Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Review

I have never been a fan of the Warhammer lore, this is not a knock against it, but rather that there is just so much, it feels overwhelming to an outsider. So, when Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun was first announced, my initial thought was it likely wouldn’t be something I would worry about. However, then I saw that it was a retro-inspired FPS, a genre that I find to be very fun, and I realised that the lore would likely not matter here. Was this a gateway into the larger Warhammer universe, or just a nice simple shooter?

Much like other shooters of this type, the story is fairly basic and not in a bad way, but they give you the reason you are shooting everything and that is mostly it. In the game you play as Malum Caedo, a Space Marine who has been tasked with retrieving a power source from a planet called Graia. This source has been used by Techpriests who it has corrupted and caused the world to go mad and if left unchecked could cause chaos for the galaxy. The story is basic at its core, but the opening cutscene of the game is very lengthy, not Metal Gear Solid lengthy, but far longer than I was expecting for a game of this genre. As you progress through the game, you get a little text before each mission and then occasionally some more from your floating navigational aide, but for the most part you are just required to shoot everything you see.

Shooting as you might expect means guns and while there is quite a range of weapons, the one that I fell back onto the most was the Boltgun. This gun has decent range, allowing me the chance to pick some enemies off at a distance and contained a good number of shots in a clip. When things got chaotic or a more powerful enemy appeared, that was when it was time to break out more powerful weapons, like a shotgun. While you can try and power through with the basic gun, as Warhammer is a tabletop series first and foremost, they do use a few of those rules here. The most common one is that each enemy has a strength attribute attached and with that, they are going to take less damage from lower impactful guns, like the Boltgun. Finding out which weapon works best against which enemy does take some trial and error, but once you have it, you will be swapping weapons so quickly, it will feel like gun fu.

The levels play much like those from classic DOOM and other games from that era, they are usually linear in nature, until you enter large rooms, where waves of enemies eventually spawn in. While the impact of those rooms does lessen over time, as in you can see them coming before you step in, the actual gameplay inside never feels old. The game will usually start the encounters in these rooms by throwing in a few low-level folks, but then while you are dealing with them, throws in some more heavy hitters. At first, I swapped to the bigger threat when they appeared, which left the little guys to run around and that turned out to be a bad idea, as those little ones can swarm you very easily. Because of that, having to deal with lots of little guys and a few dangerous bigger ones, keeping moving is critical, and while each room did have a good number of ammo and health supplies, they were not infinite.

Each level also has a varied number of secrets to discover, some of them are instant buffs for your space marine, like dealing double damage, others are just resupplies of important items. Across the games 25 odd levels, there are reasons to revisit if you want to 100% everything, as the game tracks your time taken, enemies killed and secrets found. That means there is a perfect run in there somewhere and while the levels can get a bit longer as the game goes on, they never feel like they are too big. The only real downside to the levels is that the game doesn’t contain a map, so if you are someone who is directionally challenged, you might find yourself running into the same walls over and over again.

That leads into the games presentation, sticking with the levels, for the most part they look great, though they do not have a vast array of designs. Most of the levels feel like a facility built into a mountain and that works for the story line, but you never really feel like you are exploring the world because of it. As the stages progress, some elements do change, the colours shift for one, but overall, its one basic design for the entire game. The weapons all look great and when you fire them, the impact can be felt from the animation they produce. Something that took a bit of getting used to was how the game presented its pixel visuals. The game is not a pixel recreation but rather a 3d world with a pixel filter applied to things. That means from a distance things look normal, but the closer you get the more pixels you will see and then as you get closer, you will see the actual pixels that make up items. This also applies to the enemies, as from a distance they look somewhat normal, but up close their heads and bodies feel like they are made from a handful of pixels and the same happens when they are dead.

The games soundtrack feels like an off-brand DOOM release, not bad in anyway, just nothing to original. The game will kick the music up when you are entering those previously mentioned arena rooms and then once you have slaughtered all the enemies around you, reduce itself back down to barely there. The games locations do have background noises happening, but as your character is in a giant metal suit, you will likely not hear most of it, over the stomping of feat from them. Enemies have shouts and screams, which sound interesting, but they tend to be drowned out by the punchiness of the weapons, especially if you are up close to them.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a simple game, it tasks you with shooting everything that moves and it does it very well. The weapons feel good to shoot and even the games use of the Chainsword is impactful. Where things fail is that the game sticks a little to closely to its roots, meaning they don’t take chances to create something new. Basically, you are getting a retro-inspired shooter that drops you into a world and lets you lose, with the Warhammer aspect not really that important to that. For fans of the Warhammer lore, there will likely be enemy designs or location information that matters, but for those like me, who just want to shoot, you will be able to do that and do it often.

The Score

8.5

Review code provided by Focus Interactive

The Pros

+The guns feel punchy and when surrounded won’t let you down

+The games lore never gets in the way of what you need to do

The Cons

-The world is fairly similar across each of the stages, just with slightly different shadings

-As a retro shooter, the game is very one note, which may deter some players