Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (PC)

Geoffrey Wright | June 14, 2023 | Review | No Comments

You usually know what to expect from a Warhammer 40K game, the same with almost any modern boomer shooter. So how would one go about standing out from the plethora of games in either? How about merge the two? Which is exactly what Auroch Digital have done. A perfect marriage? Lets find out

Crash landing on the Forge World Graia, Malum Caedo, a Sternguard Veteran Space Marine of the Ultramarines Chapter, is on mission of great importance to the inquisition. This mission is to locate an immense power source misused by the planets tech-priests, Malum Cand his squad was tasked with retrieving this Power Source with the aid of a Servo Skull belonging to the late Inquisitor Drogan. Now alone following the crash landing and surrounded by heretics, Malum sets out to finish the mission.

Opening up with a cool retro styled intro, that’s also fully voiced, the game quickly gets into the action without much more. These DOS looking cutscenes spring up a few times and are never a nuisance. Playing through the game you’ll start to realise that the story ties itself into Space marine as a kinda pseudo sequel. The planet, power source, inquisitor Drogan, Malum’s mentions of Captain Titus etc all goes back to the events of the aforementioned game. While its a nice touch, it’s not required to have played Space Marine beforehand so you can take it as a self-contained story as well.

As expected of this type of shooter, Boltgun aims for a retro look to its graphics with some modern flourishes that don’t look out of place. Environments are rendered in 3D, alongside pickups etc, and are furnished with pixelated textures akin to a typical 90’s shooter – though this doesn’t prevent a good amount of detail to be put into the 40K gothic architecture. 2D sprites are used for enemies and weapons etc. Your weapons can look great and animate well, the same can be said for enemies too as they aren’t really hyper detailed to fit the style but are still easily recognisable at a quick glance. Particle effects are probably the most pleasing aspect of the visuals, the way some bodies dissipate into hundreds of particles never not looks good.

Sound backs up the visuals with some booming weapons and BGM that picks up when the intensity does. There’s also plenty of voiced insults to throw at the corpses of the emperors enemies, it takes some time before they start to repeat so you won’t bore of letting the demons & heretics know their foolishness. Given the style aimed for the game can be relatively light on resources, but can use more than expected when maxed. 4K/120fps wasn’t really an issue for my system (R7 5800X/32Gb/RTX 3090), but using DLDSR (like I usually do for these boomer shooters) would see the odd dropped frame. Still it should be easy enough to lock up performance on even a low end system.

Looking around here you can likely guess how the game plays, and sure enough, It’s exactly the W40K boomer shooter you think it is. The gunplay is as good as you expect and the brisk pace of moving from skirmish to skirmish will never leave your trigger finger itchy. Each level will play out like this with a few skirmish areas to clear, you can generally guess when they occur as there’s always plenty of pickups scattered around. These battles can last some time and chew through ammo & health, I’ve finished a few with single digit health left, and then there’s the chaos marines that usually show up too seeking the emperors wrath. Luckily you’ll usually get the key required to open the next area or finish the stage when the killing ends, so there’s a bit a breather before the pace picks up again.

They say variety is the spice of life and its that with regards to enemy types that will keep you on your toes. The early grebs can be downed with just a few rounds from the trusty bolter, but its not long before tougher and more diverse enemies show up. While most heretics will simply just fire at you, the demons come in all shapes & sizes with their own unique flavour. Some spawn others when they fall, others spray fire in a way that will have you thinking is suddenly a bullet hell shmup, but each comes for you in their own and can really mix up a skirmish. Weapons are also varied and are well paced with their availability, even if you miss them in early secrets. The trusty Bolter always works, but soon you’ll be thankful of the likes of the heavy bolter and plasma – when all else fails there’s a chainsword too, great for chained attacks against mobs of weaker enemies.

Boltgun wears its influences on its power armour. There’s plenty of solid and fast paced gunplay to be had, the visuals still manage to maintain that 40K feel even with the retro style, and the Space Marine pseudo-sequel story is a nice touch and well presented. There isn’t really much to dislike if a boomer shooter or W40K fan to be honest. I suppose it doesn’t try to move the needle in any way, but I don’t think there was any intention to by the developer given how solid the game as a whole turned out to be.