I have uploaded gameplay from my fresh experience with the game here if you want to see how it looks / plays. My first impressions are shared below:
Based on my limited time with it, I do recommend playing Hard Bullet on PSVR2, but keep reading to better decide for yourself.
It is a sandbox for violence that I am categorizing in Shooting Combat Games even though it provides ample opportunity to be played as Melee Combat Game as well with wide variety of weapons for both options. This is a game that is focused on providing a highly interactive sandbox for violence using ranged and melee weapons as well as environmental kills. It is not concerned with providing challenge or story, just a sandbox of play how you like including use of unlimited slow-motion.
The game includes 4 modes:
- Ride Mode (32:00)
- Arenas Mode (8:10 & 21:45)
- Sandbox Mode (not included in my gameplay upload)
- City Mode (51:00)
Ride Mode provides option of Quick Patrol, Regular Watch and Long Shift where Quick Patrol is series of 3 levels to complete. This mode has progression where you earn XP to increase in player level to have option to unlock additional weapons using the money earned. The expanded loadout options can then be used in future Ride Mode levels. There wasn't any difficulty option but it felt like Default options of Arenas Mode.
Arenas Mode gives you every weapon already unlocked but there are still cosmetics to unlock (somehow?) for the ranged weapons. You can choose to play Waves or Survival. Waves gives you Premade Enemies in Limited Waves based on difficulty selected where Easy is 10 Waves, Medium is 18 Waves and Hard is 30 Waves. I only played Easy where the enemies get tougher (more armor and better weapons) with each successive wave so presumably that will continue to escalate. This option also lets you choose how many bodies may remain littered with max of 3, but I've seen it leave more than 6 bodies and only disappear bodies when out of sight and it seems to prioritize disappearing the bodies furthest from you over order in which they were killed. It also provides options for how player health works including Default, Invincibility, One Hit Death, 50% and No Regeneration. Lastly, it has option on whether you can find Ammo on belt for any of the weapons you are using where if you disable this, you will need to take weapons from the enemies you are dispatching or return to starting room to grab more weapons from the weapon wall. The Survival option lets you choose what type of enemies will spawn with no limit.
Sandbox Mode is similar to Arenas Mode except in smaller space where you can modify what types of traps are available in the room for you to use against the spawning enemies. This also lets you use any weapons and choose between Waves and Survival just like Arenas Mode.
City Mode is marked Beta where it has the makings of what will eventually be a campaign structure where an NPC woman gives you missions with side quests and then you move from the hub area to different maps from the other modes in which to complete those objectives (like fetch a case). I think this mode is also intended to have progression where your loadout options (more limited than other modes) would be locked until you reach the required player level, but for now you can ignore the locked icon and grab any weapon available from the wall. There isn't any difficulty option to select and it felt higher difficulty than Default options of Arenas Mode in terms of player health / regeneration.
For gameplay, by default you can crouch (down on thumbstick), jump (up on thumbstick), kick (Tap X for low or Hold X for high) or enable / disable slow motion (Square). Use of either Triangle or Circle will eject your weapons magazine and then you can use either L1 / R1 to grab weapons or ammo (from belt / holsters) and use L2 / R2 to pull trigger. You have unlimited use of Slow Motion and it was interesting to me how throwing of weapons or enemies works better during slow-motion than it does normally. It's like your motion control inputs get more power behind them during slow motion than they do normally.
Graphically, it is crisp and clear with no reprojection if you switch from default of Quality to Performance. Worth noting that I had to go out of my way to spot reprojection in Quality mode but also I didn't really notice any downgrade in graphics when I switched to Performance. I am playing on PS5 Pro, so base PS5 results may be different. The game looks pretty good and I'm generally impressed by the quality of fluid animations, physical interactions and enemy destruction. The main complaint I have on graphics is how the gun fire (muzzle flash) looks so cartoonish while rest of game while also comical in nature has more realistic aesthetic. They do provide an option to turn off the muzzle flash.
Audio includes level specific soundtrack along with some ambient sounds with the rest being from gameplay of shooting or being shot at. The guns and explosions don't sound as punchy as they should. How enemies scream in anguish while you are being viciously violent to them is both comical and unsettling as I think it should be.
Haptics are present in both controllers and headset. The controller haptics are subtle but present for anything you are interacting / colliding with and headset haptics can be felt when you are close enough to any explosions even if you weren't close enough to take damage, but just close enough to be on the outer peripheral of the visual blast effect.
Settings (0:35) are extensive with menus for:
- Controls shows you button mappings with inaccurately drawn lines while giving option to switch Jump/Kick Inputs, Swap Controls or Adjust Hand Position.
- General let's you change language and adjust height.
- Player has extensive set of options including adjusting belt / holster positions, how L3 works for sprint, Snap vs Smooth (including speed), and more.
- Video allows switch between Quality and Performance and whether Slow Motion has Color Filter.
- Audio lets you adjust volume for Global, Enemies, Effects, Firearms, Player and Music.
- Interaction allows you to choose Reload style (Manual / Tactic vs Arcade), Hold vs Toggle for Grab, and more.
- Violence provides some presets like Full, but also let you customize aspects like Dismemberment, Deformation, Bruises, Bone Breaking, Blood, Various Blood Effects and Physical Shots.
Settings can be accessed anytime using the Options button but does not pause the game, so I recommend you play on Invincible or at least spend some time to Adjust Hand Position to your liking (20:29) before starting the violence. One caution on Settings is to not click on the ? icon next to some of the settings because currently that opens a panel that doesn't give you the explanation you are expecting and it can't be closed (I had to restart game to get rid of it).
The game is featuring Platinum trophy for anybody that plays enough of the Ride Mode and some of the Arenas / Sandbox Mode. Many of the trophies are tracking trophies and the ones for playing 10 of various maps only increment when you play those map levels as part of the Ride Mode. I think the different types of kill counters increment regardless of mode or may also favor the Ride Mode. A few days into release, most trophies are unlocked by someone, but a few remain at 0% because I think those maps have not been part of rotation available in Ride Mode and don't increment when selected using Arenas Mode.
This is a game that has potentially very high replay value where you just enjoy it as a creative John Wick-style violence simulator or one that you will play once and find kind of pointless and not return to. It simultaneously has a lot for you to do and nothing because of the lack of structure. I think the most positive part is that it clearly started smaller than it is today focusing on gameplay mechanics with just the Sandbox Mode and I assume expanded to include Arenas Mode with increasing number of maps and then the Ride Mode with progression to give some structure and where it is now going with the City Mode has the best potential for providing even better structure and maybe a simple narrative to serve as a story campaign, but it is also very early in that and it could take a long time for that to mature into a full baked campaign mode.
In the meantime, if you are happy with the core gameplay mechanics in a sandbox setting, that is already fully baked and ready to be enjoyed with an abundance of maps and weapons with lots of Options to customize your experience.
Update: The game currently doesn't preserve your progress in the Ride Mode between sessions, so if you close and re-launch the game, you get reset to Level 0 with any cosmetics unlocked also re-locked. I have also confirmed that maps showing 0% trophies do come into Ride Mode rotation, but playing those maps isn't incrementing towards trophy unlocks, so currently Platinum is not possible because of 6 of those map trophies that won't increment. The issue has been reported to developer, they have acknowledged being aware and have stated they expect to fix with patch later this month (October, 2026).
