Bulletstorm devs “didn’t realise how dirty” the script was

Posted October 7, 2011 by Lewis Denby in News.

Bulletstorm developers People Can Fly reveal that they “didn’t realise how dirty” their game’s script was – saying that as they are Polish, all the English swearing just sounded “exotic and fun”.

The script of Bulletstorm, as you might remember, is quite sweary. Not just generally sweary, either. There is, for example, quite an obsession with dicks. But according to creative director Adrian Chmielarz of developer People Can Fly, the team weren’t quite aware of how offensive the script came across in English.

“Do you know any swear word in a foreign language? German, French, Polish?” he asked the latest issue of Game Developer Magazine (an overview of the issue can be found on Gamasutra). “When you say it out loud, no biggie, right? Not a problem to use it during a family dinner, I assume?”

That, he said, is what the Polish development team thought of Bulletstorm’s script. But then they read it back in their native language.

“Being Polish, all the strong language in Bulletstorm was just exotic and fun to us,” said Chmielarz. “We did not feel its power.”

He revealed that Epic thought the team wanted to run with the over-the-top offensiveness, and allowed them that creative freedom. But actually, that wasn’t necessarily what was intended. “It was only at the end of the development, when I read the Polish translation of the game, that I realised how dirty we were,” he said, adding that he “kinda blushed”.

Don’t worry, Adrian. We thought the game was hilarious. In fact, check out our Bulletstorm review to find out why we awarded it 8.8 out of 10.

Tagged as Bulletstorm, Epic Games, People Can Fly