Boss Key Productions, the Cliff Bleszinski-led studio responsible for Radical Heights and LawBreakers, is shutting down.
“As of today, Boss Key Productions is no more,” said Bleszinski on Twitter. “Four years ago today, I set out to make a world-class video game studio, and I hired some of the best talent in the video game industry. The worked tirelessly to produce quality products and, while we had our ups and downs, I’d like to think we had fun doing it.”
Bleszinski goes on to note that he feels LawBreakers was a great game that just failed to gain traction. He also describes Boss Key’s Battle Royale shooter Radical Heights as a “last-ditch attempt” to try to get in on the Battle Royale genre and produce a hit. Unfortunately, it was “too little, too late.”
Blezinski states that he’s going to take some time off and reflect. In the short term, he’s noted that he’s going to focus on his family. While Bleszinski says that “videogames will forever be a part of who I am,” he makes no mention of when he may return to the industry or what he may choose to work on next. He also thanks those who supported himself and Boss Key Productions as well as everyone who worked with him in recent years.
It seems that the plan is for Radical Heights to remain available in the near future – it’s not entirely clear how that will work as of yet – but this announcement confirms the effective end of Boss Key Productions. The studio was founded in 2014 by Cliff Bleszinski and Arjan Brussee. Right from the start, their pet project was the arena shooter, LawBreakers. While LawBreakers was praised by many who played it for its mechanics and take on the genre, it ultimately failed to gain even a portion of the popularity that titles like Overwatch enjoyed.
LawBreakers publisher Nexon suggested that the popularity of PUBG contributed to the death of LawBreakers, but that didn’t stop Boss Key from developing Radical Heights. However, it was clear that the game wasn’t nearly as much of a passion project as LawBreakers was. The Battle Royale title was riddled with technical issues and incomplete design decisions that seemingly squandered the reasonable amount of hype it garnered upon its release.
It’s a sad end for a studio that showed a huge amount of promise, particularly given Bleszinski’s standing in the industry: as the designer of Gears Of War and formerly a leading light at Epic Games, Belszinski was one of the most famous names of the Xbox 360 era. The fate of Boss Key is a reminder that, in the fast-moving games industry, there’s no such thing as a sure-fire hit.