‘I felt like Orpheus’: how the designer of Gears of War bounced back from studio closure by producing Hadestown
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- Cliff Bleszinski, designer of Gears of War at Epic Games, founded Boss Key Productions and launched arena shooter LawBreakers in 2017, but the game failed to compete with Blizzard's Overwatch.
- Boss Key Productions' follow-up Radical Heights launched in 'X-Treme Early Access' and was quickly exploited by hackers taking advantage of its missing cheat protection; the studio shut down in summer 2018.
- After the collapse, Bleszinski reconnected with Dear Evan Hansen actor Alex Boniello via social media, who suggested he co-produce the Broadway musical Hadestown, a blend of the Orpheus and Hades/Persephone myths.
- Hadestown received 14 Tony nominations and became the most awarded musical of the 2019 season, with Bleszinski attending the Radio City Music Hall ceremony alongside his wife.
- Bleszinski compared Broadway previews to game development alphas/betas and called the musical's success 'redemption,' saying: 'I felt like Orpheus, and I didn't turn around.'
Why it matters: Bleszinski's pivot from gaming to Broadway illustrates how creative-industry collapses can yield unexpected second acts, and underscores how vulnerable the mid-tier hero-shooter market was to Blizzard's Overwatch and Fortnite's wave. For Broadway, his producer role and his gaming-built audience helped an original musical earn 14 Tony nominations in a landscape dominated by movie adaptations.
