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When Cliff Bleszinski announced his departure from Epic Games few expected the prolific Gears of Wars creator would stay away from games for long. Sure, Cliffy B had earned a brief respite from games development, but someone as talented as this was unlikely to call it quits altogether.
Instead, most expected that Bleszinski would cut out on his own with a new studio, a new project, and a new team. Those assumptions soon came to fruition when Cliff Bleszinski announced Boss Key Productions and Project BlueStreak.
While little was known at the time, Project BlueStreak intrigued for no other reason than its ties to Bleszinski. Conservative estimates and knowledge of Bleszinski’s history with genre pegged the game as a shooter, and eventually Boss Key confirmed those assumptions as well. Project BlueStreak will be a PC-focused free-to-play arena shooter, not unlike Unreal Tournament. However, without seeing Project BlueStreak in action there were still a lot of questions – questions that Bleszinski hoped to answer soon.
The latest phase of Project BlueStreak’s slow burn reveal took place at PAX East over the weekend, where the above footage made its official debut. It’s obviously a small tease for the game, but at the very least the pre-Alpha Project BlueStreak footage gives gamers a sense of the game’s tone and visual style. No gameplay unfortunately.
Visually, Project BlueStreak looks quite striking, with obvious Asian influences and splashes of sci-fi. As expected, the game makes great use of Unreal Engine 4, ensuring that textures pop and lighting is crisp. Cliffy B may no longer be at Epic Games, but there was little chance he wasn’t going to use UE 4.
Although the tease is nice we would have loved to get a closer look at those weapons, but for now the brief hallway pan will have to suffice. We’d expect that the guy responsible for combining chainsaw and machine gun would have some new tricks up his sleeve, but those answers are likely being saved for a later date.
We also still don’t know an official title for Project BlueStreak. The code name gives BossKey the freedom to show off their new project while they secure trademarks and such, but eventually we’re going to be referring to this game by another name. According to Bleszinski that announcement should be coming soon.
What do you think of this pre-Alpha footage for Project BlueStreak? Do you like the look of the game?
Source: Boss Key Productions