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Bulletstorm 2 dismantled, People Can Fly working on new project

Epic Games shelves Bulletsorm sequel after poor sales and piracy of original

Words: on April 10, 2012
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Still waiting for Epic Games to announce a Bulletstorm sequel? Don't hold your breath. This weekend at PAX East, studio boss Mike Capps admitted to GameSpot that while Epic Games has a soft spot for the over-the-top shooter, it recently made the decision to pursue other projects.

"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," said Capps. "We haven't announced that yet, but we will be announcing it pretty soon."


The original Bulletstorm was well received by fans and critics (read our 10/10 Bulletstorm super review), but failed to meet publisher EA's expectations. Capps said sales were further hampered by a less-than-stellar PC port and online piracy, explaining, "We made a PC version of Bulletstorm, and it didn't do very well on PC and I think a lot of that was due to piracy. It wasn't the best PC port ever, sure, but also piracy was a pretty big problem."

Capps added Epic Games would love to return to the series one day, but “right now we don't have anything to talk about”.

As for Epic's future endeavours, director Cliff Bleszinski revealed to PAX East attendees that the studio is working behind the scenes on a PC-exclusive. As PC Gamer points out, this could very well be a new Unreal Tournament game to coincide with Epic's new Unreal Engine 4. Whatever it is, we predict it won't skimp on anti-piracy features.

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Platforms:

PS3, PC, Xbox 360

Topics:

Bulletstorm, Epic Games, People Can Fly

32 comments

  • RedOutlive. - April 15, 2012 9:44 p.m.

    Maybe if they made something that could hold a candle to Painkiller it would have sold well, and not a 1st person Gears of War with a gimmick kill system.

  • MetroidPrimeRib - April 11, 2012 10:22 a.m.

    Game sells like shit? "Baww it was dem pirates again!"

  • FoxdenRacing - April 10, 2012 3:26 p.m.

    Guys, read. They're not blaming piracy first. They're saying 'it didn't help matters any'. The studio head said the first and foremost reason it didn't get a sequel is that EA wanted it to sell a lot better than it actually did. A quick trip to VGChartz suggests that EA's expectations were probably unreasonable. Given that it warranted 2 DLC packs, the base game couldn't have been unprofitable. It was almost a double-platinum (1.8 million sold), meaning with a conservative 'publisher gets $10' baseline, it brought in over $18,000,000. Since when was being a million-seller the mark of being a failure? Yes, it was different. Yes, it got under the skin of a lot of fanboys. But it was a [deleted] of a lot of fun while it lasted.

  • KnowYourPokemon - April 10, 2012 6:01 p.m.

    Sorry but it's easy to tell they're blaming piracy. They refuse to own up to the fact that they just flat out made a bad port and that adding GFWL to ANY game is just a downside for it. But no, let's blame it on piracy, because we're too stuck up to blame it on our own faults and would much rather blame the people who did not pay for something we put lack luster effort into.

  • radiodeaf - April 11, 2012 6:09 p.m.

    Did you read the article? "We made a PC version of Bulletstorm, and it didn't do very well on PC and I think a lot of that was due to piracy." He just blamed piracy instead of the fact that they really fucked up the port. Which he mentions but everyone who enjoyed it already owned it on the xbox...and didn't need the PC, plus other reasons... the small percentage of piracy that happened would have happened anyway if it was selling like hot cakes and was on PC before xbox. Basically this guy is skewing facts to make his job easier I would suspect.

  • Redeater - April 10, 2012 12:50 p.m.

    This is pretty heartbreaking. I loved the shit out of Bulletstorm.

  • jackthemenace - April 10, 2012 1:24 p.m.

    I'll agree on that, I thought it was amazing, even if the final act was a bit... repetitive, since it didn't really have much to add except play time. Still, they didn't exactly RULE OUT the idea of a sequel for the future, they just said they weren't going to work on one right now. Let's leave it a little while, while until it passes into legend, like Okami, and THEN start demanding a sequel on the next gen when they inevitably Turn gears of War into the next Call of Duty- I love Gears, but, let's face it, eventually, it's going to happen.

  • josh-horvath - April 10, 2012 10:59 a.m.

    sad, sad news. one of the best highlights of 2011

  • radiodeaf - April 10, 2012 10:48 a.m.

    Piracy? or the port sucked...LOL... I bet that percentage of piracy is really quite small. But I'm sure that slipped his mind when making this ludicrous comment.

  • viberunner - April 10, 2012 1 p.m.

    The percentage piracy in the PC market is not small, it is the majority of players. PCs have a much larger installed gaming user base than consoles, but far fewer sales...

  • FOZ - April 10, 2012 1:40 p.m.

    The majority of PC players pirate games? Where did you get these statistics? *sparks fly from brain*

  • Pwnz0r3d - April 10, 2012 2:36 p.m.

    I assure you that if Valve released the sales charts for Steam, your statement would be absolutely false. Steam itself is the greatest anti-piracy tool ever, and it's not even restrictive. It's not even in the anti-piracy software: rather, it's how they SELL the games that are on their market that does wonders against piracy. 70%-90% deals practically every weekend? That's incredible.

  • KnowYourPokemon - April 10, 2012 6:05 p.m.

    " I'm stating these things and considering them facts without any proof" Sorry but your just spitting out nonsense to try and make whatever that is (I guess you'd call it an argument) sound correct. The things people will say to insult someone just for playing on a PC... makes me lol.

  • martin-rodriguez - April 10, 2012 8:46 p.m.

    While it is true that most versions of games do sell on consoles, cuz let's face it too many people now days specially kids will buy just about anything, the piracy statement is mostly an excuse on developers parts. You made a game that just frankly wasn't up to par? I know! Let's blame piracy! And terrorism while were at it. Sorry man, but with developers being mostly greedy pigs now days they'll blame you before themselves.

  • martin-rodriguez - April 10, 2012 9 p.m.

    And I completly agree with Pwnz0r3d. First of all, lets not forget that when these devs started designing multiplatforms on Xbox and PS, they were making bank and rep. Where? On PC. That money for design etc didn't magically grow from systems they had yet to release a game on. Second, they make a game that most likely wasn't up to the standards that they most likely themselves set with previous iterations, but kids on consoles where gobbling it up cuz they didn't care about say depth, handling etc.. let's face it, your that age you really don't care. Then CHACHING!! Less work, more money, no one the wiser, and as time went by and PC gamers said WHOA COME ON NOW WHATS THIS? IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE! They said, hey screw em. Easiest way to make an impression about someone to others is by making them seem like a bad person. A girl can cry rape against you, and you've never raped a girl in your life, but in todays sociaty, even after proven innocent, you will always be frowned upon because she said that about you. Hint the developers are the girls lmao but seriously. Sorry this is so long

  • martin-rodriguez - April 10, 2012 9:05 p.m.

    Last thing, most sales on PC now days are digital. And um.. Valve is rich, Blizzard is rich, CDProjekt Red def made some bank and so on and so forth. And they don't seem to be whining about money. These dev's and companies should look to those mentioned for example on how to be user friendly and make quality titles and services

  • gazzc - April 10, 2012 10:43 a.m.

    I didn't find the original game to be all that special, not 10/10 material for sure. Not that it was particularly bad but it didn't hold my interest long enough to finish it. Anyway not that I really care, Epic deserted PC gamers when piracy was hardly an issue and they haven't made a really good game since the original Unreal Tournament back in 1999 or whenever it was and now I just don't give a shit what they make.

  • SunnyvaleTrash - April 10, 2012 10:03 a.m.

    I loved this game. A great attempt to launch a new IP with innovative features. Sad news :(

  • morgartjr - April 10, 2012 11:44 a.m.

    Innovative features like removing jumping, and being an on-rails shooter? Sorry, but there wasnt much innovation there. The points for combos? Yeah, but they basically lied when they said you could do it how you wanted to...they had set combos in mind, and did everything they could to push you in that direction. It was heavily console-ified, with a crappy POV and gimped controls, lacking BASIC movement (jump), and chock full of "trying to sound tough" obscenities. GFWL only made sure to increase the fail. Woo. Fun.

  • Iwillspoonyou - April 10, 2012 9:14 a.m.

    I didn't get it because it didn't look that great and the dialogue was super cheezy

Showing 1-20 of 32 comments

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