Epic cancels Bulletstorm 2, kicks puppy
OK, only half of that headline is true. I mean… Epic Games might kick puppies. There’s no proof that they don’t, but I guess we should stick with “innocent until proven guilty” on that one. Sadly, the other half of the headline is very true. There will be no sequel to Bulletstorm, the over-the-top first person shooter that launched in early 2011. Read on to see what the head of Epic Games had to say about Bulletstorm, and his reasons for pulling the plug on its sequel.
Gamespot ran into Mike Capps, President of Epic Games, last weekend at PAX East, and asked about the status of Bulletstorm 2. His answer was a bit disappointing, to say the least.
“We thought a lot about a sequel, and had done some initial development on it, but we found a project that we thought was a better fit for People Can Fly. We haven’t announced that yet, but we will be announcing it pretty soon.”
He explained that, while the console versions of Bulletstorm sold well, it did not meet the expectations EA had for the title. In particular, he blamed poor sales of the game’s PC version, and its apparent high rate of piracy, for the sequel’s cancellation. If there is a silver lining to this dark cloud of a story, it’s that Epic still seems to have a lot of faith in Bulletstorm’s developer, People Can Fly. Capps noted that he has already assigned a new project to the developer. And while he wouldn’t specify what the project was, he indicated that it will be unveiled soon. You can read the full article, with a few more quotes from Capps, here.
I can’t help but feel disheartened by this story. Bulletstorm had its share of problems, and was by no means a masterpiece of story telling, but it was one of the most fun shooters I have played in a long time. The creation of the energy leash, and its incorporation into gameplay was ingenius, and incredibly addictive. Like nitrous oxide in Need For Speed, it was something that I never got tired of using, and it showed that People Can Fly has a real knack for making tired genres feel brand new again. Whatever this new project People Can Fly is working on, I hope it takes advantage of the studio’s talents, and obvious love of gaming.