Cliff Bleszinski was lead designer on the popular video game Gears of War, and also worked on other classic titles such as Unreal and Fortnite. His new memoir Control Freak describes his rise from Nintendo fanboy to rock star game designer.
“It’s 300 pages of my life story, starting when I was a pimply faced teenager who didn’t really have any friends or even a girlfriend,” Bleszinski says in Episode 531 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “I didn’t really like the world in which I lived, so I decided to pursue a career in the video game industry, in which I could not only manipulate the worlds that I played—in the games that I played—but also create those worlds myself.”
Control Freak is a surprisingly candid look into the life of a game designer, detailing Bleszinski’s many mistakes and insecurities. “So many video game books are often vetted through the PR and marketing people from the various entities that are involved, so what you get is the official, corporate-approved statement,” he says. “I wanted this to be deeply, deeply personal. I think if you’re going to go there and put yourself out there, I think you have to full-on go for it.”
The portrait of Bleszinski presented in Control Freak stands in stark contrast to the cocky, outspoken persona he honed over years of press tours and convention appearances. “I was giving people what I thought they wanted, and it wound up being very polarizing,” he says. “I was just a dork trying to masquerade as what I thought a cool person was. So the reaction has ultimately been one of surprise.”
Bleszniski launched his own game studio in 2014, only to watch it fold a few years later. Since then he’s moved away from game design and into other projects. He’s currently at work on a short story and a graphic novel, and he also helped produce the hit Broadway musical Hadestown.
“I loved being in the [game] industry,” he says. “I loved the friends I made, I loved the contacts and the adventures that I had. I made decent money. And now I’m at the point where I just want to see where this goes. I feel like I’ve been playing an RPG my entire life, and that point in an RPG where the world fully opens up and you can go anywhere and do anything, that’s kind of what my life feels like at this point.”
