Cliff Bleszinski

Career

Bleszinski began making games at age 15 with The Palace of Deceit, an adventure title programmed in Visual Basic; its second version appeared when he was 16. In 1992, he joined Epic Games after submitting Dare to Dream to CEO Tim Sweeney. Released in 1994, Jazz Jackrabbit became Epic's best-selling game at that time, enabling Bleszinski to buy his first apartment and car. He then collaborated with Sweeney and James Schmalz on Unreal, which spawned the Unreal Tournament series.

Bleszinski served as creative consultant on Rune and lead designer on the first three Gears of War titles, which had sold over 22 million copies and generated over one billion dollars in revenue by January 2014. Gears of War originated from a project called Unreal Warfare, initially a first-person shooter in the Unreal universe; it evolved into a third-person game influenced by the cover mechanic in Kill Switch and Resident Evil 4. In 2009, IGN named him one of the top 100 game creators of all time.

After 20 years at Epic, he announced his departure on October 3, 2012, stating he wanted a break. In a 2015 interview, he said he originally intended to retire permanently, citing jadedness among gamers and colleagues.

Personal life

Bleszinski is married to Lauren Bleszinski, a former professional gamer and id Software employee; he was previously married to a woman named Darcy. His brother Tyler Bleszinski founded SB Nation, a sister site of Polygon. Their father, an engineer for Polaroid, died when Cliff was 15. The nickname CliffyB originated as a derogatory term from a jock during his teenage years; Bleszinski adopted it to craft a tougher persona, though in 2008 he expressed a desire to retire it, saying it was time to grow up.

In 1987, he received a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas, which made him an avid fan; friends called him Nintendo Boy. His favorite NES game is Zanac. At age 13 in 1988, he appeared in the first issue of Nintendo Power for achieving a high score of 9,999,950 in Super Mario Bros. He later placed second in Massachusetts at the Nintendo World Championships at age 15. In 1998, he gained internet fame by hosting a contest where visitors submitted scans of their cats.

PC Gamer featured him on its November 2000 cover as one of the Next Game Gods. Wired gave him a Rave Award in 2007 for Gears of War. In 2008, Tom Bissell profiled him in The New Yorker. He appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2010, showing the Gears of War 3 trailer and citing Space Invaders as his initial inspiration. He has opened two bars in Raleigh, North Carolina: The Station in 2014 and the Raleigh Beer Garden in 2015.

Credits

Bleszinski's game credits include The Palace of Deceit (1991), Dare to Dream (1993), Jazz Jackrabbit (1994), Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998), Unreal (1998), Unreal Tournament (1999), Rune (2000) as creative consultant, Unreal Tournament 2003 (2002), Unreal II: The Awakening (2003), Unreal Tournament 2004 (2004), Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (2005), Gears of War (2006), Gears of War 2 (2008), Shadow Complex (2009), Bulletstorm (2011), Gears of War 3 (2011), Superhot (2016) as co-designer of an arena stage, LawBreakers (2017), and Radical Heights (cancelled).

He also consulted on the film Stay Alive (2006) and appeared in various media, including Mega64 skits, Jake and Amir, Sonic for Hire, Video Game High School, Starbomb, Video Games: The Movie (as producer and interviewee), The Jimquisition, and the upcoming Gears of War title as executive producer and consultant. He co-authored Destroyed Beauty (2006), Beneath the Surface (2008), and wrote Control Freak (2022).