| Bulletstorm | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts[a] |
| Director(s) | Adrian Chmielarz |
| Producer(s) | Tanya Jessen |
| Designer(s) | Cliff Bleszinski |
| Programmer(s) | Lukasz Migas |
| Artist(s) |
|
| Writer(s) | Rick Remender |
| Composer(s) |
|
| Engine | Unreal Engine 3 (Original, Full Clip and Duke of Switch) Unreal Engine 4 (VR) |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
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.
Upon its release in February 2011 for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game received positive reviews from critics who praised its setting, graphics, action, pacing and gameplay, but was criticized for its story, short length, writing and multiplayer modes. It amassed a great deal of controversy with Fox News during its release window for its depiction of sexual jokes for humor. Bulletstorm was a commercial failure for both Epic Games and Electronic Arts, selling one million copies by 2013. Gearbox Publishing released a remastered version of the game titled Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition in April 2017 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and a version for Nintendo Switch, titled Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition, in August 2019. A sequel was put on hold as the studio reallocated its resources to work on Gears of War: Judgment. A virtual reality version of the game, titled Bulletstorm VR, was released on December 14, 2023.
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