Boss Key Productions, the studio behind the recent battle royale Radical Heights and last year’s Lawbreakers, is closing its doors.
The news comes from studio co-founder Cliff Bleszinski, previously of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament fame, who said that Lawbreakers had “failed to gain traction” and described Radical Heights, which launched last month to some popularity, as “too little too late.”
A statement: pic.twitter.com/LwJD54bCwL
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) May 14, 2018
Boss Key, founded in April 2014 by former Epic Games employees Cliff Bleszinski and Arjan Brussee, released the shooter Lawbreakers last year but failed to find an audience thanks in large part to an oversaturated marketplace (and the massive success of Blizzard’s Overwatch).
Brussee left the company in December 2017 to return to Epic, where he worked on the mobile version of what had suddenly become the most popular game in the world: Fortnite.
Ironically, Fortnite was first announced by Bleszinski at the Spike Video Game Awards in 2011. And it was Fortnite that Bleszinski’s new studio tried to follow, with Boss Key releasing the neon battle royale game Radical Heights in April of this year.
Radical Heights felt early and unfinished, but it drew some interest, with the mega-popular streamer Ninja even playing it for thousands upon thousands of viewers on Twitch. It wasn’t enough to save the studio, but Bleszinski says servers will stay online for “the near future.”
Comments
14 responses to “Radical Heights Developer Boss Key Games Shuts Down”
They should have made their own game instead of following in others’ footsteps.
They did, it was called Lawbreakers, it failed.
They made a retread of the UT formula mixed with a retread of the hero shooter formula and added in a really interesting 3D space mechanic.
But it was still exactly the kind of shooter that was always going to fail in the modern market.
Everything is derivative if you hold it to that standard however.
Titanfall is a retread of COD mixed with a retread of parkour formula and added in an interesting mech mechanic.
There’s a difference between “Shooter with a host of new mechanics and game loops that look like this” and “Unreal Tournament mixed with The Big Thing Right Now”
I’m not even hating on Lawbreakers. But they specifically pushed it as a return to the UT3 style of game and there’s just no market for that right now unless you’re happy to be a niche product.
“my Aussie”
Australian Shepherd? Or does he have an Australian locked in a basement?
Anyway, this is not unexpected news. When you release two games that make Battleborn look good, you can’t expect your company to exist much longer.
Not surprised; Radical Heights was garbage and Law Breakers was both not marketed well and had the issue of being a niche title.
Lawbreakers would have been fine if they stuck to their guns as a Free to Play title. Instead, they marketed it as a $30 title, which was a risk to consumers.
Condolences to everyone at Boss Key, and best of luck finding new work. Epic is nearby, and Blizzard have drawn attention to their jobs on offer right now, hope things work out for everyone.
“BILLION DOLLAR FRANCHISE”…..
ah cliffy cliffy cliffy….
I feel bad for the staff at Boss Key, it also looks like they weren’t told that it was closing down before Cliffy announced it.
It’s pretty terrible that the lead producer of Radical Heights had to find out from the internet he was losing his job, really poor on Cliffy’s behalf.
Lawbreakers should be remembered as a textbook worthy example of Marketing failure. It does not matter how well your game is made if there is no market demand for it and you do nothing to correct that lack of demand.
Had this game come out in 2004, it probably would have done well. It is not 2004.
That is actually insane. Only last weekend? there a tournament held with all the popular streamers like over 100k people watching. That seems like the biggest grab and run scam I’ve seen in recent times. Surely they knew this was happening, why did the tournament/promotional even happen…
More like Radical Lows …
All the best for the devs but good riddance Cliff. You did some good stuff in the past but trying to piggy back off other games successes does not always make a game good. You are a product of a bygone era in video games.