Bulletstorm Interview

Epic Poland

BT: What were your main influences for the game? It seemed to be there was a bit of a nod to things like Firefly or Serenity…

Adrian: I’m a huge fan of Joss Whedon. I just adore everything he’s done so far. Bought everything, saw everything… so I would assume that, even just subconsciously, I would have to be influenced by him. It wasn’t direct inspiration though, we just wanted to have some high adventure – a rollercoaster story where you’re surprised all the time, but it’s over the top and very pulpy.

Once we knew that and we knew it would be accompanied by over the top gameplay and gore and all this crazy killing going on, we thought, OK, we want a crazy story, this kind of world. We knew it probably had to be science fiction, so we could have more unique weapons than just AK-47 reskins. It was just a logical process for us.


BT: Bulletstorm is a new IP and is being published by EA, but EA’s had some trouble in the past where new games haven’t performed quite as well as might have been hoped. Do you worry about the difficulties of launching a new IP at the moment?

Adrian: Firstly, in EA’s defence, it’s very funny because what’s a disappointment to them is something that 99 percent of other publishers would die for. They’d kill for those numbers. That said, it does prove just how hard it can be to launch a new IP. You have to figure out everything from scratch and what makes your game tick, but you’re competing against sequels. Sequels are successful because; you go to the shop, you know you like shooters and, hey, the second part of a shooter you liked! You know what to expect from that, but the new one is a game you haven’t played before.


So, it’s extremely difficult, but we have one thing that’s helping us a lot and that’s Epic Games. They launched new IP in 2006, which was Gears of War—

BT: OK, so what’s the relationship there exactly? You’re developing, EA is publishing… where do Epic come in?

Adrian: We are part of Epic, basically. The only reason we’re not called Epic Poland is because Epic liked the name when the bought us and they asked us if we wanted to keep it – and we said yes.

Their role with Bulletstorm is huge too. Epic is very big, very respected, very powerful because they made games that made them powerful and have them reach – and they are giving us the same expertise. I think there’s a great synergy between the two teams at People Can Fly and Epic. We’re a talented team and they are a talented team and, when you put them together… it can be a little explosive.

Bulletstorm is being developed by People Can Fly and will be published by Electronic Arts. It will be released on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011