We liked arena FPS LawBreakers quite a bit, but Boss Key's airborne FPS failed to take off. It's been out for less than a year and its concurrent player count on Steam at this moment is precisely one. After months of languishing, Boss Key Productions has acknowledged in a new statement that the game is not sustainable in its current state. Fortunately that doesn't mean it's giving up on it, nor does it spell the end of the studio, which is now working on a new "passion project."
"The fact is LawBreakers failed to find enough of an audience to generate the funds necessary to keep it sustained in the manner we had originally planned for and anticipated. And while a pivot to free-to-play may seem like easiest change to make, a change of this magnitude takes publishing planning and resources to do it," the studio said.
"The team here has worked hard on this game over the past three and a half years and our studio is determined to give this game the second life it deserves. However, between now and then, we cannot sit idle. We will continue to support the game in its current state, but we also need to focus on other projects with fresh creative leaders. We have been working on something new and we can’t wait to share more about it! It’s a passion project that we’re in complete control of."
It's an odd statement because LawBreakers itself can be seen as a "passion project"—Boss Key co-founder Cliff Bleszinski was obviously enthusiastic about it—and it already has a publisher, Nexon, meaning that the resources required for a free-to-play transition should be available if that's the direction they want to go.
The remark about "fresh creative leaders" is also interesting: Bleszinski has very much been the face of the studio over the past several years, but his name isn't mentioned anywhere in the statement or its attribution. This studio update probably connects with a cryptic tweet we saw from Bleszinski last month:
Boss Key confirmed in an email that its new project is not associated with LawBreakers, and that Nexon isn't involved. We'll let you know when we hear more.
