“The very first prototype of Bulletstorm was a third person shooter,” says Jessen

By Stephany Nunneley

Bulletstorm’s producer, Tanya Jessen, has said the shooter first started out in third-person view instead of first, but was changed when the development team decided to go with a non-cover based FPS mechanic.

Speaking with OXM, Jessen said the team went through a few different variations with the game before deciding to stick with the mechanic it has now.

“The very first prototype of Bulletstorm was a third person shooter,” she said. “We always knew from the beginning we wanted lots of environmental stuff. We knew we wanted an over-the-top pulp sci-fi feeling and we knew we wanted it to have a very distinct attitude and tone. But the gameplay was completely different than it is now at the beginning. It was cover-based. So it went from a third person shooter, to a cover based first-person shooter, to a non-cover based first-person shooter.

“We actually went through lots of iterations of how cover could work really well in a first-person shooter. But when it came down to it, once we started to see how great some of the weapons were coming along, we felt the core of Bulletstorm is the face of the enemy and the player figuring out what to do.

“So in that case cover-based combat didn’t really work so well.”

The game, which centers around an exiled drunk and his team battling things like mutant cannibals, is out February 22 in the US and February 25 in the UK for PC, Ps3, and Xbox 360.

Buying the 360 version gets you access to the multiplayer beta of Gears 3, the content of which Epic is still debating on.