Bulletstorm Once had Campaign Co-Op, but It "Broke Down" the Game

As an irreverent, dick-joking romp filled with guns and bloodshed, Bulletstorm would seem to be a natural for cooperative play in the game's main campaign. It actually was much less than a perfect fit, said Epic Games' design boss.

A cooperative campaign mode "was in there at one point and it actually worked," Cliff Bleszinski told The Telegraph. But it worked on a technical level, not in a way consistent with what Epic and developer People Can Fly want players to get out of the game.

"We found that the game shifted from being this kind of puzzle shooter into essentially this downhill skiing simulator, where people were seeing how fast they could get to the bottom of the mountain," Bleszinski said. "Really the game 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."

Removing campaign co-op let Bulletstorm add in huge set pieces "like the giant robotic dinosaur," Bleszinski said, "or slow motion one-offs that could only occur in a single player game."

In the rest of the interview, Bleszinski explains how Mega Man and Mortal Kombat inspired certain game features, and responds to the Fox News claim that Bulletstorm's imagery would cause an increase in sexual violence.

Bulletstorm developer interview: Cliff Bleszinski [The Telegraph]