LawBreakers Can Still Be Saved According to Cliff Bleszinski

What went wrong in the beginning?

The game's creator admits that mistakes were made both on a personal and professional front. There were a few tweaks that they could have done to prepare for launch better, and he admits that more modes should have been made available right out of the gate. In wanting to steer away from "what everybody else did," Bleszinski made himself blind to what players really wanted and one those aspects in-game was the Team Deathmatch mode:

"I didn't want to do the exact same stuff everybody else did. The funny thing was, making a character-based, class based shooter - even though it's not as simple as a traditional arena shooter, it still has a lot of that kind of feel underneath it all. In hindsight, I think it was a mistake to not ship with it, I was stubborn. I was like, 'Ohhhh, everybody's [already] done TDM.' Even Blizzard's like, 'Screw it, we need to put TDM action in Overwatch.' Fundamentally, at the end of the day, players just want to get in and shoot some stuff sometimes.

And in hindsight, that's one of the other mistakes, you know, you asked about things that I felt were mistakes. Not having that from the get go, honestly. I mean, that's one of my things that I consider my strengths, is I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. I think the people in the public eye would do them a great benefit to do that more often.

I have a reputation for being brash and loud and everything like that, but I'm the first person to admit when I'm wrong. And we certainly did make our share of mistakes with the game. In spite of the mistakes, we're going to continue to update and iterate and the reviews do not lie for me."

"Destiny Season"

The effort at revival is in full swing. Boss Key Productions and Bleszinski are ready to rock with new rapid fire updates and other fresh new content like new maps, modes, and all new heroes. As he mentioned in the interview, "It's a marathon, not a sprint." In the end, that player base needs to be built up organically at this point, the hype of a new release has passed and the team needs to show gamers that this title is worth a second look.

As far as the timing - well, Bleszinski recognizes that the timing is a little rough being "Destiny" season:

"Yeah, I mean, so the thing is, is we're now officially in Destiny season.

And God bless Bungie for the fantastic job they did. The first one I played for about a week and I was like, "Okay, I get the idea." But, it looks like the second one addresses a lot of those issues and is a, really, knock it out of the park, especially with a really good frame rate on the PC version that's forthcoming. But, in regards to that, it's one of those things that there's a situation where players look at numbers on Steam, that doesn't happen on PlayStation 4. And I don't have the numbers in front of me, but in regards to, you look at PC CCU health versus PS4, PS4's doing fine. Because people just chop up, cough up 30 bucks and hop online and they just play and they don't overthink it. On PC, there's this immediately wanting to declare something a success or a bomb by this kind of internet culture that loves to just observe things.

And it's like, "Well guys, the small bit that we have, we're gonna continue to iterate with and engage." And as we issue content drops, maybe there's gonna be sales or a potential free weekend somewhere down the line. You know, continue to fluff that CCU up and I continue to go back to games like Warframe, that slowly built their very small audience as a bunch of dedicated fan and then, continued to fluff it up. And you watch the graph of the CCU and it's so low, so low, and then eventually, over the course of a year, year and a half, two years, it became this phenomenon that a lot of people weren't even talking about it. But, my friends at Digital Extremes committed to that and that's what's required. Especially in such a crowded market when you're launching a new IP.

That and of course, rebranding of the marketing, showing all the new content and saying, "Hey, if you gave it a go, come back or if you haven't done it yet, try it." And maybe other techniques like send out a, "Hey, here's a free code for your friend." So, you could write a dissertation or an entire GDC talk on the keeping, care, and feeding of maintaining a healthy player base."

Adding 'Team Death Match' and other DLC info

In an effort to revamp, Bleszinski and the team are adding new maps, new characters, and new modes to freshen up the game's atmosphere while really responding to what players have been asking for. From the gorgeous forests of Valhalla, to the new defensive character teased - all of the new content during the rebranding period will be offered for free:

"Well, first off, separating the player base, especially when you have the fledgling one that I've said multiple times of course, through the course of the interview. But also, it's just that nickel and diming that happens with players. It's like, "If I sell as a player, it's like oh hey, you're at this even, this party at a bar. But, if you want to go in the other room where your other friends are, now you have to pay an extra cover charge. Oh, then there's another one with another cover charge," and it's like, I love how I always use restaurants and bar in my analogies. But, it's just, it's kind of an old school, flawed way of thinking. And for me, I if I get these kind of cosmetic crates, which I'm rewarded and encouraged to kinda stick around and play the game?

When there's DLC, I'm just like, "Yeah, okay, you just lost me now. You're just gonna split your servers and I have to just cough up more money for a game that I felt like should have had this in the box from the get go." So I think that's why the movement's shifted that way. I think there is a lot of gamer resentment, based on the old techniques that everybody used to use, throughout the industry, which is why we're here now. It just took a while to get here."

For more on everything LawBreakers related and a detailed scope of what is to come, you can check out the full interview right here.

LawBreakers is available now for PlayStation 4 and PC. To learn more about the title and why the team is motivated to restrategize, check out just exactly how the game is doing in terms of player count here.