Maybe the final word dream of a ‘90s Metalhead nerd, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is the fusion of retro-style first-person shooters with the beloved sci-fi universe that birthed the time period “grimdark.” It will get loads of enjoyable mileage purely from combining the aesthetics, sense of story, and degree design of a sport like Duke Nukem 3D or the unique Doom with the wealthy library of character designs that 40K has constructed up in its 35 or so years of historical past. You are a Area Marine Sternguard, a embellished elite who would not say a lot, and also you’re on mortgage to the scary and really imply imperial Inquisition. Your job is to kill every little thing between you and… no matter goal you are at present after. Do not assume too exhausting – there’s not a lot of a plot right here, only a complete lot of old school working and gunning.
Throughout three chapters and some dozen ranges you may cleanse, purge, and kill each single Chaos-worshiping heretic and daemon on the extraordinarily brown-and-gray forge world of Graia. (Easter egg: That is additionally the setting of 2011’s Warhammer 40,000: Area Marine, which technically makes this a spinoff-sequel to that story.) You are guided alongside the best way by a little bit Servo-Cranium who, in a pleasant play on the standard annoying floating companion archetype, simply gives deadpan in-universe commentary on the world round you – largely to notice issues like how a close-by stack of containers is organized in an unapproved, doubtless heretical trend. It will additionally level out room exits in complicated bits, albeit inconsistently.
The retro cred of Boltgun is plain, although I’ve to notice that you would be able to flip down the pixelation and tweak the colour filter to make it less complicated to see what is going on on. That’ll go away you with extra of a low-poly shooter with clean textures and 2D sprite enemies if you happen to for some cause are a mutant that prefers crisp traces and unmuddled distance views. Individually, I fairly preferred the visible filters and located the pixel type improves Boltgun’s appear and feel.
The retro cred of Boltgun is plain.
It takes one thing like eight to 10 hours to beat the marketing campaign, which begins a bit sluggish however ramps up rapidly into a powerful center part, and ends on a spree of unremarkable finish ranges that’re punctuated with some actually sudden and enjoyable gems. Like loads of retro-shooters, Boltgun might be finest loved by those that’re thinking about difficult its hardest difficulties. Meaning getting the grasp of the run-and-gun fight and motion skills in a bid to grasp degree layouts and weapon sorts – one thing that the weapons in Boltgun lend themselves nicely to, as every has a particular job to do.
Talking of weapons, there are eight of these plus your chainsword, which you’ll mash the button to rev in melee and make your enemies explode into strawberry jam. I used to be a specific fan of the sticky grenade-firing Vengeance Launcher (making its triumphant return from Area Marine) and the Heavy Bolter which, in true retro-shooter trend, by no means requires a reload – it simply retains firing till your ammo pool is dry. Additionally of word are the long-range plasma gun, the cone-shaped blast of the melta gun, and the precision beam of the volkite caliver, all of which fill a helpful area of interest in your arsenal.
Whether or not it is the titular Boltgun, a pleasant shotgun, or the heavy-melting graviton gun, each weapon has a Power stat and each enemy has one for Toughness. Weapons of decrease Power than a goal’s Toughness deal a lot much less injury, whereas extra highly effective weapons punch proper by means of baddies. Meaning you should alter on the fly, ensuring to preserve high-strength ammunition for high-toughness enemies – and know when to bust out the massive weapons to clear a crowd of mid-level baddies earlier than they swamp you. If this sounds acquainted to you you then most likely play tabletop Warhammer and can deeply respect this degree of dedication to the bit.
When you play tabletop Warhammer you’ll deeply respect this degree of dedication to the bit.
Talking of dedication: You’ve gotten well being in Boltgun, however you do not have armor – you’ve got Contempt. It’s a contact that’s deliciously appropriate to the fanatical hyper-zealot warrior-monks that the Area Marines are and a pleasant callback to the notorious Area Marine mantra “My armour is contempt, my protect is disgust, my sword hatred. Within the Emperor’s title, let none survive.”
And there certain are loads of baddies to un-survive. Boltgun hardly ever appears afraid to throw huge hordes at you, even in small areas: a number of instances per degree you may hit a big area and the display will tint pink, indicating that you have entered “Purge Mode” and subsequently are locked right into a fight enviornment. That is the place Boltgun shines, asking you to benefit from your superhuman jumps, sprints, costs, and immunity to fall injury to evade and obliterate overwhelming odds. Purge Mode enemies will hold spawning till you knock out a couple of key enemies – typically the hardest ones like larger Daemons, Chaos Terminators, and boss monsters.
They’re usually good enemies, to be trustworthy. Properly balanced between ranged and melee, they require you to change ways: No working round within the open towards Chaos Terminators and their long-range autocannons, for instance. Or absolutely the jerks which might be Chaos Champions, livid melee combatants who, when killed in any means that doesn’t flip them into giblets, will pray to their darkish gods for an opportunity to return to life. There’s additionally a couple of with good, bizarre powers thrown in – like Pink Horrors, who turn out to be two Blue Horrors when killed. Pleasant and true to 40K canon!
I additionally loved the handful of bosses, and even after they repeated they have been fairly nasty to struggle: I all the time discovered it useful to discover a secret cache with a vortex grenade and stored it on-hand for these events. Nothing ends a larger daemon’s day like a tiny black gap that is additionally a portal straight again to area Hell.
Enemies are silly as rocks.
There are simply two issues with the horde of dangerous guys. The primary is that enemies are silly as rocks, usually content material to allow you to gun them down from vary if they cannot see you or get to you. It feels particularly dangerous when it is a melee enemy. They do not even attempt to disguise, which takes a number of the satisfaction out of a kill. For many individuals, particularly challenge-seekers, the braindead AI is the place this sport will danger shedding them.
The opposite drawback is that by midway by means of the marketing campaign you’ll have seen the final of the brand new enemy sorts and even bosses – there’s no more than 20 in whole. Even apparent enemy variations would have been welcome: Each single Chaos Area Marine you struggle is carrying the identical boltgun and grenades, with not one plasma or meltagun to be seen. Even stranger to me is that when you struggle loads of Daemons it is all the time both Plague or Change monsters – by no means a mixture of the 2, which looks as if it might have been a simple means to supply a little bit of selection.
In concept, this shortage of enemy sorts ought to be counterable with sturdy degree design. That treatment works for many of Boltgun, however by the top of the second chapter wandering corridors on the lookout for coloured keys begins to get a bit boring – a gameplay cliche I believe we should always have discovered was a nasty match for this setting from 2003’s Warhammer 40K: Hearth Warrior. It is that connective tissue between these intense enviornment fights that begins to get a bit repetitive, and whereas there are secrets and techniques to attempt to discover, none of them are significantly creative – largely simply issues hidden behind or inside a hexagonal grimdark delivery container. Not one illusionary wall to stroll by means of or obtusely hidden door to find (or if there are, I couldn’t discover them).
To its credit score, practically each degree has a minimum of one standout half: you’ll battle by means of sprawling cathedral interiors, area protection cannons, forge complexes, and alien-dug caverns amongst others. I significantly preferred one big cathedral-like area with smaller church buildings suspended inside it, every of which needed to be reached by soar pads. There’s additionally an important degree set in an enormous foundry the place you struggle up one facet of a river of molten goop, then down the opposite.
There are some actual standout ranges right here, too. The massive elevator on the orbital Crown station is a huge, repeated enviornment struggle in a posh multi-level construction that I cherished leaping and climbing round as I fought. As a rule I’ve all the time hated ranges which might be one big elevator, however Boltgun can now proudly declare to be the exception that proves it.
Boltgun impresses with Warhammer 40K chops and a completely realized imaginative and prescient of the well-known franchise as a contemporary retro-shooter, gentle on story however heavy on motion and nods to the tabletop sport. The extent design of its many fast-paced enviornment fights is pleasing, however the momentum drags as soon as the brand new weapon and enemy sorts run out about midway by means of. Nonetheless, the standard’s excessive sufficient that I by no means obtained bored – however I believe somebody who is not hungry for a retro-shooter or any 40K sport they will get their fingers on is likely to be a bit let down.