutting edge technically and it introduced a cover mechanic that would be copied until the end of time. Gears 4 is absolute mediocrity compared to Gears 1-3, The Coalition copied the animations from Gears 3 for goodness sake. Gears 4 just wasn’t very good by comparison, it wasn’t an Epic game and it didn’t push the genre creatively or technically hence the average sales and the substandard Metacritic.
Look up Gears 1-3 on Metacritic, they were goty contenders in the 90’s while Gears 4 doesn’t even deserve its 82 Metacritic.
Gears 4 has a laughably cardboard protagonist and even Laura Baily sounded like she was mailing it in. Voice acting was bad.
The visuals were nowhere near cutting edge like Gears 1-3. Honestly the character models were terrible and the core grfx were bad. They just added in a lot of fluff and layered in some fx that’s all. Storms and swaying trees were impressive though.
The campaign was a horrid attempt at capturing the tone of Gears 1. It wasn’t scary and the “monster” enemy types were laughable. The mp was largely a copy paste.
Any chance there will be a demo of the game just to try it out before committing to purchase?