
A few days ago, I picked up Bulletstorm. It’s clear that the developers behind it really wanted to push the bounds of what a first-person shooter could be. Everything from the weapons, to the level designs, and the enemies themselves, have been tuned for you to pull off fancy juggle combos, and kills that would make Devil May Cry jealous. However, it’s also clear that their single player innovations don’t work within the context of traditional multiplayer deathmatch. Instead, the game offers its own version of horde mode that feels like a throwaway mode meant to to meet check multiplayer off as a feature on the back of the box.
Though the game was a critical hit, the it didn’t live up to sales expectations, and its sequel was shelved. Did Bulletstorm fail as a commercial product because of it’s de-emphasis on multiplayer?