Bulletstorm

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Bulletstorm is a single player and multiplayer shooter game. It was developed by People Can Fly and was released on April 7, 2017. It received positive reviews from players.

"Battle your way through throngs of Stygia’s mutated inhabitants, performing masterful kills throughout the single-player campaign—or one of 30 competitive score-challenge or 12 co-operative multiplayer maps—using Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition’s unique “Skillshot” system that rewards you for executing the most creative and deadly kills imaginable. Bulletstorm: Full Clip edition is the defi…

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86%

Audience ScoreBased on 4,111 reviews

story338 positive mentions

stability78 negative mentions

Highly creative and satisfying combat system with skillshots encouraging inventive enemy kills using guns, leash, kicks, and environmental hazards.
Fast-paced, action-packed gameplay with a variety of unique and fun weapons, including a controllable sniper and impactful alternate fire modes.
Entertaining, over-the-top style with dark humor and memorable voice acting, offering a humorous and campy B-movie vibe.

Story and characters are generic, heavily clichéd, and often feature juvenile or cringe-worthy dialogue with excessive profanity.
Gameplay can be repetitive due to linear level design, limited enemy variety, lack of jumping, and sometimes clunky controls or glitches.
Technical issues in the PC port include frequent crashes, bugs (such as cutscene audio missing or soft locks), annoying screen shake, and lack of modern accessibility options.

story
1,199 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
28%
62%
10%
Bulletstorm features a straightforward, revenge-driven sci-fi story with a b-movie, over-the-top tone filled with crude humor and colorful language. While the plot and characters are often seen as clichéd, immature, or campy, the story is generally considered entertaining enough to support the high-energy gameplay, though it ends on an unresolved cliffhanger with no sequel in sight. Overall, the narrative serves mainly as a backdrop for the action, providing humor and memorable moments rather than deep or compelling storytelling.
- “This is one of the most underrated gaming gems when it comes to story shooters. The crude and cringy humor, Michael Bay level destruction and mayhem, and the fantastic world building all make this a masterpiece standalone experience. Honestly, I'd have a hard time imagining a good Bulletstorm 2, so this game is perfect on its own legs.”
- “The story is pulpy and delivered with the subtlety of a jackhammer—full of one-liners, betrayals, macho posturing, and ridiculous stakes. The characters, especially Grayson and his cyborg sidekick Ishi, are more layered than they initially seem. While the plot doesn’t stray far from B-movie territory, it’s bolstered by strong voice acting and sharp pacing that keep things moving at breakneck speed.”
- “Bulletstorm is a violent and vulgar FPS, with a revenge-driven storyline. The game encourages violence and creativity in violence, yet still has a story that parodies itself and its whole genre while maintaining a story that can be genuinely impactful.”
- “The writing is terrible and cliché, the characters and story are a child's idea of gruff, manly and edgy, and there is not a single person in the game I wouldn't happily push off a cliff.”
- “As much as I like the game in terms of gameplay, it just falls flat for me in story: everything was predictable, and as much as I know that Gray is meant to be written as a brawn-before-brains character, I just can't fathom some of his choices later on in the story such as thinking Serrano wouldn't betray him when they were forced to work together and why Gray and Ishi thought it was a good idea to let him go somewhere that separates both them and him during the moment where they had to defuse a nuke that would eradicate all life on a planet.”
- “Boyyyyy have I ever played a shooter that has a terrible ending as this one: your entire squad is dead save you and one other, the main villain walks free, you play the entire game just to have your squad killed, that's the story this game has.”
gameplay
972 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
50%
5%
The gameplay of Bulletstorm is widely praised for its fast-paced, creative, and frenetic combat, centered around unique mechanics like the leash and kick that encourage players to perform stylish, inventive kills rewarded through a skillshot scoring system. While the story and humor are often criticized, the gameplay remains engaging, smooth, and satisfying, with a variety of weapons, environmental hazards, and upgrade systems that enhance replayability. Despite some outdated elements, occasional bugs, and linear level design, the gameplay is consistently described as the game's strongest and most enjoyable aspect, making Bulletstorm a standout shooter experience.
- “The leash mechanic—used to pull enemies and interact with the environment—is integrated seamlessly, and its combination with the kick mechanic gives you constant control over the battlefield.”
- “The gameplay truly shines here and such a shame we don't get a sequel here while they can expand on the gameplay alongside the story.”
- “The skillshot system provides more hours of gameplay for those completionists, and the leash and kick additions added fun, creative ways to kill enemies.”
- “Developers tried to keep it fresh by creating lots of different types of enemies, but they aren't different enough to keep gameplay fresh for more than 20 minutes after you've met them.”
- “Gameplay is run shoot restock ammo run shoot restock ammo.”
- “The gameplay is repetitive unless you can find yourself enjoying trying new various skillshots available.”
humor
540 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
98%
2%
The humor in Bulletstorm is characterized by irreverent, crude, and juvenile comedy, heavy on profanity, one-liners, and dark or slapstick moments. While many players find the trash-talking protagonist, witty banter, and outrageous kill descriptions genuinely funny and fitting the game's over-the-top tone, others view the humor as forced, repetitive, or outdated. Overall, the humor divides opinions but is often praised for enhancing the game's chaotic, adrenaline-fueled experience.
- “The story is hilarious and meta, with Duke audibly questioning his role there to characters whose voice acting was meant for a different protagonist entirely. It helps establish the game for what it is: an untaxing dopamine drip that keeps you going through the introduction of new weapons and skillshots but mostly hearing Duke talk.”
- “Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is an unapologetically over-the-top first-person shooter that doubles down on spectacle, irreverent humor, and kinetic gameplay.”
- “The humor writing and the voice acting are really top notch.”
- “The game's writing is cartoonishly stupid and more often than not funny in a 'laughing at it' type of way.”
- “If you can get past the obnoxiously unfunny writing, horrible characters, and rather bland level design then what lies beneath is a fun and inventive take on the standard shooter formula with some neat setpieces.”
- “What was once innovative and fun has now become just so bland and unfunny.”
graphics
486 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
55%
4%
The graphics of Bulletstorm and its remastered Full Clip Edition are praised for their vibrant, stylized art direction and still hold up well years after the original release, offering rich details, colorful explosions, and dynamic environments that complement the gameplay. However, improvement over the original is often described as minor, with limited graphical settings, some dated textures, and occasional optimization issues. Overall, the visuals remain a strong point that helps maintain the game's energetic and chaotic atmosphere despite showing their age compared to modern titles.
- “The remaster sharpens textures, improves lighting, and modernizes the overall presentation without losing the exaggerated, almost comic-book-style aesthetic that defines Bulletstorm’s world.”
- “The updated visuals highlight the colorful and explosive art direction, keeping the game visually impressive even years after its first release.”
- “Even in 2025 Bulletstorm remains a cult classic with 4k graphical enhancements, making the chaotic action even more exhilarating.”
- “Ugly visuals make it impossible to tell what is going on.”
- “One other thing, this is the remaster of a 14 year old game, so having glitches and graphical issues are unexcusable at this point.”
- “The full clip edition doesn't look too dated in terms of graphics either, but it has barely any graphics options for customization, which is a real shame.”
music
92 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
49%
8%
The game's music generally receives praise for its energetic, adrenaline-pumping heavy metal and orchestral blend that complements the fast-paced action, though some find the soundtrack generic, repetitive, or forgettable. While many appreciate the thrilling, well-composed score that enhances combat, a few critiques mention occasional annoyance from certain sound elements and a lack of memorable themes. Overall, the soundtrack is regarded as good to great, effectively supporting gameplay despite occasional mixed opinions on its distinctiveness.
- “The soundtrack pumps energy into firefights, while weapon effects deliver satisfying impact, further amplifying the power behind every shot and ability.”
- “The music is an epic blend of orchestral and electronic motifs with industrial elements, composed by artists including Kris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan.”
- “I can't think of anything bad to really say about Bulletstorm other than cringy dialogue, great gameplay, soundtrack, every gun feels great to use, and I'd replay this game any day of the week.”
- “Unfortunately, this game's soundtrack is just generic and kind of forgettable to me.”
- “So much stuff happens around, so much of it sounds almost the same as everything else (including music) that audio turns into cacophony, and that's really tiresome to listen to.”
- “My only complaint is that you can't turn the music all the way off (extremely poor UX design imo), so it forms an undercurrent of garbled noise that to me became a bit tiresome after a while.”
stability
89 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
11%
1%
88%
The remastered game is marked by frequent bugs, glitches, and occasional crashes, especially in later chapters, causing frustrations like getting stuck, NPC issues, and checkpoint reloads. While some players find these stability issues charming or manageable, many report game-breaking problems that hinder progression and impact overall enjoyment. Despite generally smooth performance and improved visuals on capable systems, the game’s technical instability undermines its otherwise fun gameplay experience.
- “Runs great, has no problems with 4K or higher refresh rates.”
- “Runs great even on high settings (50-144 fps, capped at 144 because of my monitor) on my machine (FX 8350 and RX 480).”
- “The game itself looks and runs great on my GTX 970.”
- “The Full Clip Edition is not a perfect remaster. I encountered several glitches: once the game got stuck on a black screen after a cutscene, forcing me to restart from a checkpoint; other times the low health status sound effect got stuck and played constantly, making it barely possible to hear anything else.”
- “Frequent crashes on Windows 10, often while starting the game up (although it ran on the second attempt); poor control mapping with inconsistent keybinds (at least three different keys for confirming actions, none intuitive); awful mouse acceleration for aiming; and frequent physics and visual glitches.”
- “Overall, around 70% of my deaths and checkpoint restarts were due to bugs and glitches.”
optimization
75 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
55%
12%
Optimization for Bulletstorm: Full Clip is generally praised, with smooth, stable performance on modern hardware even at high settings and frame rates, though some users report occasional crashes, stuttering, and minor graphical glitches. The remaster offers improved optimization compared to the original, but occasional issues and higher system requirements persist, especially on older or mid-range PCs. Overall, the game runs well and delivers a solid technical experience for most players.
- “You’re likely going to have no complaints in this department because the game runs quite well with graphics cards such as RX 590, GTX 1060 or other GPUs of similar performance; 60 fps at maxed settings won’t be an issue.”
- “Full quality settings, smooth performance, and zero issues.”
- “Performance is fantastic (60 fps consistently with GTX 1070, i7-6700k 32GB RAM - you can get up to 240 fps only if you turn VSync off).”
- “Can't believe how poorly optimized this game is.”
- “Only reason I am giving a downvote is because optimization is fully crap, crashed more than 30 times when Steam is online.”
- “As if this wasn't annoying enough, the game is poorly optimized; I'm well above the recommended specs and I still encountered a lot of slowdown during loading points.”
replayability
74 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
36%
53%
11%
Bulletstorm offers moderate to high replayability primarily due to its addicting skillshot system, overkill (new game+) mode with unlocked weapons, and additional modes like Echo and co-op Anarchy that encourage score challenges and team play. While the main campaign is relatively short (around 6–8 hours) and linear, these features, along with varied combat mechanics and weapon experimentation, provide ample incentive for multiple playthroughs, especially for players seeking action-packed fun and completionist goals. However, some find the replay value limited by scripted sequences and the lack of deeper multiplayer longevity.
- “Replayability is high, driven by the skillshot system, collectibles, and mission challenges.”
- “Moreover, the game's high replayability value comes from its challenging echo mode, where players can compete for high scores and perfect their skillshot mastery.”
- “Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition has replayability in that you can unlock a New Game+ mode called Overkill Campaign Mode after finishing the campaign on any difficulty.”
- “It's nice, but get it on sale, because there is no replayability in this game, but the action is really exciting.”
- “Basically no replayability.”
- “Most of the campaign is scripted, so there's not much replay value.”
monetization
41 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
8%
90%
The game's monetization is widely criticized as a lazy cash grab, with many players frustrated over the lack of ADS (aim down sights) sensitivity adjustment and toggle options, which forces inconvenient ini file edits. Additionally, the inclusion of paid DLC like the Duke Nukem skin without added features further fuels the perception of profiteering without meaningful improvements, despite the absence of microtransactions or excessive modern FPS monetization practices.
- “With the stuff which is published these days, it is nice to experience something from beginning to end without microtransactions.”
- “This remaster is an overrated cash grab.”
- “The ads sensitivity doesn't change at all and there's no way to change it, the sprint can't be toggled and is the same key as vault.”
- “It's pretty clear this was just sloppily hashed out as a quick cash grab and added nothing of actual value or real improvement to warrant the price tag.”
grinding
29 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
7%
31%
62%
Grinding in the game is generally seen as tedious and sometimes excessive, especially in multiplayer modes and harder difficulties, leading to repetitive combat and gameplay. However, some players find the required grinding minimal and appreciate the rewarding skill-based combat and entertaining elements that keep the experience engaging. Overall, grinding can feel monotonous but doesn't overshadow the game's fun factor for most.
- “A bit grindy sometimes.”
- “Casual grinding.”
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “This mode can be played solely, but I wouldn't recommend that, as it will be very tedious and boring unless the goal is to hunt some achievements.”
- “The combat is tedious, the arsenal is uninteresting and weak, which is a fantastic irony considering they supposedly wanted you to get creative.”
emotional
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
96%
4%
The game delivers a mix of heartfelt and nuanced emotional moments, enriched by strong voice acting and character development, though sometimes hindered by glitches, clunky dialogue, or inconsistent buildup. While the story offers touching and memorable scenes that evoke genuine emotional investment, some characters feel one-dimensional and the overall tone occasionally leans toward cheesiness. Despite flaws, many players find the emotional experience engaging and unique, blending humor, warmth, and impactful storytelling.
- “The plot twists and turns keep you engaged, and the emotional investment in the fate of the protagonists makes for an unforgettable gaming experience.”
- “- The story is surprisingly heartfelt, with some of the most surprisingly nuanced characters I've ever had the pleasure of following.”
- “This walking simulator has some incredibly beautiful environments, fantastic voice acting, and a very heartwarming, Oscar-worthy story.”
- “Why do game developers include boring story-driven tutorials to delay the start of the actual game?”
atmosphere
17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
53%
29%
18%
The game's atmosphere effectively captures the vibe of an 80's action movie set in outer space, blending chaos, humor, and vibrant, well-designed environments to create an engaging and nostalgic experience. While some moments and character interactions fall flat, the overall sense of fun, frenetic gameplay, and stylized worldbuilding make the atmosphere memorable, though it may feel simpler compared to more immersive atmospheric shooters.
- “Giant monsters, towering skyscrapers, betrayals and character moments that are more entertaining than well constructed, all of it's in service of that atmosphere that you're in an army movie set in outer space.”
- “The game world and environments are also beautiful: stunning vistas, vibrant colours, varied locales - it adds to the atmosphere really well.”
- “The worldbuilding and atmosphere are great, the story is simple but engaging, deconstructing the archetypes of the genre while having a great time with them.”
- “Apart from one of the final scenes in the game only having one character speak and no music to increase the atmosphere, this includes Greys mouth not moving, nor does he speak when Triska confronts General Serono about the assassination of her father.”
- “It partially kills atmosphere of DN's badassery.”
- “Its atmosphere reflects something like an edgy Saturday morning cartoon laced with comedic Looney Tunes ultra-violence.”
character development
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
23%
33%
Character development in the game is mixed, with some characters showing surprising depth and interesting growth, while others remain underdeveloped or are sidelined too quickly. The story and character arcs can be over-the-top and occasionally corny, but there are notable moments of development and plot twists that add engagement. Overall, character development may appeal to those not expecting a deeply nuanced narrative but seeking entertaining and action-driven progression.
- “For the character development alone, this game is worth playing.”
- “The story is over the top and a bit naff to begin with, but you soon get into it and there are some character developments and nice plot twists.”
- “There is also some surprising depth to the plot and character development, along with some pretty trashy but funny humor.”
- “Without getting into spoilers, a lot of the characters are very interesting at surface level but they are either killed off too early to realize their potential or have very little character development, so they stay basically the same throughout the entire game.”
- “Character designs seem to be modeled quite heavily from the Gears of War franchise. I wouldn't recommend this title unless you have nothing else to spend time on.”
- “There are some technical hiccups here and there like the linear gameplay and repetitive character designs.”