Lawbreakers designer recalls the horror of launching alongside Overwatch, PUBG and Fortnite – “oh man, what have we done”

Gears of War creator Cliff Blesinski boldly claimed he was going to make another “billion dollar franchise” with Lawbreakers, a multiplayer-only PvP game that was sadly killed less than a year after release. For the developers at Boss Key Productions, this large-scale failure wasn’t made worse by the comments of the team’s leaders, but by the fact that they had made a great game that just couldn’t latch on.

In an upcoming episode of the VideoGamer Podcast, lead designer Dan Nanni discussed the failure of Lawbreakers. After working on the game for half-a-decade, the talented designer who helped bring Fallout 76 to its current greatness was sad to see it end so quickly, but as the game launched alongside some of the industry’s longest-running multiplayer titles, it’s survival was impossible.

When Cliff Blesinski brought together the developers of Boss Key Productions, the goal was to make Lawbreakers in just two years. This would’ve seen the game release in 2016, fighting for relevance against Overwatch, but by the time the game actually released it launched within a market consisting of not only Blizzard’s juggernaut hero shooter, but PUBG, Fortnite and more.

“It wasn’t just Overwatch, man. It was PUBG,” Nanni recalled. “PUBG was all the way up there and then at that time too, Fortnite transitioned from Save the World into its battle royale. And that was going stratospheric, right? And then it was Overwatch and we’re all just sitting there, ‘oh, man, what have we just jumped into, right?’ We’re like this little tiny minnow and there’s barracuda and sharks is all around us.”

“That’s time of your life that you’ve put blood, sweat and tears into something for many years and you get to the end of it and it just whimpers out. It’s not a good feeling.”

LAWBREAKERS LEAD DESIGNER DAN NANNI

Lawbreakers was not a phenomenal game, but it was a good one. Unfortunately, the game had released at a time where some of the most fundamental multiplayer games of the modern era were launching. Overwatch, PUBG and Fortnite are all games that still exist today with the latter being one of the most popular games of all time. While launch day Fortnite was far rougher than Boss Key’s shooter, it simply released at the right time, and there’s very little you can do about that.

“You learn a lot from that,” Nanni said. “You learn that the matter how good of a game you have, you have to watch for the market. You can easily get sunk.”

Nanni wonders if Lawbreakers could exist in today’s environment as “gamers are more willing to support secondary titles” in a way they weren’t back then. If you were an Overwatch player in 2016, that was your game. Nowadays, there’s a lot more flexibility to dip in-and-out of games, especially with support from services like Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus and more.

“It would’ve probably done a little bit better [if we launched today], Nanni said. “Because we wouldn’t have been at the ascendancy of Fortnite… I think, ideally, we wouldn’t have launched with Overwatch still being in its prime because we were too closely related to Overwatch. And the problem was this. gamers want to play with their friends, and if there’s a game that their friends are playing that’s similar to the one that you’re playing, you’re going to go and play wherever your friends are playing.”

Nanni explained that Lawbreakers’ biggest issue was not just Overwatch, Fortnite and PUBG, but the sheer cost of keeping a multiplayer game alive when it’s not doing well. Boss Key Productions may have been backed by Nexon, but it was largely independent, and the cost of keeping Lawbreakers going for the hundreds of fans the game had was simply inconceivable after years of expensive development.

When the game did launch to good reviews but lower player counts, gamers mocked the game for not being successful. One famous video by YouTube Crowbcat, titled ‘Lawbreakers : Billion dollar IP’ has almost 6 million views with many gamers revelling in the game’s failure. Nanni explains that the lesson there is to “not be cocky”, maybe don’t claim the game will be a “billion dollar IP” before it has launched. Nevertheless, it still stings to see years of hard work be mocked by millions.

“It does hurt,” the developer said. “That’s time of your life that you’ve put blood, sweat and tears into something for many years and you get to the end of it and it just whimpers out. It’s not a good feeling. You know, you got to develop a thick skin with the internet. You have to develop a thick skin to be in the industry. Especially now. It’s just so easy for things to take things very personal and kind of use the anonymity to say things that are really hurtful.”

For years, there have been rumblings of a Lawbreakers revival, and maybe it is worth bringing the game back from the grave for a Round 2. Whether or not the game could actually succeed this time is up to the will of gamers.