An unofficial fan-made launcher for Nexon and Boss Key Productions’ first-person shooter, Lawbreakers, has once again made the game playable after 6 years.
Lawbreakers director Cliff Bleszinski took to Twitter/X to share that Lawbreakers is making an unofficial return on PC, courtesy of a fan-made launcher. Bleszinski mentioned that those who are interested in taking part in the public test over the coming weekend or future tests should join the RELB Discord server to learn how to get setup and keep up with additional information.
As per the creators of the launcher, it “is not affiliated with Nexon or the Lawbreakers brand in any way, shape or form”. It essentially allows players who own a copy of the officially shutdown game on Steam to boot it up and play online multiplayer matches once again. Servers for the PS4 version of Lawbreakers remain shutdown, though if the fan-made initiative picks up on PC, it may convince the powers that be to give the game a second chance. Additionally, the possibility of an Xbox release and crossplay support would further help to boost the player base.
LawBreakers was released on August 8, 2017, for PlayStation 4 and Windows platforms, with physical editions handled by Limited Run Games. The game sought to innovate the first-person shooter genre by incorporating low gravity gameplay and character selection mechanics akin to other objective-based FPS titles.
Despite a positive reception, the game struggled to attract a sizable player base. The closed-beta peaked at 7500 players on Steam, followed by an open-beta a month later with 40% fewer players. Upon launch, the game debuted with a 60% lower player count than its beta peak and failed to enter Steam’s top 100 Most Played Games. In April, 2018, Boss Key announced that the game didn’t attract enough players to financially sustain itself. Consequently, on June 11, the game was made free-to-play on Steam, with a notice of server shutdown on September 14, 2018. As a result, it was removed from the digital storefront and is no longer available for purchase.