
2011 · People Can Fly · First-person shooter · Science
Bulletstorm
Bulletstorm brings new furor to first-person shooter action thanks to its signature 'kill with skill' gameplay. The game tells the story of a futuristic confederation protected by an elite band of mercenaries: Dead Echo. When Dead Echo members Grayson Hunt and Ishi Sato learn they've been working for the wrong side, they're betrayed by their commander and exiled to the far reaches of the galaxy. In Bulletstorm, Grayson and Ishi find themselves surrounded by hordes of mutants and flesh eating gangs in an abandoned paradise. They have two objectives: get off the planet alive, and exact revenge on the man who sent them there.
- Released
- 22 February 2011
- Platforms
- PlayStation 3PlayStation VRWindowsXbox 360
- Genres
- First-person shooterScienceShooter
- Developers
- People Can Fly
- Publishers
- Electronic ArtsGearbox Publishing
- Modes
- Co-opMultiplayerSingle-player
- Perspective
- First person
- Themes
- ActionScience fictionComedy
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 3
- Country
- Poland
- Age ratings
- GRAC 19+USK 18CERO DPEGI 18ESRB M
- Time to beat
- 7.5hmain story8.5hwith extras9hcompletionist
About
Bulletstorm is a 2011 first-person shooter game developed by People Can Fly and Epic Games and published by Electronic Arts (EA). The video game is distinguished by its system of rewarding players with "skillpoints" for performing increasingly creative kills. Bulletstorm does not have any competitive multiplayer modes, preferring instead to include cooperative online play and score attack modes. Set in the 26th century, the game's story follows Grayson Hunt, a space pirate and former black ops soldier who gets shot down on a war-torn planet while trying to exact revenge on General Sarrano, his former commander who tricked him and his men into committing war crimes and assassinating innocents.
Development of the game began in June 2007. Adrian Chmielarz and Cliff Bleszinski served as its director and designer respectively, while Rick Remender, the author of Fear Agent, wrote the game's story. It was originally envisioned to be a cover-based third-person shooter, though the core combat loop and gameplay perspective went through multiple revisions. Pulp magazines, Burnout, Duke Nukem, and Firefly all inspired the team during Bulletstorm's development. The team experimented with competitive multiplayer modes and campaign cooperative multiplayer mode during production but decided to remove them because of technological constraints.
›Story
Bulletstorm takes place in the 26th century, where the Confederation of Planets are protected by a secret black-ops army called Dead Echo, commanded by General Sarrano. One Dead Echo team, led by Grayson Hunt (Steven Blum), having been following Sarrano's orders in assassinating what they believe are drug traffickers and mass murderers, kill a man known as Bryce Novak, but soon discover he was a civilian reporter, having documented other civilian deaths caused by Dead Echo. Grayson and his team realize they have been duped by Sarrano and go AWOL, becoming space pirates on the run from Sarrano's forces, now going by the name Final Echo.
Ten years later, Grayson's team tries to flee from Sarrano's battlecruiser, the Ulysses, while near the planet of Stygia. With their ship's systems failing, Grayson, in a drunken stupor, orders the crew to ram at the Ulysses, hoping to gain revenge on Sarraro. The ships collide, forcing both down and causing them to crash land on the surface of Stygia. One of Grayson's men, Ishi Sato (Andrew Kishino), is critically wounded in the crash and Grayson is forced to find an energy cell to drive the ship's medical equipment.
On the planet, a former popular tropical-like resort destination, the population has mutated into feral tribes and carnivorous plants. Grayson fights through to one of the Ulysses escape pods, where a Final Echo soldier succumbs to a horde of mutants. After dispatching the attackers, Grayson retrieves the escape pod's energy cell, as well as an "instinct leash" that, when worn, begins to provide him strange tactile information, such as points for each enemy he kills.
Grayson returns with the cell, and while Ishi is under operation, the mutants attack their ship. The operation is cut short by an explosion during battle, leaving Ishi a disfigured cyborg. Grayson and Ishi, the only survivors, decide to work together to get off the planet, despite Ishi's disapproval of Grayson's thirst for revenge. The instinct leash leads Grayson to another escape pod, where they find Trishka (Jennifer Hale), another Final Echo soldier who agrees to work with Grayson and Ishi, but only after they rescue Sarrano.
As they battle through the ravaged city, Trishka explains that Stygia has been used by Final Echo as a sort of training grounds, with the instinct leashes the soldiers wear as a means of ranking those within the test; those that scored kills would be the only ones that could get ammunition and other supplies to survive. When Grayson learns that Trishka was Novak's daughter, he tells her that Sarrano was responsible for her father's death, but claims he does not know who actually killed him.
The three make their way to the top of a skyscraper where Sarrano's pod landed. Trishka accuses Sarrano of her father's death, but he simply kicks her off the side of the building. Sarrano then warns Grayson and Ishi that there is an armed DNA bomb on the Ulysses that will wipe out all life on the planet, and that they must go and disarm it, as his rescue ship will not arrive in time. Sarrano leads them through the underground areas of the city, encountering radioactive waste and a giant prison.
Sarrano snidely explains that that shields used to protect the planet's surface from its deadly electrical storms created the waste, and in turn, began to mutate the population of the surface; the changes occurred too quickly for most of the surface population to be rescued, and thus many of the feral mutants that Grayson has been fighting were more innocent civilians. Grayson is furious at this revelation, but continues to help Sarrano to reach the remains the Ulysses. Aboard, Sarrano tricks Grayson and Ishi once again, having them actually arm the DNA bomb, while his rescue ship will arrive in time to save him. As fire breaks out aboard the fallen ship, the two are saved by Trishka, who survived the fall by catching a power line on her way down.
The three race to where Sarrano's rescue ship is landing and manage to get on board. They make their way through Sarrano's elite troops and eventually face Sarrano alone. Trishka demands to know who actually killed her father, to which Sarrano indicts Grayson. In the confusion, Sarrano hijack's Ishi's computer systems, forcing him to turn on his friends.
Grayson manages to break Sarrano's control of Ishi, and Ishi sacrifices himself to prevent Sarrano from killing Grayson. Grayson then impales Sarrano on the wall of a ship. As Grayson and Trishka regroup, Sarrano performs one final act, ejecting Grayson, Trishka and several of his men from the ship back onto the planet. With the DNA bomb soon to detonate, Grayson and Trishka race back to the Ulysses where one escape pod remains unlaunched; they are able to board it and escape into low orbit, out of range of the DNA bomb when it goes off.
Keywords
- vehicular combat
- dinosaurs
- cybernetics
- bloody
- brutal
- robots
- futuristic
- kaiju
- cyborg
- steam
- achievements
- online
Media
The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
As a first-person shooter, Bulletstorm focuses on combat. The game features eight weapons, each with their own distinct behaviors. In addition to standard firearms such as shotguns and assault rifles, the game features unusual weaponry such as the "Bouncer", which shoots explosive bouncing cannonballs, and the "Flailgun", a cannon that shoots bolas weighted by grenades. Each weapon has an alternate fire mode that uses "charges"; for example, the Screamer revolver's "charge shot" turns the weapon into a flare gun that ignites an enemy and sends them into the air.
The protagonist Grayson Hunt is equipped with an "instinct leash" that allows him to pull enemies towards him; an upgrade unlocks the "Thumper", which slams down a ball of energy that launches all nearby enemies and explosive barrels into the air. The player can also kick enemies or run and slide into them. If an enemy is launched into the air from the whip or by being kicked/slid into, they go into slow motion, allowing players to perform "skillshots". Skillshots reward the player for killing opponents in the most creative and unusual ways possible.
Story
Bulletstorm takes place in the 26th century, where the universe is run by the "Confederation of Planets". Grayson Hunt (Steven Blum) leads Dead Echo, a black ops team, with his comrades Ishi Sato (Andrew Kishino), Rell Julian (Chris Cox), and Dr. Whit Oliver (Robin Atkin Downes), all under the command of Confederation General Victor Sarrano (Anthony De Longis). Dead Echo assassinates a man named Bryce Novak and accesses his personal files; they discover Novak was not a criminal "separatist" as they had been told, but a civilian reporter, documenting evidence of Sarrano's corruption and his use of Dead Echo to eliminate his political and personal enemies. When Sarrano tries to have them killed for questioning him, Grayson and his team desert, flee to the edges of the universe, and become pirates.
Ten years later, the now-alcoholic Grayson's ship is intercepted by the Ulysses, Sarrano's flagship, near the ruined planet of Stygia. In a drunken rage, Grayson attempts a suicide attack on Ulysses. Both ships crash land onto Stygia, fatally wounding Ishi. Oliver sends Grayson and Rell to find an energy cell to power the ship's medical equipment so he can operate.
Development
Bulletstorm was developed by Polish game studio People Can Fly. They had previously created the Painkiller series, a first-person shooter (FPS) designed for the PC. Bulletstorm was the studio's first triple-A game. Development began in June 2007, and the game enjoyed a roughly three-and-a-half-year development cycle.
During the game's production, the studio had about 70 people working on it. The game was a collaboration between PCF and Epic Games, which had acquired a majority stake in the studio in August 2007. Electronic Arts (EA) published the game under its EA Partners program, after being impressed by the studio's work on Painkiller. PCF's Adrian Chmielarz directed the game, which was designed by Epic's Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski, and penned by writer and producer Rick Remender.
Reception
According to review aggregator website Metacritic, the game received generally positive reviews upon release.
The game's combat received acclaim. Writing for GameSpot, Kevin VanOrd described the game as "sometimes ludicrous and often ludicrously fun". He praised the skillshot mechanic for tying into the upgrade system as this gave players an incentive to use them during combat. He also enjoyed the weapons, which enables players to fight against enemies in "intriguing" ways.
Releases by platformdates and regions as published
Editions and related releases
- Ported as
- Bulletstorm VR
- Remastered as
- Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
- Built on it
- Bulletstorm: Full Clip EditionBulletstorm VR
- Editions
- Bulletstorm: Epic EditionBulletstorm: Limited EditionBulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
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Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.

