LawBreakers Fan Project Brings Forgotten Low-Gravity FPS Back to Life

LawBreakers, a forgotten low-gravity FPS, is seemingly coming back to life thanks to a fan project spearheaded by a dedicated group of people.

The game was initially released in 2017 and was created by Boss Key Productions, which is led by Gears of War lead designer Cliff Bleszinski. When LawBreakers launched for PlayStation 4 and PC in that year, it received generally positive reviews.

LawBreakers Fan Project

A fan project is unofficially bringing back LawBreakers, a low-gravity hero shooter that had previously been shut down due to stiff competition.
(Photo : Boss Key Productions / Screenshot taken from official YouTube account)

However, it struggled to cement its place among other competitive multiplayer shooters that dominated the scene and it met an early demise in September 2018. But now, a group of passionate fans have been working since at least 2020 to bring the game back to life.

The effort is known as the RELB project and its FAQ says "This is a project to bring back the game LawBreakers, it's done by creating 'fake' servers that the original game client uses." It noted that players can join by downloading the launcher, patching their game, and playing as normal, according to GameInformer.

The website for the RELB project also allows players to download the game's launcher and despite the efforts being an unofficial revival, Bleszinski has given his blessing. He also enthusiastically shared RELB's Discord on Saturday.

In his social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Bleszinski said, "Somehow LawBreakers is coming back" and pointed to the Discord server for people who want to know how to get set up and wait for more news about the latest project.

Despite the positive feedback from the community and the creator of the game, the RELB project is still very much in the early stages. Fortunately, the team has already held its first series of public playtests over the last weekend.

While several modes and features from the game were disabled in the playtests, the sessions appear to have been largely successful. The next playtest does not yet have a scheduled date but the team behind the RELB project is now seeking more developers to join.

Reviving the Low-Gravity FPS

At the time that it was active, LawBreakers had to face off against other popular hero shooters, most notably Overwatch. Boss Key Productions' development team previously said that their game failed to find enough of a dedicated audience to generate the necessary funds to keep it sustained, said IGN.

RELB admin Red wrote in the Discord's news channel that despite all of the issues they have seen during the stress test, their primary goal was to see if their backend could handle a large amount of players. He noted that it held up beautifully and surpassed expectations.

Red also expressed his gratitude to everyone who joined in the effort as well as the team who helped make the project happen. They are now excited for the future of the unofficial revival of LawBreakers.

With the relative success of the LawBreakers fan project, Bleszinski himself is now working on several non-video game projects. He was an investor and co-producer for both Hadestown and a revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, according to ComicBook.