Cliff Bleszinski is already hard at work on his new franchise Blue Streak, a competitive free-to-play shooter. While he’s not designing it specifically to be an eSports hit, he’d still love that to happen.
”Anybody would love that. Everybody would love to make a MOBA that becomes an eSport right now,” he replied when asked by GamesBeat whether he like to see his game become a popular pro gaming title.
Blue Streak isn’t a MOBA itself, sounding more like an arena shooter in the grand tradition of Quake and Unreal Tournament, but Bleszinski said that he’s a big fan of the genre and of the professional gaming scene in general.
”So, would I love to make an eSport?” Absolutely, he continued. ”I used to go to some of the Quake tournaments in Dallas and other places, watching people like Fatal1ty playing professionally.”
The developer doesn’t think you can just set out to make a game that will be big hit like that, though. Instead you have to concentrate on getting the design and gameplay to work as tightly as possible.
”They didn’t set out to make that at Id,” he explains. ”They set out to make the most airtight multiplayer game possible, and then the community rallied behind it, and then it made that magical leap. You can’t force that. Part of it’s the right place and the right time, but it comes down to making that airtight, easy to learn, difficult to master game that players can shine in.”
Sci-fi arena shooter Blue Streak is in the very early stages of development right now. While it’s a free-to-play game, Bleszinki has repeatedly claimed that he wants it to be based on player skill rather than pay-to-win’.
In a recent Reddit AMA he said, ”I want to make a skill based game whereas someone who is really, really good is seen as a player with nearly godlike abilities. Sure, once in a while the person who sucks might get lucky with a stray shot and take that person down, but I want to craft a game that has weapons and moves that are easy to learn but to really make them sing takes thousands of hours of play just like a professional athlete would. Anyone can toss a football, but Drew Brees can get it through the tire at X yards every time.
