The new Bulletstorm trailer is incredibly not-Bulletstorm

It’s almost impressive in its tonal deficiency

Bulletstorm is a game that’s drenched in ridiculousness. Its inane over-the-top combo-centric action is complemented by its equally juvenile dialogue. Here’s a sampling of some choice quotes: “I will kill your dicks!”; “You still reek of sunbaked asshole!”; “Take a lick on the salted taint of doom, you brain-dead biker whores!”; “Trudging through that radioactive goo mutated our good general into a giant pussy.”

That is the kind of not-self-serious game Bulletstorm is. You wouldn’t know it by watching this trailer for the remaster, though. Rather than leaning into everything that defines Bulletstorm, Gearbox and People Can Fly pulled back and cut a trailer that makes it seem like nothing more than another snappy, setpiece-obsessed shooter. The choice of music is especially dissonant. 

Bulletstorm oozes machismo in an effective parody of the space marine Gears of War-like tropes that rose to prominence during the last console generation. It was underappreciated and this remaster is a second chance to revel in everything that made Bulletstorm dumb but unique. You just wouldn’t know it by watching this trailer.