Veterans of the gaming industry likely recognize the name Cliff Bleszinski, who more commonly goes by CliffB, as a long-time video game designer who is well-known as a key development figure of the ongoing Gears of War series.
Though Bleszinski has largely been out of the development landscape for a couple of years, it seems as though he may be making a return to the industry sometime in the future. Recently, Bleszinski wrote on Facebook about how gaming success stories like Fall Guys and Among Us have inspired him with ideas to create a smaller game.
In his Facebook post, Bleszinski muses that he is greatly enjoying the experience of playing smaller titles and writes, “The success of Fall Guys and Among Us give me hope that not everything needs to be insane AAA that requires crazy crunch that ruins families and mental health on a 100m budget.” Seeing as Fall Guys broke massive PS Plus milestones and Among Us has been dominating Twitch for the past few month, it makes sense that those games would inspire other developers in the AAA space.
Bleszinski is well-known for his work on large-scale AAA titles like Gears of War and the Unreal series over the years, so it’s surprising to hear him take an interest in small-scale indie development. Though, it does make a bit more sense looking at what caused Bleszinski to leave game development in 2018. The failure and subsequent shut down of Boss Key Productions, a studio founded him and Arjan Brussee after their departure from Epic Games, was undoubtedly a massive blow to Bleszinski.
However, Bleszinski’s Facebook post is hopeful, mentioning that he has been experiencing the urge to go back and experiment with game design again. This time around, it sounds like Bleszinski would aim to take a smaller, more focused approach on “a little game.” Bleszinski’s past efforts with LawBreakers and Radical Heights, and the subsequent under-performance of both titles, were key factors in the closure of Boss Key Productions. Realizing that, it would make sense that Bleszinski might want to step away from large-scale development.
Still, this isn’t the first time that Bleszinski has talked about coming back to game development. Earlier this year, Bleszinski offered to return to Gears of War as a consultant with Microsoft. Bleszinski left the series back in 2012, but stated that plenty of his and developer Lee Perry’s unused ideas could still be implemented. Whether or not he really intends to come back to game development remains to be seen, but it would be interesting to see what he could create on a scaled-back project.
Source: Facebook