Project BlueStreak, an upcoming free-to-play sci-fi arena shooter for PC from Gears of War and Unreal Tournament creator Cliff Bleszinski is taking its inspiration from some unexpected sources.

Speaking to Develop, Bleszinski said that his new development studio Boss Key Productions is currently still trying to reveal the "pillars" of the game. "It’s still a little early to go into specifics, but there are plenty of things that can be done in the FPS space," he said. "One of my main inspirations is looking to platform games and the bullet-hell shooters that we all played growing up.”

Unlike the realistic military shooters that have ruled the FPS genre for the past few years, arena shooters like Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena allowed players to rocket jump, dodge, bounce off walls, and use energy weapons unlike anything that exists that in the real world. So it's not hard to see how platformers and bullet-hell shooters could inspire Project BlueStreak. As to what that means exactly, we'll have to wait until we see more of the game before we know for sure.

Bleszinski also shed some light on his plans for the game's free-to-play model, saying that he's hoping to have a hybrid where players pay for a bit of variety, with a heavy emphasis on cosmetic items. "If you have the community in place, even if you just have a small number of people actually giving money to the game, people suddenly start caring about the appearance of their avatar more than they normally would,” he said.

Bleszinski unveiled Project BlueStreak in July. It's his first new project since leaving Epic Games in 2012, and it's being being published by South Korean company Nexon, best known for its free-to-play games in Asia, and most recently the Steam release of Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies.