Cliffy B Announces Project Bluestreak
Cliffy B Announces Project Bluestreak
It’s been a while coming, but the wait is over for the fans as Cliffy B announced Project Bluestreak. Cliffy B, formally known as Cliff Bleszinski, is the game designer behind Unreal Tournament and the extremely popular Xbox series you may have heard of; Gears of War.
Cliffy B left Epic Games in 2012 after 20 years working for the company, citing the reason as needing a break from the games industry. Since then the Gears of War franchise has been handed to another studio, Black Tusk, and Epic Games have recently announced the next Unreal Tournament game.
Last week, Cliffy B tweeted saying he would be “coming out of retirement”. Now Cliffy B has confirmed he has founded a new studio, called BossKey Productions, and will be working on a free-to-play arena shooting game known as Project Bluestreak. It’s an ominous choice given the negative stigma that usually surrounds free-to-play titles, often considered or dubbed “pay to win”.
Today, Boss Key Productions tweeted the following image as the first concept art for the game, currently only known as Project Bluestreak.
Cliffy B also did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on Reddit tonight, giving a little bit more insight into the game. You can see the whole AMA here. One of they key pieces of information that can be found in the AMA is Cliffy B discussing monetization of Project Bluestreak – but insists he is determined to avoid “play to win”.
He also discussed his reasoning behind working with South Korean developer and publisher Nexon, saying;
“I’ve never shipped a free to play game before. That’s one of the many reasons why we’re going with Nexon, they can provide server structures and a global peek into gamers of all types and guide us into a game that’s more ‘Shut up and take my money’ as opposed to ‘shaking you down for your hard earned cash.”
It’ll be interesting to see how this project develops and if it’s as successful as many will expect. We’ll keep you updated on Project Bluestreak as and when it becomes available, but for now check out the AMA to glean what little solid information is on offer or follow the official Project Bluestreak Twitter account.