Bulletstorm, developed by Epic and People Can Fly, and published by Electronic Arts, was originally released in 2011. Despite being a very decent (and pleasingly ridiculous) shooter, it wasn't exactly a runaway hit, and so there was never any sort of follow-up—until last week, that is, when Gearbox announced the Full Clip Edition at The Game Awards. It's not a sequel, unfortunately, but a remaster of the original, which led some people to wonder if owners of the original would get it as a free, or heavily discounted, upgrade.

Alas, the short answer is "no." Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford took to Twitter shortly after the announcement to explain that it's "not possible" to offer the remade game as an upgrade. "Completely different publisher, era, platform (they were Games for Windows only), product/sku, etc." he wrote. He also addressed an unflattering comparison with the recently-released Darksiders Warmastered Edition, a new version of the game that was given freely to owners of the original release.

@RichardTeph Different case. New owners of Darksiders captured all past/present/future rights. We're just publishing someone else's game.December 3, 2016

"Someone else's game being a rebuilt/remastered/enhanced game over something previously offered by a different publisher," he continued. "Nordic bought entire rights past-future from a defunct publisher. This is a very different situation."

Clearly not everyone is happy about it, especially in light of the precedent set by Darksiders Warmastered or BioShock: The Collection, which was offered to owners of the originals as a straight-up freebie. And personally, I think 50 bucks is pretty steep for a re-release of a five-year-old game. But it's also awfully presumptive to expect studios to remake games and then give them away for nothing (or next to it), especially without knowing the full circumstances behind the decision. Presumably 2K can afford to take a victory lap with a BioShock re-release; People Can Fly may not have that luxury.

It's possible that minds will change between now and the launch day, which is more than four months away, but I wouldn't hold my breath.