Single player campaigns take up to 75% of the overall budget - says Cliff Bleszinski
PC Gamer had a chance to interview Cliff Bleszinski during PAX South and talk about his upcoming game LawBreakers. Apart from that, Bleszinski mentioned that single player campaigns cost a lot of money and that's why new shooters steer cleer of it.
Cliff Bleszinski, a developer known from the Gears of War series is currently working on an online shooter LawBreakers. Last weekend Bleszinski was present on PAX South and he took part in an interview with PC Gamer. One thing mentioned during the interview was especially interesting. Bleszinski’s new game is following the popular trend of not including the solo campaign in FPS games. The interviewer asked about it and the developer said that campaigns like these are very expensive and they can take up to 75% of the overall budget.
Taking into account what Bleszinski had to say, focusing on multiplayer makes sense in case of smaller teams; especially, when most campaigns can be finished with few hours and we rarely get back to them. What really makes the difference in terms of the game’s longevity is the quality of multiplayer. On the other hand, since single player costs so much, many people might expect that games without campaigns should be cheaper. Of course that only applies to typical linear single players, because there are still first person shooters with sandbox worlds where playing on your own is the main focus. An example of this is the Far Cry series, but it’s worth pointing out that with its newest installment the creators decided to give up on multiplayer.
LawBreakers is the first project Bleszinski is working on since he left Epic Games. His Boss Key Productions still has a small team, so making the solo campaign was never up for discussion. In this case no one will complain about the price, because the game will be free with optional microtransactions.
The developer also talked about the competition. This year there will be lots of multiplayer shooters focused on dynamic combat between small teams with variety of skills and unique weaponry – e.g. Overwatch, Battleborn or Paladins: Champions of the Realm. However, Cliff Bleszinski believes that his game will stand out from these game, because all of these offer a comic-like visuals, whereas Lawbreakers shows more serious approach, high level of brutality and realistic character models. Moreover, what is supposed to make the game unique is the variety of ways to manipulate gravity.
LawBreakers is coming exclusively to PC. The game is supposed to be released this year, but the developer is not yet ready to speak of a specific date.
