Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm reinvigorates first-person shooter action with its signature “kill with skill” gameplay. Set in a futuristic confederation protected by an elite mercenary group called Dead Echo, the story follows members Grayson Hunt and Ishi Sato after they realize they’ve been fighting for the wrong side. Betrayed by their commander and exiled to the edge of the galaxy, they end up stranded on an abandoned paradise overrun by hordes of mutants and flesh-eating gangs. Their goals are simple: escape the planet alive and take revenge on the man who sent them there. Players step into the role of Grayson Hunt, wielding an arsenal of oversized weapons and over-the-top combat moves. Bulletstorm’s distinctive “skillshots” reward creative, chaotic takedowns, earning points to upgrade the character and unlock weapons—opening up even more exaggerated ways to fight.

Bulletstorm is set in the 26th century, where the Confederation of Planets is protected by a secret black-ops army called Dead Echo, commanded by General Sarrano. One Dead Echo team, led by Grayson Hunt (Steven Blum), carries out assassinations under Sarrano’s orders, believing their targets are drug traffickers and mass murderers. They kill a man named Bryce Novak, only to learn he was a civilian reporter documenting other civilian deaths caused by Dead Echo. Realizing Sarrano has manipulated them, Grayson and his team go AWOL and become space pirates, hunted by Sarrano’s forces and now calling themselves Final Echo. Ten years later, Grayson’s crew attempts to escape Sarrano’s battlecruiser, the Ulysses, near the planet Stygia. With their ship failing, Grayson—drunk and driven by revenge—orders a ramming attack on the Ulysses. The collision sends both ships crashing onto Stygia. In the wreck, Ishi Sato (Andrew Kishino) is critically wounded, forcing Grayson to search for an energy cell to power the ship’s medical equipment. Stygia, once a popular tropical-like resort world, is now overrun by feral tribes and carnivorous plants. Grayson fights to a Ulysses escape pod, where a Final Echo soldier is overwhelmed by mutants. After killing the attackers, Grayson recovers the pod’s energy cell and an “instinct leash,” which provides strange tactile feedback—such as points awarded for each enemy he kills. Grayson returns with the cell, but while Ishi undergoes surgery, mutants attack their ship. An explosion during the fight cuts the operation short, leaving Ishi a disfigured cyborg. As the only survivors, Grayson and Ishi team up to escape the planet, despite Ishi’s objections to Grayson’s obsession with revenge. Guided by the instinct leash, they locate another escape pod and find Trishka (Jennifer Hale), a Final Echo soldier. She agrees to work with them, but only if they first rescue Sarrano. While fighting through the ruined city, Trishka explains that Final Echo used Stygia as a training ground: instinct leashes ranked soldiers, and only those who earned kills received ammunition and supplies. When Grayson learns Trishka is Novak’s daughter, he tells her Sarrano was responsible for her father’s death—while claiming he doesn’t know who actually pulled the trigger. The trio reaches a skyscraper where Sarrano’s pod landed. Trishka confronts Sarrano about her father, but he kicks her off the building. Sarrano then warns Grayson and Ishi that the Ulysses carries an armed DNA bomb that will wipe out all life on Stygia, and that they must disarm it because his rescue ship will not arrive in time. He leads them through underground areas filled with radioactive waste and a massive prison. Sarrano explains that shields built to protect the surface from deadly electrical storms created the waste, which in turn rapidly mutated the population; many of the feral mutants Grayson has been fighting were innocent civilians who could not be evacuated in time. Enraged, Grayson still helps Sarrano reach the wreck of the Ulysses. Aboard the fallen battlecruiser, Sarrano betrays them again, tricking Grayson and Ishi into actually arming the DNA bomb—while his rescue ship will arrive in time to save him. As fire spreads through the wreckage, Trishka rescues them, having survived her fall by catching a power line. They race to the landing site of Sarrano’s rescue ship and manage to board it. After fighting through Sarrano’s elite troops, they confront Sarrano. Trishka demands the truth about who killed her father, and Sarrano implicates Grayson. In the chaos, Sarrano hijacks Ishi’s computer systems, forcing him to turn on his allies. Grayson breaks Sarrano’s control, and Ishi sacrifices himself to stop Sarrano from killing Grayson. Grayson impales Sarrano against a ship wall. As Grayson and Trishka regroup, Sarrano takes one final action, ejecting them—along with several of his men—back down to the planet. With the DNA bomb close to detonation, Grayson and Trishka sprint back to the Ulysses, where a single escape pod remains. They launch into low orbit and survive, out of range when the DNA bomb detonates.