Cliff Bleszinski, the designer behind violent classics like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, has been gradually disclosing more about the first project of his new, independent studio, Boss Key Productions. Recently revealed as LawBreakers, Bleszinski showed off the first gameplay footage in a new video shared at PAX Prime.
In a future where the government blew up the moon (thanks, guys), players are divided into teams representing the law, and its breakers, for intense, five-on-five arena matches. The trailer shows off several of the characters that players will have at their disposal: Kitsune, a nimble assassin; Breacher, who’s all about the guns; Maverick, a skirmisher; and Cronos, a big, bad, brutal heavy.
Dynamic mobility is a common theme throughout the gameplay, as has become a frequent selling point for first-person shooters in the last few years since Titanfall. Players are shown zipping around with jetpacks, swinging around corners with grapnels, and even doing some classic rocket jumping, in the spirit of Unreal.
“The Shattering” apparently wreaked havoc on the Earth’s gravity quite a bit as well, as evidenced by the floating chunks of rock around the arena, which amplifies all of this free-flowing, vertical movement even further. There is also an exciting range of futuristic weaponry on display, including grenades, rockets, energy weapons, and conventional firearms of all shapes and sizes. Creative tools of destruction are to be expected, after all, from the man who introduced us to the chainsaw bayonet.
LawBreakers will launch as free-to-play on PC sometime in 2016, with the possibility of consoles to follow later. It is being developed by Bleszinski’s Boss Key Productions and published by the Korean Nexon, best known for its free-to-play MMORPGs like MapleStory and Mabinogi.