Once upon a time Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski was the rock star of the gaming world. A young gun at Epic through the ’90s and 2000s, Bleszinski designed ultra hits like Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal and Gears of War. In the 2010s, he departed Epic, arguably at the worst time possible, and launched Boss Key Productions. After a career of skyrocketing success and bombastic behavior, nothing Boss Key produced stuck. In an interview with Brian Crecente, Bleszinski opens up and blames his personal ego for leading the team into a wall. The drinking didn’t help, either.
“The Gears of War trilogy was largely developed hungover by me,” Bleszinski tells Crecente. “It wasn’t the factor, again it was death by 1,000 paper cuts. You know. But I wasn’t looking forward to going to work. I was looking forward to the drink afterwards.”
Bleszinski co-founded Boss Key Productions with fellow Jazz Jackrabbit creator and Guerrilla Games founder Arjan Brussee. As Bleszinski tells it, they worked on LawBreakers well before Overwatch’s debut and the hero shooter took form with the public. Most of LawBreaker’s fundamentals were already in place by that point.
While Overwatch spooked much of the team, Bleszinski was unperturbed, feeling that their less colorful, cartoon-y game would work in contrast to find its audience. However, as they inched closer to launch this clearly wasn’t becoming the case. In 2017, Overwatch was still taking up all the oxygen. When they quickly pivoted to their madcap backup project, Radical Heights, the situation repeated itself, now with Bleszinski former roost Epic dominating zany battle royales through Fortnite.
Some of this can be chalked up to incredibly poor timing, but Bleszinski is no longer shy to accept the blame. In the interview he paints himself as an absent leader. Not putting in as much time as his staff. Too cavalier around the office despite obvious warning signs. Too certain that his fans would follow him wherever. He says he originally wanted Gears’ Rod Fergusson to join him in founding Boss Key as well, but his then-typical brashness likely warded him away.
“I wanted it to be my show,” says Bleszinski, “that was the first step of my ego creeping in right there, believing that people would, you know: if I built it as Cliff, people will come. I thought there was this brand loyalty from the people who knew who I was, but it turns out people are loyal to the game, but they’re not necessarily loyal to the person.”
Compounding this behavior was alcoholism. Bleszinski says he intentionally chose an office near the bar scene, and would ride share to work expecting to return home inebriated. He says he picked up the habit during the Unreal Tournament days, and the oft-criticized drinking culture of industry events like GDC and E3 only enabled the problem. In March of this year, Bleszinski suffered a seizure, apparently triggered by the effects of his drinking. He has focused on his health and kicking the habit ever since.
Outside of some consultancy, Bleszinski has not returned to game development since the fall of Boss Key. He’s pursued writing, podcasting and a surprisingly successful go at Broadway. Elsewhere, Boss Key’s foibles have become far more commonplace. You can barely go a few months without a new milquetoast looking live service game face planting after just a few days. Seems that Bleszinski ended up a trendsetter again, though in a more ominous fashion.