Among the avalanche of trigger-happy competitive shooters, LawBreakers is an obvious homage to the twitchy, run-and-gunnners of yesteryear like Quake and Doom. Set in an over-the-top, zero-gravity arena, it encourages and demands from its players a mastery of sharpshooting and bullet-pumping. It s a pity this may have deterred many aspiring LawBreakers players, and a double pity that the ill-fated studio is shutting down its servers in September. To be at the receiving end of a dizzying, acrobatic assault is the zenith of this breakneck shooter. There s an artistry to be found in the sleek movements, the speeding bullets, the quick surveying of enemy positions, and the frenetic, instinctive reaction against a flurry of attacks. (more…)

I feel genuinely sorry for the folks at Boss Key Productions. By all accounts, LawBreakers wasn’t the game that they wanted to make, but they still delivered a pretty polished arena shooter that just never found the audience it was looking for. Publisher Nexon America are keeping the lights on until September, and in order to give the game a proper sendoff, the formerly retail game is now free for all to jump in and play.

(more…)

The games industry is an oft-cruel place. For every game that gets greenlit for production, another dozen ideas are rejected. With his studio – Boss Key Productions – now closing its doors after the failure of Radical Heights, head man and former Epic lead Cliff Bleszinski has been sharing concept art and pitches on Twitter for a trio of games that publishers rejected before Nexon decided to fund development of LawBreakers.

(more…)

After LawBreakers failed to strike it rich, many saw studio Boss Key’s decision to rush-release ’80s game-show themed battle royale Radical Heights as proof that the studio was in jeopardy, and that pushing the game out with only one half-finished map available was a wild spin on the wheel of fortune. While starting out free-to-play ensured that the price is right, it just wasn’t enough to hit the jackpot and save the studio from a complete wipeout.

Today on Twitter, studio head Cliff Bleszinski announced that Boss Key Productions is no more.

(more…)

Radical Heights is the 80s retro battle royale blastathon that’s the newest kid on the battle block. Whether you like shooting up arcades or shooting up other, different arcades, Radical Heights has you covered; all wrapped up in a sense of gnarly attitude not seen since Sunset Overdrive. That’s right, I invoked Sunset Overdrive in the first paragraph. I’m on a warpath today. Sorry, back to the issue at hand: Radical Heights has a second update that introduces a number of new elements to the game. This includes bug fixes (obviously) but also a range of BMX bikes and bike ramps and cosmetic options. There’s also a scanner that reveals enemy locations on the map. That’s the bigger thing. Unless you’re into battle royale games for the bike ramps. TBH a Paperboy Battle Royale does sound kinda great. I just want to deliver newspapers and murder indiscriminately. Give it to me.

(more…)

I m hiding in a bush when a man in a garish tracksuit runs past. The fool. I step out and spray him with bullets from an uzi. He s dead in a second, exploding like a pi ata into a shower of guns n goodies. I ve reached the final 20 survivors, and yup, Radical Heights is a battle royale, no doubt about it. But this rough and ready deathmatch has been in development for just five months. That dead man s tracksuit? Identical to my tracksuit. The bush? An ugly placeholder of blurred leaves. In five minutes I will be murdered in a non-descript building made of textureless grey walls. Some might call the shooter unready. Zach Lowery, of developers Boss Key Productions, calls it XTREME early access . (more…)

It’s been a thrilling 24 hours for Radical Heights, the new free-to-play battle royale shooter from LawBreakers studio Boss Key Productions. Within the past day, the game has been announced, trailered and launched into Early Access, but not before becoming embroiled in a short-lived pay-to-win controversy. Unsurprisingly, it’s not been the smoothest of launches either, with players currently as likely to wind up stuck in a tangled heap of limbs in the lobby as placed in a match.

(more…)

’80s nostalgia is a rich vein of material, but few games have dug as close to bedrock as Radical Heights, the next game from LawBreakers studio Boss Key Productions. Tapping into a second source of zeitgeist, it’s a free-to-play battle royale shooter, but with a hyper-capitalist twist and more luridly neon-painted BMX bikes than ever actually existed. It’s also out tomorrow.

(more…)

Boss Key Productions are stepping back from their gravity-bending FPS LawBreakers, at least for a while, because it simply didn’t make enough money to fund the post-launch support they’d planned. That’s not surprising to hear, given that last month the multiplayer game struggled to muster 25 players online at the same time.

Boss Key mention the prospect of turning LawBreakers free-to-play but it doesn’t sound like that’s happening, or not yet at least. So, for now, they’re working on something new. They didn’t say what that is, but have followed yesterday’s announcement up by tweeting a mock magazine ad for a retro run ‘n’ gunner named Double Dudes 2: Quadruple The Dudes. That could be a joke, a hint, or literally the game they’re making. As with all of this, it’s a bit vague. (more…)

Good news everyone, I’ve found my jetpacks! They were hiding in LawBreakers all along, and there’s a free weekend that might be just what I need after my so-so experience with CoD WW2’s multiplayer. I played a little bit of LawBreakers when it launched, and while I didn’t have enough room on my plate for another multiplayer shooter at the time, the game’s aerial bullet ballets made me wish that I did.

(more…)