Former Epic Games designer Cliff Bleszinski said in a recent "Pointless" podcast that he's looking to develop a new arena-style first-person shooter. The news arrives over a year after he left Epic Games to do his own thing, to "start fresh." Previously, he served at Epic for two decades, working on popular franchises like Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal, and Gears of War.
"I have a slide deck, I have a pitch, I have concept art, I know pretty much what I want to do," Bleszinski told Pointless host Kevin Pereira. "It will be a PC experience that will hearken back to a certain type of game that we cut our teeth on, if you know what I'm saying."
Pereira asked Bleszinski about the genre, and the former Epic games designer confirmed that it would be a first-person shooter unlike the ones on the market today. With "all these kids playing Call of Duty," he doesn't think they know what a proper arena shooter is.
Currently, Bleszinski doesn't have a development team in place, but he knows he doesn't want or need a massive team to get the product developed. He also plans to stay away from the traditional publisher-developer agreement, pointing to No Man's Sky, which is in development by four people at UK-based Hello Games.
"I don't want to work with the old guard, per se," Bleszinski said. "I'll talk to them, have meetings. But the last thing I need is some mid-level marketing guy telling me that 'well, traditionally, this doesn't sell well, so we're concerned,' and all that. Because they're all rearward-looking, it just drives me f**king bats**t."
Two months after leaving Epic last year, Bleszinski said he was bored and wanted to create something to add to his legacy. After talking with publishers and developers for several months, he made the decision to take the solo road and create something new and fresh that will redefine his legacy. The project is codenamed "Silverstreak," a name based on his first Transformers toy Bluestreak, which was later renamed as Silverstreak.
