Cliff Bleszinski

About
famous for his role in the development of the Unreal franchise, especially 1999's Unreal Tournament, and the Gears of War franchise

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cliffbleszinskiama1270 karma

Firefly.

cliffbleszinskiama926 karma

They make for stellar cover.

cliffbleszinskiama911 karma

It seems as if you're asking about two entirely different games. The first Unreal was more of a single player exploratory experience whereas Unreal Tournament was a multiplayer focused game with a "ladder" for the single player. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

I was quoted recently on a Fortnite panel about the first Unreal and what a reboot might look like. Having really grown into a big Bethesda fan lately (Skyrim rocked my world) I couldn't help but wonder what a reboot of Unreal would be like if it was more "SciFi-Rim." Sure, there would be shooting involved, but exploration would almost be more important. Get back to that sense of wonder that the first game had. (Caves and castles and crashed ships are basically your dungeon instances, whereas the "overworld" is less intense.) Put it on a high end PC and prepare yourself for amazing visuals never before seen in real time.

As far as a new UT, it's hard to say. Shooters and their sequels are a tricky beast. Often you wind up upsetting your core whenever you make a sequel because sometimes you change things the users didn't want changed, or the users are so very in love with their memory of the original game that there's nothing you can do to live up to the first game. This happened with Counterstrike: Source, Quake 2, Unreal Tournament 2003, heck, even Halo 2.

(All that said, I do personally believe that UT3 suffered a bit from an identity crisis in regards to whether or not it was a PC or Console game.)

So if, when? I don't know, honestly. We're understaffed right now for all of the projects we've got going on so I can't say if or when it may happen. I do love that IP and do hope to return to Na Pali some day.

p.s. The delta between the current crop of consoles and a high end PC is incredibly obvious now. Looking at Hawken at PAX versus the other console games and this difference is startling. FYI Fortnite is a PC first game.

cliffbleszinskiama844 karma

The Big Lebowski, for every system. It'd tie all the gaming platforms together.

cliffbleszinskiama756 karma

http://twitter.yfrog.com/h6t26blj

Sure, you can have this one. Our folks will contact you shortly for shipping details.

cliffbleszinskiama547 karma

  1. I kicked and screamed and clawed my way to where I am today. As I mentioned below, I seldom went out in my teens and 20's and focused on my career. I was never very good at graphics or code but I did both of them anyways and later found folks much better at both that I could work with. Remember, I've been at this for TWENTY YEARS now, as I started at 17. The one constant in this business (and in technology) is change.

  2. I just made my own games, it's that simple. I also realized the value of being visible in the industry at an early age. I used to be a drama geek in high school. I played Mercutio in our high school's production of "Romeo and Juliet" and was a lead in our production of "Rumors" as well as "Ten Little Indians." (FUNFACT: I was in drama with Courtney Ford ("Dexter" "True Blood") and we still keep in touch. I got her to do Maria's voice in Gears 2.) Anyways I use those drama chops for interviews and stage presentations and what not.

  3. Epic is NOT the typical developer as we are the ones who decide when our games ship as well as the games that we work on. We use a combination of gut and market conditions while also balancing what's best from the engine side of the business to decide what's next.

cliffbleszinskiama534 karma

My greatest triumph would have to be finding and eventually marrying my amazing wife. I still have no idea how I landed her.

My greatest loss came in two losses, actually. First was the sudden loss of my father at the age of 15 to heart issues. Second was the sudden loss of my 20-year-old nephew a couple of years back to a car accident. The first motivated me to do what I do so that hopefully he's looking down on me and is proud of me, the latter reminded me how important family is and how fragile life is and to live every day as if it were your last.

cliffbleszinskiama522 karma

I'm thrilled to be able to work on something different. I'm currently dividing my time on our various projects. We just had a playtest of Fortnite in our war room yesterday and it's really starting to come together. The visual style alone excites me after living in the Gears universe for 7+ years.

Again, I never wanted to build a game with muscle-bound characters; the art department produced the concepts and models and they simply felt good slamming into walls and cutting one another in half with chainsaw guns. I do hope that in the future we can get some of the "dudebro" out of Gears, to be honest.

One time at E3 I saw Notch take his hat off and 100 dollar bills fell out, true story.

cliffbleszinskiama500 karma

I had this chat with my teenaged nephew the other day. He asked me to send him a picture of my car. So I sent him a picture of all of them with the statement "Not to preach to you, but everyone I know who is this successful was working hard at your age and not partying." I barely went out in my teens and 20's. I was driven and I wanted to make games more than anything else.

cliffbleszinskiama412 karma

Stay out of the bar scene.