Cliff Bleszinski on what's next after Epic: "I would want to get back to the triple-A space eventually"

Veteran designer Cliff Bleszinski split ways with longtime employer Epic Games back in October, seeking a "fresh start" after 20 years.

with longtime employer Epic Games back in October, seeking a "fresh start" after 20 years. Though Bleszinski wants to keep making games, the finer details of his next move haven't appeared yet. In an interview with VentureBeat, Bleszinski didn't rule out a return to triple-A production, explaining any such effort would have a slower rate of ramp-up.

"I would want to get back to the triple-A space eventually, but the last thing I would want to do—and no offense meant to Curt Schilling [38 Studios] and John Romero [Ion Storm]—is to do what those guys did," he said. "'Let's throw 300 bodies at it! Sure, we'll just make it work!'"

Instead, Bleszinski would take a more cautionary approach to future projects, contracting small, indie-studio-style teams to prototype "defined goals and a number of assumptions that I thought would be cool as far as what kind of game I'd want to make." If everything checks out, the project would kick into triple-A mode. Think of it as a fast-forwarded version of a developer's evolution from humble beginnings to a successful, multi-franchise company.

"Even if I had a publisher tomorrow who said, 'Hey Cliff, here's $50 million dollars: go make your dream game,' I'd still only ramp up with a handful of people," Blezsinski stated.