Boss Key Productions

Boss Key Productions, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	April 30, 2014 (2014-04-30) in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Founder	Cliff Bleszinski, Arjan Brussee
Defunct	May 2018 (2018-05)
Fate	Ceased operations
Headquarters	Raleigh , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Cliff Bleszinski (CEO), Arjan Brussee (COO until December 2017)
Products	LawBreakers, Radical Heights
Number of employees	65 (2017)

Boss Key Productions, Inc. was a video game development company located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. It was founded in April 2014 by former Epic Games developers Cliff Bleszinski and Arjan Brussee. The studio created the games LawBreakers (2017) and Radical Heights (2018). Due to disappointing commercial results for both titles, the company ceased operations in May 2018.

History

On April 30, 2014, Bleszinski and Brussee launched Boss Key Productions in Raleigh, North Carolina. The official announcement of the studio’s name and its executive team—Bleszinski as chief executive officer and Brussee as chief operating officer—came on July 4, 2014. Their initial release was the first-person shooter LawBreakers, which debuted on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 platforms in August 2017.

Although LawBreakers received favorable reviews from critics, it did not achieve anticipated sales figures. Consequently, the development team pivoted towards creating a battle royale game instead of continuing to support LawBreakers over the long term. In December 2017, Brussee left the company to return to Epic Games for a confidential assignment. The subsequent title, Radical Heights, was introduced in April 2018 through Steam Early Access under the branding "X-Treme Early Access". The game attracted criticism for its incomplete condition and was commonly perceived as an attempt to capitalize on the success of popular battle royale games such as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite Battle Royale.

Following the commercial underperformance of both projects, Bleszinski announced on May 14, 2018, that Boss Key Productions would be shutting down. At its height in September 2017, the company employed approximately 65 individuals. Bleszinski revealed he had waived his own salary for two years to help ensure that staff members could provide for their families.

After the acclaim of the 2014 title Alien: Isolation, Boss Key engaged in talks with 20th Century Fox about developing a first-person shooter set within the Alien universe. The proposed concept featured players controlling Newt, assisted by Ripley, as they combated xenomorph creatures in Earth-based laboratories operated by Weyland-Yutani, with gameplay inspired by the Half-Life franchise. This project was ultimately abandoned following Disney’s acquisition of Fox.