

From old-school classics like Jazz Jackrabbit and Tyrian, groundbreaking FPS franchises including Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, and Infinity Blade on mobile; Cliff Bleszinski was credited for games that were often groundbreaking and/or classic on their time. What I never expected was how he'd "unretire" himself while teaming up with a publisher that's very familiar to Korean gamers - Nexon.

Of course, with Korean reporters sitting in the interview room along with other Nexon employees waiting for Cliff Bleszinski, the scene seemed very familiar for me: A polite and controlled interview with well-rehearsed responses. However, when CliffB walked into the interview room with his two arms up and hollering at the group of Korean reporters, I knew that the interview would be unlike anything that I've done in E3. As he seated himself among awestruck reporters, he didn't hesitate a moment to start talking about LawBreakers.







The game is super popular in E3. How do you feel about such reception?

I worked for Epic Games for 20 years, and I had Tim Sweeney as my boss. When I retired, got bored and decided to unretire with my friends at Nexon, there was a lot of pressure. I got my first grey hair recently, but I pulled it out; I'm not ready to stop yet.

To be here at E3, see the lines, people talking about the game as being esports-worthy - By the way guys, one thing at a time; we need to make a great watchable game first - and somebody with a tattoo of LawBreakers were pretty magical. It is unlike anything that I've experienced in my career, and that's not a hyperbole. As a sidenote, LawBreakers is the only banner in E3 that's an original IP, and everything else is a sequel.





You've done three tests with LawBreakers so far. How did the tests go?

We've had an alpha test and two closed betas. Our first beta was good, and second beta was great. Now, we are gearing up towards third closed beta on 28th and open beta on 30th. What I don't want is one of those 'bulls--- marketing betas', where 'betas' are done a week before release and things cannot be fixed or test on time. That's a fake demo called beta to get marketing points, not a proper beta.

We want to establish a cadence with the community that we are actually listening to community and their feedback. We can't do everything they say, but acknowledging and letting them know that you are listening is half the battle of building a great community.



Was there any difficulty developing the game for both PC and PS4?

I've worked extensively on Xbox with Gears of War trilogy, and now Lawbreakers is going to be on PlayStation along with PC. It's been an interesting experience because we've initially developed for PC - for keyboard and mouse. When we started to develop for PlayStation, we first and foremost wanted the framerate to be great; none of that cinematic 30fps, but full 60fps. So, we made sure to optimize the environment well, and it ultimately benefitted PCs so that PCs could run it on 90fps or even 144fps.

Another challenge on getting the game on PlayStation was getting the control right. Because the game is so crazy with all the movement and gravity, adapting that [to controllers] was quite a challenge. Through our programmers and designers, we came up with a control scheme that works "gosh darn well", let me say. A little bit of aim assist and allowing players to configure the control setup that they want. There are classic things like inverting the look view, but there are much more customization options for control scheme. For example, I didn't know about players that like to assign jump on left bumper, because they don't want to take their hands off the thumbsticks. - "Bumper Jumpers", as they say.





Compared to other FPSs, what are the most distinct characteristic of LawBreakers?

It's the fact that we didn't "tack on" modifiable gravity and movement ability but made them the core functionalities of the game. Even the ability to shoot behind you seems like a fun tacked-on toy, but if you learn everything that this game can offer, you'll realize how movement and traversal is quite different in this game. Also, our tone of the game is drastically different - a lot of games set in space kind of looks like Pixar movies. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but we wanted something more serious, mature and "adult".



Now that the game is almost complete, was there anything that you wanted to put in a game but didn't have enough time to put in the game?

Well, we are now in a world where, if you do a good job with a game, the development is never complete. So, we are shipping with 9 roles and 18 characters, but I've already played the tenth role. It's not complete yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what it's going to be like.

We want users to know that they'll get new characters, environments and game modes showing up for free when they pay their $29.99 (or $39.99 for deluxe edition). The term that the publisher use is a "Game as a service". Although I don't like the term itself, we see this in many MOBAs, and if the game does well, we'll keep supporting it, and hopefully ship more characters until the game balance is broken; then we'll continue fix the game and keep people informed.





Cliff Bleszinski and Nexon don't seem to have too much in common. How did the partnership to make LawBreakers happen?

I decided to "unretire" because I got really bored. So, I met with most of traditional western publishers, but when I asked my development friends about it, they told me to run away as fast as I can from those publishers. Then, out of the blue, Nexon showed up. I didn't know about their games like Maple Story and Cart Rider, but they were definitely eager and excited to be working with me.

Of course, no publisher is perfect - we've had our conflicts and doubts. But when you stand outside the E3 hall and see that giant f---ing banner, I think it shows how Nexon is really pushing the game. They are pushing the game so much on social media that my Twitter timeline is filled with people talking about Lawbreakers. I think we finally have the traction that we need - Thanks to our friends at Nexon.



We noticed how there's lack of sniper in LawBreakers. Will that archetype be added in future?

The mantra in my studio is "When you are putting features in game that other games have because you think you need them, you are just making the same s--- that everybody else is making." If you'd look at games like Overwatch, there's a "Bow Guy", a "Gnome That Builds Turrets", and a "Pretty Lady That Uses Healing Ray". We don't want to do that. We want to make our own archetypes.

When it comes to snipers, I don't like being sniped. When I get sniped after running for like a minute, I feel like "Damn it, I wanna go play something else."

That being said, I don't want to rule snipers out completely. We have been playing around with this idea that may eventually happen, which is this sniper that can teleport next to the enemies they shoot and melee them. Hypothetically, you should be able to chain sniper shots to get in and out of the enemy base faster. That's the way we do it - we like to twist things, make things into our own and hopefully make something that other people rip off.





▲ Always up close and personal



There also a conspicuous lack of 'deathmatch' mode as well.

When we make a class-based FPS like this, Deathmatch game mode may cause certain characters not make sense depending on maps and sections. I wouldn't rule it out, but it would have to be on our terms, like All Assassins versus All Titans. It's always fun to shoot people - Online, of course - but I want to find our own twist on it.



Between PC and PS4, which version do you think will be more popular?

What I'm hoping for is to have "Rocket League"-like success. By launching on different platforms, people will generally be more aware of it. I prefer the PC version if I had to choose, but sometimes I feel like sitting down on a sofa and just play with the console version. I can't predict which one will be more successful, but if I want to play more seriously, I'll choose PC, and if I want to relax and just have fun, I'll play the PlayStation version.



LawBreakers will be pay-to-play - how will the monetization system be implemented within the game?

Our system is somewhat similar to Overwatch in terms of soft currency. Players often asked if they could just buy a skin that they want. However, we realized that players may just buy the skin and not play the game. Also, we wanted the players to have the mystery of "What's in the box". Earning these crates through leveling up and the power of anticipating what you are going to get is very interesting.

There's this joke on the internet about games being "Pay to Skin", but it's important to remember that all of our spendables are going to be used on pure cosmetics. We want players to see how cool their guns and characters can be with cool and unique skins. It was actually a challenge for us to have default characters to be cool but not too cool, because we want the upgraded versions to look even better.

How every game monetizes is different for every game, but we want the players to feel happy spending money in the game instead of feeling sad like leaving Las Vegas with nothing but hangover.







This year's E3 is full of new FPSs. Is there an FPS title that you are keeping an eye on?

I didn't have too much time to wander around E3, but most of FPS franchises are same standard stuff anyway. The only reason I care about Call of Duty franchise again is because they finally went back to f---ing World War II, which I think is great. I think the whole new generation of gamers can finally experience the great scenarios like Omaha Beach that the "Greatest Generation" had to deal with.

Speaking of ourselves, I do see Overwatch as our competitor, although we are very different in art and gameplay style. I joke that "If Overwatch is Coke, then LawBreakers can be Pepsi." Usually, there are rooms for three big titles in a genre, and we want to be in that top 3.







Postscript



I was in Seoul ast November, and people in Nexon took me to one of those PC cafes. I've always thought PC cafes - "PC Bangs" - were great, and they came a long way from being a disgusting place with everyone smoking and is now a well-branded thing. I've always wondered why it never took off in US, because if you'd look at the theater, it is a social place where you can get food and drink that does well even when you can watch movies at home. Nowadays, you see Overwatch in every other machine in PC Bang, but hopefully by this time next year, we can see LawBreakers in there.

Also, speaking of Seoul, we are currently working on a map that will be set in Namsan at Seoul.