LawBreakers director Cliff Bleszinski says devs should strive to co-exist

When it comes to character-based shooters, you'd be hard pressed to argue that, right now, the undisputed champion of the world is anything other than Overwatch. 

Blizzard's stylish, tactical shoot-em-up made waves last year, and proved that vibrant fantasy and quirky characters can compete with the gritty, greyscale worlds of Call of Duty and Battlefield. 

One person keen to capitalize on the game's success is Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski, who's been working on his own 'hero-shooter', LawBreakers, for the better part of three years over at Boss Key Studios. 

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Bleszinski would be focused on the task of taking down Blizzard's behemoth, but in a recent interview with PC Gamer the veteran designer explained developers should be more concerned with co-existing, not competing.

"The second you say the number one game in a genre, that you're going to be a killer of it, you're admitting that game's never going to be killed. Remember all the 'Halo killers' that were coming out? Halo still hasn't been killed. So again, it's not a killer thing, it's coexist," he explains.  

Bleszinski believes there's room for more than one title at the top, and suggests any developer searching for success should focus on carving out their own niche rather than trying to take someone else's crown. 

"You know, I play Battlefield and Call of Duty. Back in the day I'd play Tekken and Street Fighter. There's room for two or three games at the top of a given genre, and after that it's fighting for the scraps. And that's what happened in MOBAs," Bleszinski continues.

"You know, you had League of Legends crushing it. DOTA and Smite doing well, and then after that you had Vainglory -- that's the mobile one, right? That did well because they found their niche on tablets, right? That's the other thing: find a genre that hasn't been used, on a platform that hasn’t done it, and step three, profit."

You can hear more from Bleszinski by checking out the full interview over on PC Gamer.