Renown game designer Cliff Bleszinski has created a new studio called Boss Key Productions, according to a news report from game site Polygon.
Bleszinski filed for the new business in April with the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State, said the report. The document lists him as the registered agent of a company in Raleigh, N.C. The papers list Bleszinski as CEO and former EA producer and Guerrilla Games cofounder Arjan Brussee as chief operating officer.
Contacted by GamesBeat, Bleszinski said in an email, “I find it promising and exciting that there’s such interest in what I do next that people are willing to look up from their Bud Lite and hot dogs and fireworks and continue to talk about what I may be doing next in my professional career.”
Brussee cofounded Killzone developer Guerilla and served as production director there for nine years. Their history together goes back to the 1990s—Brussee helped Bleszinski on his Jazz Jackrabbit game, which came out in 1994.
Another document filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on May 30 lists Boss Key’s goods and services, suggesting the studio will produce online titles, or as the filing reads: “downloadable multiplayer interactive computer game programs; computer and video game software; downloadable computer and video game software; downloadable electronic games via the Internet and wireless devices; downloadable computer application software in the field of games; interactive computer and video game programs.”
The Boss Key site also opened today.
On Monday, Bleszinski tweeted that he was coming out of retirement to work in the game business again.
Bleszinski was one of the earliest employees at Epic Games, the maker of the Unreal and Gears of War shooter series that have sold millions of copies. He retired from Epic in late 2012 after nearly two decades of making games, not long after China’s Tencent invested more than $330 million for a 40 percent stake the publisher. For Bleszinski and other longtime Epic employees, that sudden liquidity made them fabulously wealthy and gave them a chance to evaluate their careers. Bleszinski, who was a celebrity designer who frequently appeared in photo ops with the Gears of War chainsaw gun, decided it was time to move on.