Epic Games Jazz Jackrabbit ownership dispute with Cliff Bleszinski, Digi Mart USA News: Cliff Bleszinski, a longtime Epic Games developer and the designer of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, has run into a legal obstacle while trying to secure the rights to one of his earliest game characters, Jazz Jackrabbit, from his former employer.
Bleszinski says he created Jazz Jackrabbit when he was about 17. He turned the character into the star of one of his first video games, which he developed and released in 1994, after joining Epic in 1992.
Jazz became Epic’s biggest hit at the time.
Epic added Jazz to Fortnite as a Sprite in Chapter 7, Season 4 earlier this year. Bleszinski has since expressed disappointment at being shut out of the character by Epic following a legal back-and-forth.
In a post on his X account, Bleszinski wrote that Epic claims it fully owns the rights to Jazz Jackrabbit and will not back down, despite not having any paperwork to prove it. He noted that he also has no such paperwork, yet Epic still pays him from sales of the game on GoG, which suggests paperwork exists somewhere.
He also said Epic is still happy to monetize the character in Fortnite.
Bleszinski issued a statement to IGN saying Jazz was his first hit and will always have a special place in his heart. He said he signed his contract with Epic as a teenager and that those documents have been lost over time.
He noted that he still occasionally receives checks from GoG.com that Epic honors, which he says indicates paperwork exists somewhere.
He said he is thankful to be paid for work he did more than 30 years ago. However, apart from random backpack cameos in Fortnite, he had hoped to see a proper revival of Jazz, either by his own hand or with a trusted partner.
He said he pursued the proper legal path, which ultimately led to what he called a dead end, or “rights hell.”
Bleszinski said that if he pursues anything Jazz-like in the future, it would have to be a spiritual successor. He added that he remains convinced no one has truly cracked the code of arcade-style first-person platforming.
The dispute comes as the Gears of War franchise returned to Xbox consoles last month with Gears of War: E-Day, a prequel to Bleszinski’s 2006 original game. E-Day is the first new Gears game since 2019’s Gears 5.
