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Boss Key moves on from LawBreakers

Boss Key moves on from LawBreakers

American development studios Boss Key has announced that it is no longer working on team shooter LawBreakers.

In a post on the studio's site, the firm admits that the online shooter has not found the audience it needs to be sustainable moving forward. Furthermore, a move back to a free-to-play business - as was originally intended for the game - is too costly, Boss Key says.

"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 post read.

"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."

LawBreakers launched in August 2017, and was the first game from Boss Key. That studio was set up by Gears of War vet Cliff Bleszinski with some investment from publisher Nexon.

Early on it was clear that LawBreakers had failed to find its audience, with Bleszinski saying it was his aim to improve upon the game and keep it alive.

Bad news followed with the studio's co-founder leaving to join Epic Games.

Earlier this year, Nexon blamed Playerunknown's Battlegrounds for LawBreakers' poor performance.


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.