Thank You Focus Entertainment for providing us with a review code!

I’ll say it outright so I can get it out of the way: I barely know anything about the Warhammer 40K universe, so if you were expecting a review from a diehard fan—you better look elsewhere. However, I’ve been playing first-person shooter games since all those Doom clones have been coming out in the 90s, so I’m very knowledgeable in that aspect at the very least.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun starts with a conflict between the “good guys” the Space Marines (and I’m putting big emphasis on the good guys part) and the heretics. The Chaos Space Marine faction and their legion of daemons want to lay waste to basically everything that lives. It’s a pretty straightforward narrative meant to throw you into the action immediately. There are heretics among us, and they need to be purged. Three chapters spanning 24 levels will have you cleansing daemon filth across the galaxy.

W40K Boltgun sports a retro aesthetic, inspired by the likes of Doom and Quake. The sprite work is mostly used in the enemy/player design and weapons, while the environments use low-poly 3D graphics. The sprite work is very detailed using a great deal of lighting and shading, making enemies and the weapons pop out immediately. While the 3D graphics could have used some more polish as some textures in the more outdoor environments are poor, I’m willing to let it slide as it still fits the overall theme that developers Auroch Digital were trying to achieve.

The unnamed space marine you control is a man who is large and in charge. From my limited knowledge, Space Marines are genetically bred and altered to be the “ultimate super soldier” meant to defend humanity. Their large mass and thick armor let them take plenty of punishment, but they can also move at high speeds at a moment's notice. The space marine can move quickly through the battlefield and even perform a quick dash to plow through enemies like a wrecking ball. The space marine has plenty of weapons at his disposal such as the iconic chainsword used to shred enemies, the equally iconic boltgun/bolter, and a slew of other weapons that act as the game’s equivalent of shotguns, rocket launchers, and laser beams. The titular boltgun feels amazing to use, with a solid sound design to match. When you’re low on ammo before reloading, the boltgun starts to make a much more audible click so you don’t have to keep an eye on the ammo counter. Little things like these are so important in fast-paced action titles. The boltgun is basically your all-purpose weapon: good in any situation, but not the best choice in every situation.

Unfortunately, the other weapons tend to pale in comparison in feeling compared to the boltgun. As evident in the title, it received the most love and care with how it feels and the fact that you can find temporary ammo upgrades for it, but no other weapon. The shotgun has too much spread, and even at close ranges it never feels like it does enough damage. The plasma cannon does high amounts of damage and has some area-of-effect to it, but has a delay after you stop firing and you can’t switch weapons or fire again until the delay is over—leading to awkward moments. If you fire too frequently, it starts overheating and you take damage. The heavy bolter is the heavy version of the boltgun, but ammo for it is uncommon and shooting slows your movement speed considerably so it only sees seldom use. In most situations, you just end up sticking with the boltgun and plasma cannon as they have the most plentiful amount of ammo throughout the maps.

The enemy variety consists of trash mobs, standard enemies, elite enemies, and boss enemies. Trash mobs are plentiful and can swarm you with their sheer numbers. But these enemies tend to die in one to two shots from any weapon in your arsenal. Standard enemies have more health and they usually consist of foes such as the Chaos Space Marine. Elite enemies have nearly 5x the amount of health of standard enemies and usually have highly powerful attacks. Boss enemies are the most dangerous and are foes you cannot take head-on, but are also the most uncommon.

The enemy variety is fairly standard for an FPS. You’ll see most of the enemies that you fight within the first chapter while a few new enemy types will be sprinkled throughout chapters two and three. Fortunately, there are little to no hitscan enemies (enemies that when you're in their line of sight, deal immediate damage to you) as most methods of attacking are projectile based. The enemy AI does predict your path so projectiles tend to go where the game believes you are heading. I don’t mind enemy prediction, but the indicator for taking damage is pretty bad as you only get notified by a light blue or red hue around your crosshair. You can sustain damage very quickly and heavily (and the game itself is even aware of this as you gain brief temporary invulnerability if you sustain too much damage at once). At times I found myself at low health numerous times without even knowing who or what hit me as getting hit by a strong or weak attack gives off the same feedback—unlike practically every other shooter on the market.

On a positive note, you can press T to taunt your enemies. The space marine has a surprising amount of dialogue for a feature that doesn’t mean anything in the end—and yet I would find myself constantly pressing it to hear him say how he will cleanse the daemon filth and purge his enemies. I think more games need a dedicated taunt button.

The gameplay loop of W40K: Boltgun is similar to many retro shooters, with some more influence from Doom 2016 and Eternal. You explore large areas looking for keys that open doors to lead you closer to the end. At times, you’ll fight dozens of enemies in enclosed arenas. You’ll know you’re in an arena fight when the game autosaves and the scenery darkens. At the end of levels, you are judged and graded based on the number of enemies killed in the level and secrets discovered. For better or worse (depending on the player you are), the secrets are not that difficult to find and usually consist of temporary upgrades. Some old-school players may express disappointment with how “easy” secrets are to find, but I’m glad that W40:K Boltgun decided to get rid of the “wall humping” that plagues retro shooters. I never found analyzing every pixel for a prompt or hitting with a weapon engaging gameplay in the slightest.

While W40K: Boltgun doesn’t elevate or innovate the genre, it uses its understanding of FPS to make for a solid experience. Although, because of this aspect, W40K: Boltgun does reach its peak fairly early as you see most of what the game offers by the end of the first chapter. After the first level, subsequent levels can take anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes to complete. While the option to save at any time exists, the fact that these levels go on for so long and only introduce new elements at a snail's pace means playing the game can feel exhausting at times—even borderline repetitive. W40K: Boltgun never gets to a point where it is bad, but it descends into a slow decrease in quality in terms of feel the longer you play.

Now with moral warnings regarding violence. There are only two options: gibs, and ludicrous gibs. Even your basic boltgun will make your enemies explode into a meat pinata and the heavier weapons more or less turn enemies into an indescribable mess of blood and gore. It is very common after a battle to see areas littered with the remains of enemies, and there is no option to town down or remove this feature entirely. Other than that, there are supernatural and fantasy occult references as the chaos legion are led by what is known as the dark gods, and our space marine does make references to the “god-emperor” in these taunts at times. Within the context of W40K: Boltgun of a player unfamiliar with the setting, all of this doesn’t mean a whole lot and to understand everything requires a deep dive into W40K lore. So I will only judge these aspects in the context of the game.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is what I would best describe as a mechanically solid, yet fundamentally flawed experience. It controls great, shooting (with the boltgun at least) feels great, and the sprite work is very impressive for the enemies and weapons. On the other hand, it reaches its peak early, and there are some nasty frame drops every once in a while and very questionable level design. I can’t tell you if it is a good Warhammer 40K game (especially considering that good W40K games, in general, are few and far between), but it is a good shooter overall. If you’re comfortable with the extreme levels of violence and some potentially suspicious (fantasy) occult references, this eight to ten-hour experience will have you purging all the heretics in the galaxy.