Bullet Noir is a game about shooting people. It’s about as close to a Devolver Digital game as you can get without them being involved. It comes from Wolcen Studio, the devs behind ARPG Wolcen and the upcoming Project Pantheon, and is incredibly simple and effective in its execution.
The story as presented in the preview build is straightforward. Someone killed your dad, and as a hard boiled detective with a bunch of hardboiled detectives egging you on like bloody minded enablers, you’re not taking it lying down. A clunky work-in-progress cutscene shows an assassination attempt at the funeral, which leads into a violent, super-fast paced action top-down action game that evokes Hotline Miami by way of Sin City.
Nothing about Bullet Noir is subtle. As soon as you enter a level your gun is out, and Red-highlighted enemies will swarm your position as soon as you make a noise. It’s a one-shot, one-kill set-up, and anytime you stand still for even a second in the presence of an enemy, you’ll catch a brand new hole somewhere.
Movement is smooth despite some jittery bugs in this early build, and the shooting is ridiculously satisfying. Aiming is easy, while you can lock on for a distance shot by clicking the right stick. Each stage has a couple of objectives such as finding documents, gathering evidence, freeing a witness, or taking out a specific target, but it’s nothing overly cerebral. This is popcorn gaming of the highest order, but you will need to balance constantly moving with situational awareness if you want to survive.
Enemies come at you fast, some with guns and others with knives or bats. Running out of ammo will often see you dead unless you think fast, but reloading is for pansies. When a gun is empty you’ll need to replace it, which means killing a goon and taking theirs. It forces you to engage at all times, and rewards you for it with brutal, immediate violence. This is a cathartic experience through and through, with failure dropping you instantly at the start of the area and allowing you to try again, learning enemy placement and behaviour through each bullet you swallow. I’d consider it old school by today’s standards, burning through clichés at a rate of knots and offering the kind of moment-to-moment gratification we used to see all the time but which became less prevalent over the last few years.
With a variety of characters, Bullet Noir also offers an Arcade Mode where you can try out different protagonists, and a hardcore mode, which is just a less forgiving version of the already tough standard mode. I’m not expecting it to be a long or deep game by any metric, but it doesn’t have to be. Bullet Noir is a black, white and red blast-fest with as much story as it needs to provide context and a combination of sound design and animation that creates a palpable, pulpy atmosphere that feels familiar to anyone who spent the 2010s violently murdering goons from above. It’s not doing anything remotely original, but it’s unpretentious, uncomplicated, and loads of fun.
