YMMV / LawBreakers

• Audience-Alienating Premise:
  • One of the biggest factors as to why the game failed as hard as it did was that it failed to capture a significant audience. Aside from the fact most of the marketing the game had involved it being "The Dark Souls of FPS", turning off those looking for a casual experience, it failed to capture fans of other games in the Hero Shooter genre due to its more realistic and gritty art style making it seem generic and uninteresting in tone (compare and contrast to Overwatch, Paladins and Team Fortress 2), and ironically because it borrowed elements of those genres, it even turned off fans of classic arena shooters like Unreal Tournament. All these factors would ultimately give the game a niche appeal at best.
  • Cliff Bleszinski announcing in 2016 that the game's payment model had changed from a free to play system to a $30 buy in because they were tired of having to ask "how will this make money" rather than "how can we make a good game". This alienated millions of players who would have at least tried it despite being seen as an "edgy Overwatch clone" but with any kind of payment cost it destroyed all interest. Ironically this decision came right before Fortnite's battle royale release re-wrote the rules on how profitable a free to play game could be.
  • Likewise, CliffyB's extremely aggressive and condescending attitude towards XBox players when he marketed the game as a Playstation exclusive permanently turned off folks who owned both consoles as well as XBox players who were originally considering in getting a Playstation 4 to try the game out. Suffice to say. Intentionally pissing off the console known for its multiplayer fanbase was not a wise move as it artificially hamstrung Lawbreakers' population playerbase to just Playstation owners, a fanbase known for the complete opposite direction.
• Critical Dissonance: Reviews tended to score in the 60 to 80 mark, but completely bombed when it came to people actually playing the game. The amount of players was in the low thousands at launch, and plummeted to the point where it was effectively a game no-one was playing. The most common thoughts on the reasons for the failure are the aggressive, edgy & overhyped marketing campaign, and being viewed as close enough to Overwatch that the target market decided not to bother wasting $30 on trying it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Cronos seems to be the one character most people seem to like (or at least recognize) even after the game was rendered unplayable. This could mainly be due to his Cyberpunk-ish Cool Mask made him stand out from the rest of the cast. (Who were often criticized for generally being too generic looking.)
• Fandom Rivalry: With Overwatch, naturally. As LawBreakers was influenced by Overwatch, it was bound to draw in fans of the latter game claiming it to be a "clone", and LawBreakers fans had to fight off those accusations at every turn, as the gameplay is significantly different due to LawBreakers being far more focused on fast-paced Arena Shooter action than the MOBA-like teamplay of Overwatch.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Cliff left Epic Games to open Boss Key Productions and create LawBreakers, boasting that it would be the next "billion dollar franchise". Not only did this turn out not to be the case, having been one of the most famous examples of a game that has massively bombed in recent memory, but Epic would go on to do what he failed: create a billion dollar franchise. That franchise being Fortnite, which is a game Cliff actually had a part in the making of, before it launched the Battle Royale mode that propelled it to rivalling Minecraft in terms of sheer success and popularity.
  • During a presentation in 2017, Cliff made disparaging comments about how the same few games keep being made over and over again, and how game developers only seem to blindly chase profitable trends rather than make something new. Only four days after acknowledging the failure of Lawbreakers in April 2018, Boss Key would announce Radical Heights — a low-budget, slapdash attempt to cash in on the meteoric rise of the battle royale genre (codified, ironically, by Fortnite above).
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Another Billion Dollar Franchise" ^explanationCliff Bleszinski's prediction that LawBreakers would be a smashing success; however, the game basically fell flat on its face after launch and never recovered. As a result, this has become a case of Never Live It Down for Cliff.
  • "The Dark Souls of first-person shooters." ^explanationCliff Bleszinski repeatedly described Lawbreakers this way during interviews, in reference to its alleged difficulty and learning curve. The internet took notice of the buzzword usage and mocked him for trying to superficially compare an e-sport hero/arena shooter to a slow-paced, narrative-driven action RPG.
  • "None of that $60 multiplayer only bullshit!" ^Explanation CliffyB's repeated marketing tag during pre-launch interviews. It turned out to be $30.
• Shocking Moments: The ability to explode enemies with a headshot is bound to get this reaction.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The aggressive marketing with its edginess and ultra-violence turned off many potential customers. Cliff comparing his game to Dark Souls and jabs at more colorful shooters like Overwatch made him seem elitist and out of touch with the casual audiences.
  • The announcement that there wouldn't be an Xbox One port didn't sit well with many gamers who became fans of Cliff because of his Xbox-exclusive Gears of War games.

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