Epic Games claims ownership of Jazz Jackrabbit in legal battle with Gears of War creator

Cliff Bleszinski, longtime Epic Games developer and renowned designer of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, hit a legal wall trying to secure the rights to one of his very first gaming characters, Jazz Jackrabbit, from his former employer.

Bleszinski says he created Jazz Jackrabbit when he was around 17 years old. He made the character the star of one of his very first video games, which he developed and published in 1994 after joining Epic in 1992. Jazz became Epic’s biggest hit at the time. Now, however, after Epic added Jazz to Fortnite as a Sprite in Chapter 7 Season 4 earlier this year, Bleszinski has expressed his disappointment at being dropped from his character by Epic after a legal back-and-forth.

“After defending Epic, they claim they fully own the rights to Jazz Jackrabbit and won’t back down even though they have no paperwork to prove it (neither do I) despite the fact that they still pay me from sales of it on GoG (meaning the paperwork exists somewhere) and are still happy to monetize it in (Fortnite),” Bleszinski posted on his X account. “So if I decide to make a new one, expect the “spiritual sequel” route. Business is business, I guess. My first high school sketches here, I must have been 17 when I scribbled them.” Here they are:

Bleszinski released a statement to IGN: “Jazz was my first success and will always have a place in my heart. When I signed the contract with Epic, I was a teenager and just happy to make games and those documents were lost to the sands of time. That said, I still receive occasional checks from GoG.com that Epic honors, which seems to indicate that the paperwork exists somewhere. I’m grateful to be paid for the work I did over 30 years ago, but apart from chance. backpack cameos in Fortnite I hoped I could secure a true Jazz revival, either by my own hand or with a trusted partner. I followed the proper legal route which ultimately led to a dead end – “rights hell”. At the end of the day, business is business and if I pursue something similar to Jazz in the future, it should be in the “spiritual successor” category. I’m still convinced that no one has really cracked the code of first-person arcade platformers!”

Jazz Jackrabbit isn’t the only Bleszinski creation to be active after a long hiatus of late. The Gears of War franchise returned to Xbox consoles last month with the excellent Gears of War: E-Day, a prequel to Bleszinski’s original game from 2006. E-Day was the first new Gears game since 2019’s Gears 5.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s senior preview editor and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Unblocked Podcastand co-host of Next generation console watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor’s ham”, not “pork roll”. Debate with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.