Cliff Bleszinski (born February 12, 1975), popularly known as CliffyB, is an American video game designer, known for his work in the development of the Unreal and Gears of War series. After working at Epic Games from 1992 to 2012, he co-founded Boss Key Productions in 2014. Bleszinski's first game was The Palace of Deceit, an adventure title he started at the age of 15. Programmed in Visual Basic, its second version came out when he was 16. On June 30, 2014, Cliff announced on Twitter that he was "coming out of retirement to make video games again" and would be unveiling his next project in the next week. The new game, a free-to-play, PC-focused arena shooter code-named BlueStreak, would be published by Nexon and developed by his new studio, Boss Key Productions, which he co-founded with Brussee the same year. A year later, Bleszinski revealed that the arena shooter would be called LawBreakers. Cliff Bleszinski was offered an opportunity to work on the Silent Hill franchise by Hideo Kojima, vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment. "I was flattered but declined," he wrote on Twitter. In May 2016, he joined the board of advisers for Fig, a mixed crowd-funding/investment platform for video games. On May 14, 2018, Bleszinski announced the dissolution of Boss Key Productions, citing lackluster sales. After closure of Boss Key, Bleszinski has gotten involved with theater production. He invested and co-produced Hadestown, and plans to be similarly involved with a revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. He also seeks to publish a memoir of his gaming career, comparing the work to Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. He has also expressed interest in returning to the Gears of War series as an advisor.