When it comes to tabletop RPGs and board games I’m not all too deep into the scene. Despite my love for RPGs there was never a moment where I thought about attending a tabletop session. I never played Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, etc. That isn’t to say I hate tabletop games. In all honesty I think they’re really cool, and while there have been numerous RPG video games, nothing can replace the feeling of sitting down with a group of buds and partying the night away with one dice roll at a time. The success of Baldur’s Gate 3 has gotten me looking into tabletop games more and I might actually get into them. Still not fully certain because trying to find the time to play and friends to play with is hard, but I’m debating. One tabletop game I’ve known for awhile now is Warhammer. There’s two Warhammer series, those being the fantasy version and Warhammer 40,000 which blends futuristic sci-fi elements with fantasy. The second being the most popular. Warhammer 40,000 is probably the smartest dumb idea ever made. On paper the concept of humans, orcs, the undead, high elves, and much more duking it out in space warfare in the name of religion sounds extreme for the sake of being extreme. However, it stood out and with time the extreme premise became interesting thanks to good lore and world building.
Warhammer 40,000 blew up big and became one of the top tabletop board games to exist besides Dungeons and Dragons. With its success and dozens of miniatures that can cost up to a fortune there are bound to be ways to make more money off the property. From novels to an animated film and even spinoff board games. Biggest marketing tactic of them all were video games, and my lord there were a lot of Warhammer games. Not all of them great, but occasionally you get a couple standouts. The ones that are actually great video games even if you were to remove the Warhammer licensing from them. Dawn of War and its sequel Dawn of War 2 are considered two of the best RTS games of all time. Mechanicus is a great attempt at XCOM styled strategy, and recently we got Rogue Trader. Developed by Owlcat Games who made the Pathfinder games, and this one follows the exact CRPG formula but instead has more tactical based combat. Been hearing great things about Rogue Trader, but today’s review isn’t about it. No, today’s review is about another Warhammer game that came out earlier this year. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, a boomer shooter developed by indie studio Auroch Digital. They announced the game back in 2022, and eventually Focus Entertainment came along to help with publishing.
Boltgun released earlier this year and reception for it has been pretty good. A lot of Warhammer fans love it as not only is it a blast into the past, but a proper way of adapting Warhammer into something that isn’t turn based or RPG related. This isn’t the first attempt for an action focused Warhammer game. Space Marine, Necromunda: Hired Gun, and Darktide are all cracks at action focused Warhammer games, most of which being shooters. However, Boltgun is considered to be one of the best alongside Space Marine. I picked up Boltgun during a Black Friday sale a few weeks back and my expectations were moderate. I quite enjoy boomer shooters and thought it would be a nice introduction into the Warhammer universe. Finished the game after ten hours and yeah I can say it met my expectations. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a good game. It starts out strong, mostly manages to stay fun, and somewhat falls off near the end. It’s not gonna blow your mind away and it's not the best boomer shooter I’ve played. However, this is a good attempt at making a Warhammer themed shooter and even non fans of Warhammer will get a kick out of this game. Today let’s talk about why I may have enjoyed Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and why it deserves your attention.
Story
Okay readers, so here's the thing. I know jack all when it comes to the lore of Warhammer 40K. I know about the setting and basic premise, but I have no idea what is actually going on. The story was hard for me to understand from the get go and it was still non-understandable when it came to a close. I am still going to attempt to summarize the basic plot, so please don’t get angry at me if I get some of the lore details wrong. Are we good? Good. The game begins with you aboard an Imperium Ship. The Imperium is an allegiance who serve and live under the God Emperor, what I assume to be this benevolent figure to them. Once a man and now ascended to godhood. Fights broke out under his name and his followers went out purging anything that speaks against all he stands for. Waging wars on traitors, orks, the undead, high elves, and much more. The ship you are currently stationed on is hovering over a desolate planet. The planet is uninhabitable and not a single speck of life besides monsters roams the surface. However, something devious pops up on the radar and the Imperium detects what seems to be a Sorcerer opening gateways to summon monsters. The Sorcerer formerly served the Imperium, but has now gone rogue as well as a huge handful of Space Marines. To combat these forces they decided to send you.
You are a Malum Caedo and you are one of many to become an Ultramarine. Heavily modified human beings given superhuman strength, some of the most advanced power armor mankind has ever made, and manufactured for the sake of warfare. Malum and a squad of other Ultramarines are sent down to the planet surface to purge any heretics that stand in their way. Things go wrong and Malum is the only one among his squad that manages to survive the impact. It’s him and him alone, but he promises to make his brothers proud by brutally gunning down anything that says a word against the God Emperor. He’ll collect a variety of guns, traverse dangerous territory, and stop at nothing until the traitor has his head cut off and brought back.
Gameplay
Boltgun is a boomer shooter, and if you played any of these types of games before like Dusk or Cultic then you should know what to expect of Boltgun. Each chapter starts you off with one gun and overtime you accumulate a big ass arsenal. Each level has you navigating maze-like areas, killing anything in your wake, and reaching the end goal. Rather than have regenerating health you instead have health and armor pickups. Health is pretty explanatory as once it reaches zero you die and get sent back to your last save. Armor, which is called Contempt here in Boltgun, is sort of like a secondary health bar. It absorbs some of the damage you take rather than it all going to your health. Once your armor reaches zero the amount of damage you take to your main health bar is critical. That’s why you always want to be on the lookout for armor and health items. Most of which are either lying around levels or dropped upon killing foes. Encouraging you to always stay on the move rather than hug one corner of the arena. There are eight different guns to use in Boltgun and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. The titular Boltgun is an assault rifle and it’s good for mowing down enemies within any range. The Shotgun hurts a lot up close but is infective at a long range. The Heavy Bolter is a heavy damage dealing chaingun, but it has a certain time to rev up and slows down your movement speed. The Plasma Gun shoots deadly plasma projectiles from a long range, and the Volkite Caliver simply burns foes from long range with a high powered laser. Vengeance Launcher attaches explosives on enemies and surfaces, the Melta Gun which shoots a high burn blast, and then you have the late game Grav Cannon which is basically your BFG 9000. All of these weapons are great as long as you know when is a good time to wipe them out. You also have a chain sword to attack enemies up close, which serves as a good finisher if you don’t have enough time to reload and they barely have any health left.
There are a variety of enemies to fight and they each have their own deadly skills. There’s basic cannon fodder enemies who come in groups and shoot at you from afar. These small monstrous guys who swarm you, but up close. These one eyed frog guys who hop around and spit acid, but then there's a bigger one with more health and a deadly tongue attack. Chaos Space Marines who will shoot at you and throw explosives. Tankier versions with heavy artillery, and this one enemy type I hate called the Aspiring Champion who runs up for heavy melee damage and has a chance to resurrect himself for double power. These flying manitrays, bird beaked wizards who throw an array of fireballs at you, and much more. One system that makes Boltgun unique is defense, or at least that’s what I call it. Each enemy has a defense number and your weapons have strength numbers. If an enemy has a higher defense number then it’ll take a gun with a higher strength to kill them easily. If it’s about the same then it’ll do neutral damage. If the strength number is less than defense it won’t do as much damage. This encourages you to swap to certain tools so that you can easily deal with tougher foes. There are some downsides to this system, but we’ll talk more about this later. Occasionally at the end of some levels there is a boss fight and they will throw everything at the player. By everything I mean an assortment of enemies, and you have to stand your ground until you can land one last bullet into your foes. Do that and you progress with the game. Boltgun can get \chaotic at times, but hopefully you can cut down every heretic which stands in your way. Let them know the might of the God Emperor and all who oppose him.
Thoughts
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a good boomer shooter and a majority of players are gonna love what is on offer here. The combat loop is the greatest aspect of Boltgun. It’s a boomer shooter so it has to be the main focus. Every gun has weight, feels satisfying to fire, and you are constantly switching between your tools to fit the scenario you are. The defense system further pushes you to do so as a lot of the stronger enemies in this game will cut you down within seconds unless you do the same to them. Now the game’s environments aren’t exactly the most varied, but there is a lot of color to this game. It’s easy to tell what is off in the distance and know what enemy you are facing due to how recognizable their designs are. I know what a Chaos Space Marine is because it stands out from everything else and then I bust out my assault rifle to nail them from afar. The game knows when to give you a new weapon, when to introduce a new enemy type, & the difficulty is always rising. There are times when that difficulty curve spikes and you have to ask the game how you were supposed to prepare for it, but eventually I would push through and make it to the end. The game is good…. there are problems. I have a lot of problems with this game and that’s why near the beginning I said my expectations were moderately met. Again, this is a good game and I’m willing to recommend it for combat alone. You get a ten hour long single player campaign and for twenty dollars you are absolutely getting your money’s worth. It’s better than a lot of the Triple A shooters that have come out in recent memory. It’s great that boomer shooters have been doing so well recently, but that does not excuse the fact that I have a fair amount of constructive criticism.
The game has a great combat loop, but does not do enough to make it feel refreshing up until the endgame. It took me ten hours to beat Boltgun and I say it should have ended around the eight hour mark. Not only was the combat starting to become repetitive, but it was also running out of new guns and weapons to give me. The level design is decent enough, but there were moments where Boltgun wasn’t giving me a good idea on where to go. I already said environments in this game aren’t very varied, and being a Doom inspired shooter it has a lot of maze-like elements & backtracking. I’m not saying hold your players by the hand, but maybe give them a map due to how complex some of these areas are. One level early on has these teleporters and you need to go through the right ones to progress forward. The game does a terrible job at signaling which ones are right, and it’s hard to keep track of which ones lead to where or which ones you went through. If they had given me a radar then I would have had an easier job keeping track of them. One of the later levels called The Grand Elevator is this huge sprawling arena that is confusing to navigate and battle around. Which brings me onto my second point in that Boltgun thinks bigger arenas later on create more spectacle. When in actuality it creates a playspace that is not fun to fight in. It’s either too much is going on and you’re getting confused on what to do, or you have enough distance to pick off enemies from afar and make some fights more trivial.
The defense and strength system is great, but after a while it makes some weapons feel useless or that you should over rely on certain tools. The shotgun, usually a great gun in most shooters, is absolutely terrible after the first chapter. It has a strength number of three and does not go any higher than that. The plasma gun has a strength level of seven though, which is weird seeing how early you unlock it in the game. In fact, I personally believe Boltgun needed a leveling system for its weapons. Something to connect it to the RPG systems of Warhammer 40,000. Give me the ability to increase weapon strength, or better yet have me search for those secrets. These kinds of shooters are filled with secrets and I’m surprised the only secrets you have are easy to spot buffs for the assault rifle which lasts less than half a minute. Boss fights are probably my least favorite thing about Boltgun. They are these giant bullet sponges which waltz around arenas and the devs thought the best way to make them hard is by spawning dozens of enemies to harass you from every angle. If anything it makes the fights longer than they should be, more chaotic than they should be, and sometimes frustrating seeing how very little room you have to move around in and the small room for error. The final boss in particular was a twenty minute slog for me and even though I managed to do it in one attempt my brain was getting ready to burst. By the time I had finished Boltgun my mind was already ready to move onto another game. The story I don’t have to say anything about because it’s forgettable and feels like an afterthought. Which is weird seeing how complex Warhammer 40,000 lore is and how games like Rogue Trader dive deep into the universe of this series. I don’t hate Boltgun despite everything I just rambled on about. I like it, but at the same time I’m kind of starting to get sick of boomer shooters seeing how I covered up to six of them now this year. Boltgun is probably the most mindless and joyous amongst these games, and for that I respect it. I am going to give Boltgun an 8/10 for being pretty good.
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