Cliff Bleszinski doesn't want to dive into running his own large-scale studio any time soon

Former Epic Games developer Cliff Bleszinski revealed in an in-depth interview with VentureBeat that he would like to get back to developing AAA games eventually, but starting his own large studio now is "the last thing I would want to do."

Speaking to VentureBeat, Bleszinski said that he doesn't think it would be wise to start his own large studio, hire hundreds of employees and begin work on a large-scale game. Rather, he'd much prefer starting small, even if a potential studio he creates receives millions in financial backing.

"The thing is, I would want to get back to the triple-A space eventually, but the last thing I would want to do — and no offense meant to Curt Schilling [38 Studios] and John Romero [Ion Storm] — is to do what those guys did. 'Let's throw 300 bodies at it! Sure, we'll just make it work!'

"That's the equivalent of taking a garage band and having them play Wembley Stadium on day one."

Both 38 Studios and Ion Storm collapsed despite being headed by notable industry and sports figures and being well-resourced.

Bleszinski said it's important to learn to work with people and iterate, and even if a publisher were to offer him $50 million to make his dream game, he would only work with a small team of contractors to begin with.

"I'd still only ramp up with a handful of people to begin with," he says. "Only until I had something that was actually playable ... Then, once you have that goal, you start dumping amazing talent onto it. Then you start ramping up quickly. But before you do that, if you have a full team, you're just wasting money."

The complete interview where VentureBeat speaks with Bleszinski about his life post-Epic can be read here.