Cliff Bleszinski forms new development studio Boss Key

Cliff Bleszinski has formed a brand new games development company called Boss Key. Polygon reports that the Bleszinski registered a new business with the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State in April. However, the company name and other details have only just become public knowledge. According to the filing Bleszinski acts as CEO of Boss Key while noted Dutch developer Arjan Brussee is named as COO. Little is known about the new development studio, but it does have an official Twitter account and a countdown timer possibly revealing a ‘Project Bluestreak’ on Tuesday.

Bleszinski had previously retired from video game development after spending 20 years at Epic Games. Having developed his own game aged 17 he was employed by Tim Sweeny at Epic Games. He went on to play a pivotal role in a number of successful franchises, including Gears of War, Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal Tournament and Bulletstorm. He left the company in 2012 and subsequently revealed he was retiring from making games citing the fact that he needed to take a break from the industry. Last week though he announced via Twitter that he was coming out of retirement. Whatever his new studio will be working on, it will likely not be a large scale company like Epic Games as Bleszinski has said since gone on to say he was uninterested in such an endeavour.

https://twitter.com/therealcliffyb/statuses/483650607211765761

Arjan Brussee has previously worked with Bleszinski on the Jazz Jackrabbit series of games. He has spent most of his career at Guerrilla Games that have created games such as Killzone and Shellshock, before the developer was acquired by Sony. He left Guerrilla Games in 2010 and joined the EA owned developer Visceral Games, the studio behind Dead Space. Brussee is still listed as an employee at the developer and has previously confirmed he is working on Battlefield: Hardline so it is unclear whether he is directly involved in development at Boss Key.