In a surprising move earlier this week, Boss Key Productions co-founder, Cliff Bleszinski revealed that he was effectively shutting down his company and stepping away from the industry. While the studio had loads of talent and passion, its games were never able to gain any traction with fans. LawBreakers was a well-crafted arena shooter that seemed to be overshadowed by Overwatch at every turn and Radical Heights attempted to quickly cash in on the Battle Royale crazy through neon lights and an 80s style. Even without a large audience to fall back on, Bleszinski shared some ideas and concepts for new experiences the studio had brewing before ultimately pulling the plug.
Following up on his major studio closure news yesterday, Cliff Bleszinski has been using his Twitter account to reveal images, concept art, and ideas that Boss Key Productions had been coming up with for other games. One such game was known as Donuts, a VR racing arcade experience similar to the classic game Toobin, where players were animals and using beverage cans for Mario Kart style attacks. He added that drinking ginger beer added health, shaking up full cans could cause an area of effect attack, and slamming both hands together would cause the character to jump over obstacles like fallen logs.
Another concept was known internally as DragonFlies offered a PvE experience in a Japanese-inspired FuedalPunk world. Players would be either a Samurai or Ninja in a floating airship, riding dragons and fighting zombies. Dragons would have essentially been the primary way players moved around the world and could be customized or hatched from other eggs found in the world. Interestingly enough, Bleszinski also admitted that the team aimed to learn from the mistakes of Scalebound and Lair in order to make DragonFlies into something unique.
The final concept Bleszinski shared was known as DogWalkers and it took inspiration from things like World of Tanks and Tokyo Wars. In this game, players would be battling other players in massive DOGs, Destructive Ordinance (on the) Ground, while trying to stay safe from the toxic air that inhabited the world. Any leaks in the massive walker would need to be fixed, so players would have to use gas masks, patch holes, and even rappel outside to repair issues with the mech.
Ultimately, the main reason why these games stayed as concepts instead of active projects is that the publishers either thought the ideas were too out there or too similar to things that already existed. At least a couple of the projects above would have commanded a budget of at least $40 million, not seen as cheap in the eyes of publishers. Bleszinski went on to say that as a business owner, he certainly respects that decision, but as a creative, it was incredibly frustrating.