This year has already gotten off to a ro??cky start for developers who are still experiencing the wave of layoffs that plagued 2023.

This time around, it's the Polish team People Can Fly that has suffered layoffs. In an email provided to Kotaku, it was announced that over 30 people will be affected. This information was co?nfirmed with the publication. As other companies have promised during their layoffs, PCF claims that it will aid its ex-employees during the transition.

In the email, developer director Adam Alker states that the layoffs are due to a shrinking budget and smaller scope on an?? unannounced game codenamed Project Gemini which is set to be published by Square Enix. 20 people will be taken off the project but will still get to work for the company.

The layoffs come after the PCF-published Bulletstorm VR which has attracted notoriety due to its ?catastrophic launch. People Can Fly has released a joint statement with developers promising to fix the issues players have complained about.

This is far from the first case of layoffs in 2024. Riot has been the most notable thus far, with over 500 employees affected.

The post Outriders developer?? Pe??ople Can Fly confirms layoffs appeared first on Destructoid.

What are ya waitin for...Christmas?

The Switch port of Bulletstorm announced during PAX East has stealthily appeared on the Nintendo eShop today. A compilation of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition and its "Duke Nukem's Bulletstorm T??our" DLC, this port comes in at $29.99 and requires?? 9.4 GB of storage. It'll likely contain the same visual makeover that the PS4/Xbox One ports had, just at a lower resolution.

That's fine, too, because Bulletstorm is a great game. While I thought the $60 price tag on the remaster was a bit much, it's definitely not a game you should overlook. The addition of Duke Nukem kind of detracts from the experience with how lazy it comes off, bu??t not having to pay extra for the ex-King is fine. I honestly wouldn't bother playing with him, though.

Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition now available [Gematsu]

The post Bulletstorm: Duke of Switc?h Edition hits eShop with no warning appeared first on Destructoid.

Duke of Switch Edition

Bulletstorm's over-the-top, combo-chaining, explosive, obscene action is coming to a new platform in a few months. One of the first proper announcements at Gearbox's PAX East panel is that Bulletstorm is being ported to Switch.

This version is dubbed the Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition. It's presumably the Full Clip remaster that released in 2017, which was complete with a cameo from Duke Nukem. We'll find out more in the very near fut??ure.

The reason we have to find out more details soon is because Bulletstorm on Switch launches sometime this summer. In just a few months, you'll have all the ridiculousness of Bulletstorm on the go.

The post Bulletstorm is launching on Switch this summer appeared first on Destructoid.

Yakuzin for a bruisin!

That leak from earlier in the month was correct! Yakuza Kiwami and Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition will be headling November's PlayStation Plus free games. Both are well worth checking out, especially at the low price of free. I'd suggest not even bothering with the Duke Nukem content in Bulletstorm??, but definitely play the main game and actually populate the damn servers so people can properly co-op.

For last gen folks, you'll be able to nab the Arkedo Series bundle (which includes JUMP, SWAP, and PIXEL) and the Jackbox Party Pack 2. Vita owners will get two cross-buy enabled games in the form of Burly Men At Sea and Roundabout. Those may not ?be as h??igh profile as the PS4 offerings, but you can't complain about this list.

• Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition - PS4
• Yakuza Kiwami - PS4
• Arkedo Series - PS3
• Jackbox Party Pack 2 - PS3
• Burly Men At Sea - Vita (Cross-buy with PS4)
• Roundabout - Vita (Cross-buy with PS4)

PlayStation Plus: Free Games for November 2018 [PlayStation Blog]

The post PlayStation Plus lands a really solid month for Novem?ber appeared first on Destructoid.

A.K.A. "The Dick Killers"

While unknown to most people, developers Tor Frick, Arcade Berg, Erik Gloersen and Jonathan Heckley have been making some great games over the last decade. Their combined portfolio includes the likes of Bulletstorm, Far Cry 3, Gears of War, Wolfenstein: The New Order and even DOOM. Taking all of that expertise with them (a combined 70 years w?orth), the four have left their respective studios and formed a new super-studio called "Neon Giant."

"At Neon Giant," reads their official website, "every team member is a key player, empowered to help us fulfill our bold vision: to create world-class action games that will stand proud and tall with the giants." With funding from the firm Goodbye Kansas Game Invest, the studio is looking?? to take Swedish game development into the big lea?gues.

Goodbye Kansas Game Invest's CEO, Per-Arne Luundberg, ??said, "Neon Giant consists of a real dream team that not only has enormous experience, they also have an incredibly efficient working process...they coincidentally also have something great in the works—I'm convinced that their first release will be a milestone in Swedish game development." I'm eager to see what they c??ould be cooking up, considering every title mentioned has been quality.

Former Wolfenstein, Bulletstorm devs set up new studio Neon Giant [PC Gamer]

The post Neon Giant is a new studio comprised of ex-Wolfenstein and Bullets?torm dev??s appeared first on Destructoid.

The King is dead, long live the king

When it was announced back in 2010 that Gearbox would acquire and finish Duke Nukem Forever, people let out a sigh of relief. Gearbox had a great track record of excellent first-person shooter games and had recently released Borderlands to critical and commercial acclaim. There was no way gaming’s longe??st r??unning joke was going to be bad.

Despite six years having passed since then, people still look at Duke Nukem Forever with a mix of derision and disgust. It was a mashup of old-school design philosophy with new-school mechanics alongside poorly constructed levels and some questionable humor. It brought up the debate of whether or not Duke Nukem, as ??a character??, had any relevance in the modern world.

Since Forever, Duke hasn’t starred in any new adventures. We’ve seen re-releases of the eternal classic Duke Nukem 3D, but it seems like Gearbox is either ashamed of its past or has no idea how to acclimatize Duke t??o fit modern sensibilities. Duke is a relic of a bygone era where being politically correct wasn’t a priority, so most of what he utters is offensive today.

Bulletstorm, though, was a game that was offensive to everyone. You have men fighting alongside a woman who is just as much of a badass as the main character and even dishes out the same kind of insults. You have? insults based not on race, but on pent up anger and self-reflective hatre??d. Main character Grayson Hunt is on a quest for redemption and he lashes out because of his own perceived failures.

Putting Duke Nukem into that kind of story role could have been the shot in the arm that the character needed. Most of Duke’s personality centers around his own inflated ego, so having him riff with other characters that are just as headstrong could have been an introspective journey that brought out something new within him. Instead, Gearbox lazily shat him into Bulletstorm without much consideration as to why.

To their credit, Gearbox never advertised Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm Tour as a transformation of the game. While they did vaguely state that the game had a “re-recorded script and brand-new lines,” there was never a mention of any new content or even acknowledgement that Duke existed within the universe Bulletstorm is set in. Still, this could have been a chance ??to give longtime fans somethin?g more than just a stupid bonus on a totally unrelated game.

The worst offender is just the lack of care taken with integrating Duke into the regular game. While all of Grayson’s lines are re-dubbed, the lip syncing on Duke’s character model is not. In the opening scenes, you’ll see Duke muttering a few choice words with his lips then continuing to move like some awful Hollywood dub job. They don’t even bother to change the animations, having Du?ke move his arms and point to things without mentioning them.

All of the characters from Bulletstorm have their dialog remain untouched, so Ishi and Trishka will still refer to Duke as Grayson. While this might be initially funny (with Duke asking, “Who the hell is Grayson?”), it becomes a big problem later down the line. Like I said, Duke has a huge ego, so he would never s??tand f??or not being addressed by his actual name.

Then there is just the general delivery that Jon St. John (Duke’s longtime voice actor) brings to the table. This has to be the sloppiest I’ve ever heard Duke sound. Even my sister, who has a huge fondness of Duke from the ‘90s, was baffled that this didn’t really sound like The King. I know Mr. St. John has aged, but I’ve met the man in person and he can still deliver the old lines. I think he just truly didn’t care? or felt disrespected that Gearbox wasn’t doing something else with the character.

Really, why was Duke even placed into Bulletstorm? I think that can be answered quite easily: pre-order culture. Gearbox doesn’t give a crap about what happens with Duke Nukem. This company shut down a fan-made free remake of Duke Nukem 3D seemingly because it would have upstaged their lazy port of the game from last year. No, they just wanted some incentive to get people blindly dropping money on their recently acquired intellect??ual property.

Pre-order culture has become a massive problem in mainstream triple-A gaming. We see sometimes significant content being gated off for people who don’t take leaps of faith before a title is even released. This has led to tremendous flops like Deus Ex having an "augment your pre-order" campaign or retailers getting exclusive content for specific games to in??????????????????????????centivi??ze people to shop at their outlet.

We’re also in an era where nostalgia is being readily milked by companies to earn profits. Take a look at the recently released Power Rangers film for further proof. No one was clamoring for another feature length Power Rangers film, let alone another damned reboot of a "clas??sic" franchise. The only reason that film was green lit was due to fear over starting a new franchise.

When you can guarantee that people will populate seats because of brand recognition, why would you even take a chance on something new? That mentality can basically be placed upon every remaster released, as well. Bulletstorm definitely got the?? short end of the stick back in 2011, but the origin??al version was fine enough. We did not need to see a re-release of the game so soon, or at least not being sold on nostalgia by including Duke Nukem.

That move all but confirms that Gearbox didn’t have enough faith in the main game. They’re holding a potential sequel hostage with this remaster and they’re even throwing in Duke to satiate fans that are looking for The King’s return. Instead of taking the time to properly promote People Can Fly’s cult classic or actually develop a new title for Duke, we’re getting a mash-up that no one really asked for even if Duke kind of makes sense for Bulletstorm.

Then again, this is the same company that lied to our faces about Aliens: Colonial Marines and continues to exhibit shady business practices. Why did I expect anything more from them? I’m mostly just disappointed that his happened to two things I actually like. Despite Duke Nukem Forever being a flaming trash pile, I’ll never forget my time with 3D and how creative its level design is.

Duke Nukem is goofy and crass, sure, but that doesn’t mean he can’t work in a modern space. Duke just can’t work under the care of Gearbox because they don’t care about anything but the bottom line. For that matter, because of launching Full Clip Edition at $60, I’m almost certain Gearbox has washed their hands of anything to do with a sequel. Maybe I’m underestimating the cost required to rebuild a game for newer consoles, but releasing th?is for $30 would have given it the shot in the arm that the original never had.

So what does this mean for Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm Tour? I’m sad to say this, but I feel it’s a total failure. It might be worth a chuckle or two, but this easily should have been a feature included in the remaster and not some extra DLC. If you didn’t pre-order Full Clip Edition, then don&r??squo;t even bother dealing with this. Duke is dead on arrival for his tour and that is a shame.

The post Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm tour is a big failure appeared first on Destructoid.

While pinning blame on People Can Fly

Gearbox has shown its ass again, approximately 24 hours since last showing its ass. Yesterday, we reported on Gearbox partnering up with G2A to publish a collector's edition of the Bulletstorm remaster. G2A has a reputation that's elevated just ever-??so-slightly above that of a common thief. It's notorious for buying and reselling keys, some of which were purchased fraudulently with stole?n credit cards.

There was no trickery involved. G2A?? isn't a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's a wolf in wolf's clothing that's doing wolf things and everyone on the internet is complaining about all ?the wolf's shitty practices. Regardless, Gearbox feigned ignorance until the community called it out. Now it's doubling down on the innocence angle while throwing more people under the bus.

In a statement to Waypoint, Gearbox said that it's nixing the partnership with G2A. Yesterday's list of demanded changes came with a 24-hour deadline to respond and commit to them. That time frame has expired without G2A dedicating itself to changing its ways. Why would it? G2A makes far more money peddling graymarket keys than it would selling a few over-priced Bulletstorm statuettes.

Gearbox head of publishing Steve Gibson stated "As there has been no public movement from G2A by? the time Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition launched now on PC, Gearbox Publishing will be doing their part to not directly support a marketplace that did not make the new public commitment to protecting customers and developers requested by Gearbox Publishing." He added "We can confirm that today we have begun executing on our extr??a??ction process."

However, Gearbox couldn't leave it at that. Studio president Randy Pitchford took to Twitter to insinuate that Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly is responsible for the G2A partnership and that this didn't start as a Gearbox Publishing initiativ??e. Pitchford?? also claims that he didn't know about the agreement until very recently.

So far, Gearbox's involvement in this saga can be summed up by: It carelessly struck a deal without knowing the reputation of its partner (or knowing but not caring); it made a handful of toothless threats that it knew G2A would never adhere to; and it pinned the blame on its legitimate business par??tner by saying that People Can Fly is to blame for starting it all. The hole keeps getting deeper.

At this point, Gearbox's best shot at saving face is ?just a simple f??our-word phrase: "Sorry, we fucked up."

Gearbox Backs Out of 'Bulle?tstorm' Deal With Shady Key Reseller G2??A [Waypoint]

The post Gearbox pulls out of deal with G2A ??in truly embarrassing fashion appeared first on Destructoid.

It made its bed

G2A is one of the most toxic brands in the video game industr??y right now. In recent years, G2A has been outed as a key reseller that conveniently ??does little to combat fraud. Many developers have accused G2A of buying games that were originally purchased with stolen credit cards. When those charges are inevitably reversed, the developer ends up the victim as two other parties take all of the profit through nefarious means.

That's why it struck people as odd when Gearbox announced a partnership with G2A for the collector's edition of the upcoming Bulletstorm remaster. [Disclosure: Years ago, Destructoid had a brief advertising agreement with G2A.] How can a fellow developer support someone who enables theft from other creators? There was immediate backlash. The most notable example was probably YouTuber TotalBiscuit swearing off any future coverage of Gearbox titles.

G2A's business model isn't a recent development. Mike wrote a fantastic investigative piece in January 2016 about how the graymark??et site retains just enough plausible deniability to stay ??off the hook for any legal infringement. Still, everyone in the business of video games knows exactly what G2A is. Its reputation precedes it.

Gearbox is acting like it's the last to find out. According to a report from Waypoint, Gearbox has given G2A a hardline ultimatum: Either change your ways or we're done wit??h you. Here is Gearbox's list of demands, verbatim as published on Waypoint:

• Within 30 days, G2A Shield (aka, customer fraud protection) is made free instead of a separate paid subscription service within terms offered by other major marketplaces. All customers who spend money deserve fraud protection from a storefront. To that end, all existing G2A Shield customers are notified by April 14th that fraud protection services are now free and they will no longer be charged for this.
• Within 90 days, G2A will open up a web service or API to certified developers and publishers to search for and flag for immediate removal, keys that are fraudulent. This access will be free of charge and will not require payment by the content holders.
• G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 60 days implement throttling for non-certified developers and publishers at the title, user ID, and account payable levels for a fraud flagging process. This is to protect content providers from having large quantities of stolen goods flipped on G2A before they can be flagged.
• G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A restructures its payment system so that customers who wish to buy and sell legitimate keys are given a clear, simple fee-structure that is easy to understand and contains no hidden or obfuscated charges. Join the ranks of other major marketplaces.

If G2A were to make these changes, it could make strides toward changing its public perception and well on its way to legitimizing its business. If. Gearbox is asking for major infrastructure changes, ones that will almost certainly negatively affect G2A's bottom line. G2A th??rives because it??'s willing to position itself in that moral middleground; its success isn't in spite of that fact.

But it's Gearbox's feeble attempt at saving face that's most laughable. Major course corrections can't be made on the spot, but 30 to 90 days might as well be a lifetime as far as video games are concerned. No one will care about Bulletstorm in two weeks, as is the case for almost every game nowadays. Puffing your chest out and threatening to cancel a partnership 10 weeks after everyone forgot it existed is the m??ost impotent tough guy act imaginable.

Look, G2A needs to change but let's not strain ourselves patting Gearbox on the back for putting it in writing. It put itself in this position by sidling up to a company with a less-than?-sterling reputation. Both a cynic and a rational thinker would assume that Gearbox had a lapse in judgment and that even the most junior of PR reps could have predicted swift blowback. Anyone willing to give Gearbox the benefit of the doubt would have to admit the publisher broke a basic rule of commerce: Always know who you're going into business with. It's not a great look either way.

Ami?d Backlash, Gearbox Demands Changes From Controversial Key Reseller G2A [Waypoint]

The post ??Gearbox hilariously gives G2A an ultimatum after?? sidling up for a partnership appeared first on Destructoid.

It's almost impressive in its tonal deficiency

Bulletstorm is a game that's drenched in ridiculousness. Its inane over-the-top combo-centric action is complemented by its equally juvenile dialogue. Here's a sampling of some choice quotes: "I will kill your dicks!"; "You still reek of sunbaked asshole!"; "Take a lick on the salted taint of doom, you brain-dead biker whores!"; "Trudging through that radioactive goo mutated our ??good general into a giant pussy."

That is the kind of not-self-serious game Bulletstorm is. You wouldn't know it by watching this trailer for the remaster, though. Rather than leaning into everything that defines Bulletstorm, G??earbox and People Can Fly pulled back and cut a trailer that m??akes it seem like nothing more than another snappy, setpiece-obsessed shooter. The choice of music is especially dissonant. 

Bulletstorm oozes machismo in an effective parody of the space marine Gears of War-like tropes that rose to prominence during the last console generation. It was underappreciated and this remaster is a second chance to revel in everything that made Bulletstorm dumb but unique. You just wouldn't know it by w?atching this trailer.

The post The?? new Bullets??torm trailer is incredibly not-Bulletstorm appeared first on Destructoid.

Bubblegum yadda yadda yadda

Bulletstorm had a fun idea before getting quietly shuffled away back in 2011. Now that Gearbox Publishing and People Can Fly are bringing a port with updated visuals (touti??ng higher?-res textures, 4K resolution on PS4 and PC) and new modes,  maybe it'll find its audience six years later. 

Speaking of finding an audience, if you pre-order Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition you get access to Duke Nukem. Forcibly inserted into the story with fresh lines from original Duke Nukem voice actor Jon St. John, maybe you can pretend this is actually Duke Nukem Forever and you weren't horribly disappointed years ago. Thanks to IGN, we have a look at how this'll work and it's...fine. Duke himself needs some finer tuning as his model doesn't quite fit in with the Bulletstorm universe (and the lip sync is even worse for wear), but once it gets into gameplay it's the same as it ever was just with occasional Nukem barbs. Who knows, maybe this is what Bulletstorm needed to be popular? 

Check out the story trailer, 14 minutes of gameplay, and Duke Nukem below. Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is out ??on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC Ap?ril 7th. 

Bulletst?orm: Full Clip Edition - 9 Minutes Duke Nukem G?ameplay [IGN] 

14 Minutes of Bulletstorm: Full ??Clip Edition Gameplay in 4K [IGN]

The post Duke Nukem sticks out like a sore thumb in this Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition gameplay vide??o appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm not too surprised

[Update: It turns out my assumption about EA holding the rights to the original game seems to be true. Other users took to asking Randy Pitchford on Twitter and he responded with, "Not possible - comp??letely different publisher, era, platform (the??y were Games for Windows only), product/sku, etc." I kind of figured.]

After the announcement of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, I was pretty stoked to finally have a PC version of the game without Games for Windows Live. Microsoft's failed Live integration system doe?sn't really run well on Windows 10 (and in some cases fails to even inst??all) and is really just a gigantic hassle for most users. Then I began to wonder if Gearbox would be offering some kind of loyalty discount or even potentially gifting the game to previous owners.

Turns out that that is?n't going to happen. I took to Twitter to ask Randy Pitchford, the pres??ident and CEO of Gearbox, about just that and got a blunt response.

Now, this article isn't going to blast Pitchford for that decision or even the company's past. I actually kind of understand why the game isn't being offered as a free upgrade. Bulletstorm was originally published by EA (of all companies), so there is probably some legal issue preventing Gearbox from awarding past buyers with any discounts. Getting upgrades for free is also not the wisest business decision seeing as how companies need to make money to stay open. We may have come to expect it with 2K and THQ Nordic g??ift?ing out their remasters, but that really is more a show of good faith than anything else.

My main issue just comes from the pricing. By the time Full Clip Edition will be released, Bulletstorm will be slightly over six years old. Why is Gearbox charging $50 for a six-year-old remaster? I suppose since Bethesda can get away with it for Skyrim, but even I took offense to that kind of pricing. This isn't a completely new game and most of the DLC for Bulletstorm isn't even worth paying attention to.

You can also typically find the original version during a Steam sale for $5. The game looks incredible on PC and runs flawlessly, even with the Games for Windows Live integration, so this remaster is mostly a chance to remind gamers that Gearbox owns the rights to Duke Nukem a??nd that we'll never see another good game starring him.

The post (Update) Bulle??tstorm: Full Clip Edition will not be offered as a free upgrade on PC appeared first on Destructoid.

Kill dicks in (better) HD!

Months ago during E3, someone "let loose" screenshots of a remastered Bulletstorm. While fans got excited, nothing was ever confirmed or denied regarding the status of a next-gen port. While this isn't an official statement about the existence of a remaster, the Brazil Advisory Rating Board has given a rating to something called Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition.

The platforms listed in the rating are PC, Xbox One and PS4. The publisher is everyone's favorite, Gearbox Software. I can't say I'm surprised by that, given that EA basically abandoned the original game on release, but I wonder why Gearbox would step in to fund a remaster. Maybe it's a thinly ?veiled attempt to regain goodwill with gamers?

Whether or not this news turns out to be true, we won't be seeing the actual release until next year. I guess a lot of time and effort needs to go into porting an Unreal Engine 3 game, despite that being ripe for multi-p?la?tform development.

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition rated for PS4, Xbox One, and PC in Brazil [Gemastsu]

The post B??ulletstorm: Full Clip Edition rated by Brazilian rating board appeared first on Destructoid.

I think a lot of people would play this

People Can Fly's Bulletstorm is kind of a cult classic at this point, and it'??s just as well that it has an audience -- because it might be getting remastered.

According to Eurogamer, Microsoft's E3 2016 Xbox One press USB kit has screens for what seems to be a BulletStorm Remaster. Whether this was done on purpos??e for viral marketing (yes) or by? accident and only put on some USB drives is unknown, but it seems pretty real.

Ogle at the screens below. For now, we wait.

Bull??etstorm remaster screenshots found on Xbox One E?3 press USB [Eurogamer]

The post Bulletstorm Remaster images found ??on Microsoft E3 press drive appeared first on Destructoid.

Newly free People Can Fly working on an AAA shooter

Polish-developer People Can Fly had already earned some acclaim for itself with Painkiller, but I think the Epic-co-developed Bulletstorm is what really did it. It was ahead of the resurgence of wild, violent first-person shooters and shortly after Epic acquired the independent developer and set it to work on Gears of War: Judgment. 

But Microsoft bought the Gears rights from Epic shortly after Judgment and People Can Fly -- as Epic Games Poland -- went from Gears to helping as co-developer on Fortnite. It regained its Independe??nce from Epic in June of 2015.

"The desire to create our own game was stronger than all the benefits of being a part of Epic group," CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski told Destructoid a year ago. "And, we are lucky that Tim Sweeney as well as Epic's board and its executive team membe?rs are fai??r and honest people and allowed us to reach for our dreams and gave us amazing opportunity to become an independent developer again."

Speaking to Gamepressure, the newly independent studio is indeed working on an AAA shooter, which entered development at the beginning of 2016. Wojciechowski said a ??publisher is already attached, but the game won't be revealed until "next year." The studio is also working on a second, smaller project in tandem.

Bulletstorm (blame the EA contract for GFWL PC woes, by the by) set itself up for a sequel that never came and People Can Fly maintains the rights to it, so I'd still count that as a chance for the studio to, "create our own game," over working on other peoples' ??projects. Of course I'd take some new, crazy shooter I can't even imagine yet as well.

People Can Fly is working on two ??projects. CEO: "We're ready to show what we're capable of" [Gamepressure]

The post So…Bulletstorm 2? appeared first on Destructoid.

Energy Leash most likely not to blame

In a somewhat baffling move, it appears the raucous Epic Games and People Can Fly first-person shooter Bulletstorm has been removed from the likes of Steam. It's a classic case of "here today and gone tomorrow" as the skillshot-laden adventure that released to favorable revie?ws has suddenly disappeared from sight, without so much as a hint as to why it has been removed.

It could have something to do with the fact that the PC version utilized the Games for Windows service, which is apparently on the decline -- but as there's no?? official comment on the situation thus far, all we can do is su??rmise that this may be the case.

Oh, but don't fret. Look at you, hacker. If you're so inclined, you can still nab a copy of Bulletstorm via EA's Origin platform for $20. See? Th??ere's an upside to all of this. You can still wallow in an overabundance of nut shots, and that's beautiful. 

Bulletstorm removed from Steam -- But why? [GameSpot]

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It and Gears of War: Judgment sold around one million copies each

People Can Fly wanted to make a sequel to Bulletstorm, one of the most pleasantly surprising first-person shooters in years, but the prospect was deemed too risky. (I'm still not over this, if you couldn't tell.) Instead, the studio went on to do Gears of War: Judgment with Epic which, as it turns out, also failed to catch on in a meaningful way, despite the overall success of the core Gears series. According to Edge, the former game sold just under a million copies across? its three-platform release, while the latter sold just over ??that milestone.

"I think that any time you've done your best and read the critical excitement but it doesn't translate into financial success, you feel that maybe there's something you could have done differently," lead level designer Wojciech Madry said of Bulletstorm.

"But that was the most successful new IP that year! The problem is, like with the movie industry, the most money is made by [sequels]. In the end we did everything we could to make a great game, a game t?hat we would want to play, and there's nothing we were ashamed of or wanted to change. We did everything we could."

A shame for both titles, really. Judgment ended the series on something of a low note, while I feel like Bulletstorm was only just ??gett?ing started by the time I reached its conclusion. I wanted to see more of that world and less of the other.

How Epic's buyout freed Pe??ople Can ?Fly to bring straight-up shooters into the 21st century [Edge]

The post Bulletstorm dev on sales: ‘We did everything we could’ appeared first on Destructoid.

Former People Can Fly boss talks Bulletstorm and Gears

Speaking to Eurogamer, People Can Fly founder Adrian Chmielarz has expressed the Bulletstorm sequel that could have been, and why the studio moved on to Gears of War: Judgment instead of seeing the project through to c?ompletion.

"The thing is, we did want to make Bulletstorm 2, and act??ually there was a concept and, I think, it would be an amazing game," he said. "We analyzed what we could for the sequel, what we have control over, and it would be an amazing game. But it was also very risky, because you don't have that many example??s of games where the first part was doing so-so -- it wasn't a failure but it was very so-so -- and then the sequel suddenly kaboomed. So it was ?a big risk."

As for working on Judgment, there's been speculation about how the arrangement came to be. "[Epic Games] asked us would you want to do Gears? They did not impose the game on us," explained Chmielarz. "We wanted to do it. I don't know if the entire team wanted to do it because it still wasn't our game, but me personally, I was ecstatic, because I loved Gears."

Despite actually liking the new Gears myself, it's a real shame to hear this. Bulletstorm is one of my favorite shooters in recent memory fo?r its satisfying scoring system and weaponry, over-the-top action sequences, and willingness ??to take a light-hearted tone that isn't frequently represented in the genre these days. I would have been there on day one.

Adri??a??n Chmielarz on Bulletstorm 2 ideas, Gears of War: Judgment changes and why he left People Can Fly [Eurogamer]

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Guns, guns, guns...no guns?

Speaking with GamesIndustry International, Adrian Chmielarz, People Can Fly’s former co-owner and creative director, had this to say: “We think that video games are not all they can be. Actually, most of them are the same formula in a constantly updated skin. And that's fine, but we think there's room for more variety, for paradi?gms?? challenged and for the formulas reinvented.”

It doesn’t ring dissonant to these ears, but it’s a bold enough statement when you consider how Chmielarz has backed it up. After the relatively well-received Bulletstorm and subsequent acquisition by Epic Games, Chmielarz , Andrzej Poznanski, a??nd Michal Kosieradzki left the studio they founded to form a new studio, The Astronauts, intending to focus on smaller experiences.

"It's the s?ame idea: get the best?? in business under one umbrella, have a studio with a very flat structure, be 100 per cent responsible for the glory and the shame, and work on games that get our hearts beat faster," Chmielarz said.

Now that’s what I like to hear. Too often in AAA development do you get an evident materialization of the old “too many cooks spoil the broth” adage, and kitchen sink game design. Talented folks leaving the comfortable, bombastic world of Bulletstorm and the gritty, emotionally repressed world of Gears of War to try somethi??ng wholly new and exciting can only be a good thing in?? my book.

The Astronauts’ first title, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, is a first-person horror-ish game in which you play as a detective with supernatural abi??lities. And you ac??tually have to detect and explore. No combat. I am all about this. It’s slated to drop on PC this year.

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What other engine is there?

Do you remember a time when Unreal Engine 3 wasn't powering every game coming out, from epic sci-fi RPGs to football titles? Yeah, neither do I. Before a studio announces they'll be using Epic's meat-man simulator, we pretty much have to expect it nowadays. Now, there's a brand-new start-up company called The Astronauts that has outright created a lon?g-term licensing agreement with Epic for the Unreal Engine from the get-go.

Made up of developers that have worked on Painkiller, Bulletstorm, and Gears of War: Judgement over at People Can Fly (which they founded), it??'s pretty obvious why they went with the engine given their familiarity and relationship with it and Epic in the past. I'm only assuming we can expect great games full of meat-men from The Astronauts. And more penis jokes. There's never enough.

The post New studio ??The Astrona??uts forms licensing deal with Epic appeared first on Destructoid.

Despite plenty of hype, solid reviews, and a premise that seemed almost cynically geared toward the modern American gamer, Bulletstorm didn't do as well as Ele?ctronic Arts hoped. People Can Fly's violent shooter d?idn't set the world alight, and papa developer Epic Games wants pirates to shoulder some blame.

"From a sales perspective it was good, but not amazing. I think EA was hoping we'd do better," confessed Epic's Mike Capps. "We made a PC version of Bulletstorm, and it didn't do very well on PC and I think a lo??t of that was due to piracy. ??It wasn't the best PC port ever, sure, but also piracy was a pretty big problem."

According to Capps, Bulletstorm 2 was in the works, with some initial development already underway before Epic moved People Can Fly onto other projects. Capps said he'd "love" to see a sequel, but there's nothin?g to talk about right now.

See what you've done, pirates? It's scientifically proven that you ALL would have bought Bulletstorm if you ?hadn't pirated it, which is a fact proven in a laboratory by scientists. Also, the Mir Space Station would still be going strong if it wasn't for you!

Epic shelved Bulletstorm sequel [GameSpot]

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Now that those other shooters are out of the way, it's time for me to play a few that I wanted give a spi??n.  And I think this video encapsu??lates my mantra, "I only look out for numero uno."

Bulletstormstormstormstorm, me, me, me, brought joy to my life, even before it was released, with the Burgerstorm truck at E3 2010.  A free burger was almost enough for a good review of the game...the buns were a little dry, though...and I'm not a reviewer.  Back on topic-> The premise of killing with some skill was scary to me because I feared it would turn into an impossible achievement hunt??.  And it did.  However, you'll see that it still turned out to be a damn f?ine shooter.

Duke Nukem Forever.

Th?ere's nothing else to say.  That's pretty much? the punchline.

Also, cocks...f&*@er-rimjob-piece-of-$#!t.

The post Storm’s Adventure with Bulletstorm and Duke Nukem Forever appeared first on Destructoid.

Maturity and reason are considered virtues in the realm of debate, but when one side insists on childishness, the other can never win. That side may think it'll prove itself superior with logic and facts, but you cannot teach the terminally stupid. You can only fight fire with the fire, and The Jimquisition embraces that.

This week, I argue the potential greatness of acting like a petulan??t brat. Hey, it worked for me!

The post The Jimquisition:?? Fight in the name? of childishness appeared first on Destructoid.

Though many of us around here found People Can Fly's Bulletstorm to be quite enjoyable, it seems that the gaming populatio??n at large wasn't so keen? on the absurd first-person shooter.

Speaking to Kotaku, Epic Games president Mike Capps ?said that it "didn't make money for us." I wasn't under the impression the game had sold terrifically well or anything, but damn, that's harsh. Even still, Capps didn't come off as regretful.

"The next thing we do with People Can Fly will be great." As a fan of both Bulletstorm and Painkiller, I'm looking forward to it.

Bulletstorm Didn’t Make Money, But it Was Wor??th It [Kotaku]

The post Epic Games: Bulletstorm ‘didn’t make money for us’ appeared first on Destructoid.

An interesting tidbit came out of a Bodycount interview with Codemasters game director Andy Wilson. "We looked at Bulletstorm an?d I think it's fair to say that it was a sort of 'acid test' for us," he tells CVG. "Because they were coming out first we were very interested in how they did and it's a very good sign."

"It shows that there's room around those huge titles like Battlefield and Medal of Honor. It's nice to see that you can still have multi-million-selling FPS games that are not that. Brink's the next one. Brink's even more extreme than Bulletstorm. I know it's having some critical problems at the moment but if it does well commercially then that's anoth??er one ..."

It's funny to see this discussion about the market being saturated by military shooters when we've got these three titles, all of which tried to have a standout identity, taking slightly different approaches. At leas??t August is still a ways off.

?'Bulletstorm proves there's a? market outside Call of Duty' - Codies [CVG]

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It was a scary first week or so for the PC version of Bulletstorm from a technical standpoint, but I'm glad I made the purchase ??now that the dust has settled. People Can Fly is trying to pull us ??back in with the Gun Sonata Pack, now available on PC in North America.

Ten bucks gets you three follow-up maps for Anarchy mode (aka multiplayer): Sewers of ??Stygia, Hotel Elysium, and Villa. Realizing ?that not everyone adores playing nicely with others, the Crash Site and Guns of Stygia maps for Echo mode are included as well.

Those of you on a console, was this worth downloadi??ng?

The post Gun Sonata Pack primed and ready for Bulletst??orm PC appeared first on Destructoid.

Are you still playing Bulletstorm?! Really? Wow, okay, well hey! There's new downloadable content for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game ??today! For 800MS Points/$9.99, you'll get three new Anarchy maps (Sewers of Stygia, Hotel Elysium and Villa) and two new Echo mode maps (Crash Site and Guns of Stygia.)

The new content will also include Flamingo and Pulp leash variants, which I'm guessing is just alt ?colors for your leash weapon. Nea??to?

PC owners of Bulletstorm will be getting the new maps, just not right now. The DLC will?? be avail??able "soon" according to EA.

The post Bulletstorm ‘Gun Sonata’ pack now available appeared first on Destructoid.

It seemed incredibly likely that Bullestorm would come and go without so much as a PC demo. That's not the case, though -- one was just released on Games for Windows Live (here) and Steam (here). Cue outlandish jokes about killing the dick?s o?ff of people!

Nick posted some tips 'n' tricks for the console demo, which should still apply to whatever it is PC gamers are getting here. I'm not one to regularly play demos, but Bulletstorm is the kind of title worth checking out in t??hat capacity, as it's a bit of?? an oddball.

The post Bulletstorm PC demo live on Steam, GFWL appeared first on Destructoid.

Now that Bulletstorm is on store shelves and spreading dicktits around the world, Epic's Mike Capps has addressed the notorious FOX News report in which psychologist Carole Lieberman accused the game, among others, of encouraging rape. Capps said there were two ways of looking at it -- one good, one ??bad.

"The first is what it does for Bulletstorm and the second is what it does for the industry," he explains. "For what it did for Bulletstorm ??... yes, there were people who were very excited about any attention at all. For a game that's over-the-top, they probably helped sell more units than they convinced people to pick at us. What was most exciting about it for me [was the reaction from the media in the industry defending us]. Every journalist said this Fox report is junk ... It's wonderful to see a media that's defending free speech.

"As for what it does for the industry as a whole I think it's terrible. There a??re people who really respect Fox News' opinions and look at that and a?re [convinced that video games are bad]."

I have to say I disagree with what Capps said about the report being "terrible" for the industry. As Capps himself notes, Bulletstorm was a huge success, and he's confident the game will be a million seller. FOX is popular, yes, but its influence is finite and temporary. People will read the report, be outraged for a day, and forget it. Only those that care about games really remember, and th?ey're not the on?es believing this crap. 

Short of a Catholic-grade pedophilia scandal, I'd say th?e game industry's on pretty unshakable ground right now. Views like Lieberman's are in their death rattle, as younger, game-savvy people rise up to take her place. The old and the increasingly irrelevant are the ones who insist on hating games, and their time is almost up. While we wait for them to finally shuffle off, I'd just enjoy the free advertising. 

Bulletstorm Maybe Helped By FOX News Controversy [The A List, via GP]

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If you have the patience to hold off on getting the latest videogames at release, and don't mind missing out on the pure joy that comes with buying as soon as possible, you could be spending a heck of a lot less on games than the rest of?? us.

People Can Fly's Bulletstorm is down to $40 on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 today only on Amazon. (That's $20 off on all three, since the PC version is normally $60, too.) As a long-time fan of ?goofy first-person shooters which are seemingly always stuck in full throttle, I had a blast with this.

Nick did as well -- here's his review.

The post $40 Bulletstorm is Amazon’s deal of the day appeared first on Destructoid.

Settle down, children. Time for the news. The serious, hard-hitting, boring grown-up news of The Destructoid Show. Sadly, no cosplay or erotic fanfiction this episode. ??Although I did get ?a new shirt.

Today, we wish The Legend of Zelda a happy 25th birthday, make surprised and excited faces about iPad 2 news, and then I zone out while Tara starts talking about Minecraft. Then: Exciting news about Bulletstorm DLC and the Gears of War 3 beta, an official list of Nintendo 3DS launch titles, and the Vietnamese government tells its gaming community to go to bed. And then -- Whoa! Breaking Elder Scrolls news!

We just recently broke 20,000 subscribers on YouTube. Plans are underway for some kind of dumbass pizza party to celebrate. However, we could still use some love on iTunes. So go say things about Tara's chest, or ask "what happened to Holmes?" We'll love you forevah!

Spoiler Alert: Tara went to Vegas last weekend. She has no interesting hooker/firearm-related?? stories from her trip.

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