Gears of War Creator's New Shooter LawBreakers Aims to Be "R-Rated"

Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski's next game, LawBreakers, aims to differentiate itself from similar games like Overwatch and Battleborn in a number of ways, the developer said at PAX South this weekend.

In a video interview with PC Gamer, Bleszinski said one of the ways LawBreakers aims to be different is through the "verbs" that it allows you to do.

"The gravity manipulation, the jet packs, the grappling hooks, the double-jumps, the crazy movement," he said. "We have all that crazy movement without it being cheesy parkour."

Another differentiator is LawBreakers' art style and universe. Bleszinski said whereas Overwatch may appeal to a younger crowd, LawBreakers aims to be an R-rated experience.

"The other thing is our art style and our universe. Our universe, I'm hoping, you get a young kid, he's like 11, and he loves playing Overwatch and that's cool, And then you get the older brother who's 14 and he's like, "You should see [LawBreakers]. There's blood in it, and people explode, and they curse!"

"I want to be the rated-R version for all these PG-rated shooters," Bleszinski added.

It remains to be seen what rating LawBreakers receives from the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Bleszinski's past games in the Gears of War franchise received M-for-Mature ratings.

By comparison, Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch has been rated T-for-Teen. Bleszinski adds in the interview that he thinks Overwatch will be a great game that he plays a lot, but its tone is not what he's looking for from LawBreakers.

You can watch the full PC Gamer interview with Bleszinski here. In it, he also discusses major trends in the FPS genre, getting LawBreakers' servers ready for launch, and more.

LawBreakers is a free-to-play game that will be published by Nexon America for PC. The game, developed by Bleszinski's new Boss Key in North Carolina, is due to launch later this year for PC, with a release for consoles possibly to follow thereafter.