You are hereCo-op removed from Epic's Bulletstorm

Co-op removed from Epic's Bulletstorm


By Blackwalt - Posted on 20 February 2011

Along with all my interest in the game

Seriously. All interest I had just vanished. There are few enough co-op games out there and to have the feature pulled at the last moment is even more annoying.

JoyStiq: Cliff Bleszinski talks Bulletstorm's development, canned co-op

    Another interesting tidbit: Bulletstorm originally had campaign cooperative play, but it was eventually removed. According to Bleszinski, co-op killed the game's pacing: it "just broke down, and it was a situation where people would race through the game, ignoring the vistas and they wouldn't set up as many skillshots," he said.

All I can say to Cliffy B is you should pick your co-op partners more carefully. I learned that the hard way.

Note: Bulletstorm will be released this Tuesday, February 22nd.

HardW00D's picture

is anyone going to pick it up

Swag's picture

Co-op is not always the better way to go. It does ruin pacing because everyone rushes in without even taking the time to have a good look at anything. And even audio design gets toned down because of the constant chatter (with some people anyway).

Sure, sometimes is works very well (like L4D and Halo). But if you play those games alone you will quickly find out why they were made co-op (bland art direction, low quality textures, etc). But I'd do that too if everyone ran past an asset that took me a week to make. So why not just make it look like crap? Nobody will care. And what about a decent narrative? You can forget about that.

Imagine if Half-life 2 had co-op. That would be terrible.

Coxxorz's picture

I find Halo is one of the games where co-op feels rushed. Or at least it seems to favour people who do rush, while those who like to explore and find hidden goodies get punished by automatically getting transported to the fray if they're slow to catch up.

Swag's picture

They should transport people back to the person who is searching for stuff. To force them to look as well.

Coxxorz's picture

Might even save their life.

Blackwalt's picture

...then sure.

But this is a game of killing people as creatively as possible. Its previews were sold on passing, leashing, kicking an enemy to a partner (presumably co-op) to have them finish them off in creative ways.

Bulletstorm is a pure action shooter, not a rpg or adventure game. It's story takes third or fourth place to the action.

So his excuse is a little weak.

My biggest issue is Cliff announcing the removal of this major feature 3 days before the release date. How many people are going to buy the game and find out after the fact. I can not imagine that Cliffy just found out the feature is gone.

And, don't get me wrong, Half-Life 2 would be awesome with co-op.

If you want to enjoy the narrative, play it single player. If you want to enjoy playing co-op with a friend, play co-op. If you like both, play it through twice.

But under no circumstances should the removal of a major feature be announced days before launch.

Swag's picture

when I first saw this story I was very surprised that the game didn't have co-op, seemed like a given based on the arcade style.

But I still think that most people would be rushing through the game without trying to do any fancy skill shots simply because their friends would be miles ahead of them by the time they did.

And I am not claiming that the story is the main part in this game.

I do agree that announcing the removal of a feature a couple days before launch is a bad idea. Couldn't this have waited till at least a couple weeks from now?

MauriceRevek's picture

It probably wont be removed, just deactivated. So all you will need to re-activate it, is purchase the first add-on package in 2 - 3 months where co-op will reappear.

MauriceRevek's picture

If you pre-ordered it.

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