My Favorite Power Fantasy of the Year: Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Review

“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”

The 40k in Warhammer 40K refers to the year 40,000. Instead of an era of enlightenment and scientific advancement the human race (and the super soldiers that have ascended to demigod status) has reverted to the Dark Ages–superstition feeds every aspect of a perpetual motion machine of violence that spirals across the galaxy. It’s still the distant future. Plasma rifles and space travel exist, but so do witch hunters and planet-spanning gothic cathedrals. Words like “heresy” and “chaos” get thrown around a lot. 

Anyone who is fully embedded in the Warhammer hobby would probably agree that this description, while accurate, is an oversimplification. After all, you can summarize the Lord of the Rings in a single sentence but that almost requires you to willfully ignore the fiery mountains of supplementary material–the maps, the histories, the creation of entire fictional languages. Middle-earth is a buffet, but you can choose to enjoy it in single servings. 

I’m familiar with 40K, but I’m not an expert. The lone tome I’ve finished in the Black Library (the publishing imprint dedicated to expanding Warhammer’s lore at the speed and scope of a supernova) is a 400 page rulebook for the tabletop game. Unless you have a friend group that’s already been indoctrinated, every entry point is intimidating and nothing comes cheap (a forum post I read a decade ago converted the price of the official model paint to the price of gasoline–the end result didn’t favor the consumer). All I’m saying is, at the peak of my interest, I could only afford one bank account draining pastime and I chose traveling across the country to collect tattoos, instead. 

If it’s not obvious from that comparison to literal oil prices, Games Workshop (the company that owns the Warhammer license) loves money, and as a result, isn’t picky about who gets to make video games based on their IP. Seeing that two-headed eagle logo grace box art is hardly a seal of quality. Luckily, that cynicism doesn’t apply here, because Auroch Digital’s Boltgun is awesome. 

Boltgun is what has come to be known in recent years as a “boomer shooter”--games built by modern devs that recreate the structure and feel of the genre before Half-Life, before Halo, and before Call of Duty. Previously, these would have been called Doom clones (though, in this specific case, the Doom comparison might be the most appropriate). It includes all the ripping and tearing you’d expect and sprinkles (splatters) its own brand of fanaticism into the mix. A divine chorus literally sings when you pluck the eponymous Boltgun off an altar early in the first level. It’s that kind of game. 

Combat is consistently vicious and finds a solid balance between fighting for your life and establishing that you’re meant to be feared. A couple hours in I’d finished clearing an encounter when I thought I saw an enemy sneaking up on me from the corner of my eye (even though stealth is not a tactic these cultists employ even once during Boltgun’s 10-12 hour runtime). I spun, finger ready on the trigger and my eye trained down the sights, only to discover that the movement I’d spotted was chunks of the group I’d just vanquished still falling to the floor. It’s that kind of game. 

The Series X handles this carnage remarkably well with the exception of some mid-level loads. They’re not the momentum killing transitions of Half-Life 2, but they do hang just long enough for me to question if my console locked up. I would have preferred the designers funnel me into a Jak and Daxter style lift to make these skips less jarring but they barely detract from the experience. After all, less time dedicated to riding elevators means more time killing. 

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun by Auroch Digital, screenshot by me

You’ll gradually build an arsenal of eight firearms and three grenade types. For some reason your collection is removed at the beginning of each act (I know this was standard for some shooters of the era Auroch is emulating here, but it’s odd the designers chose to inherit this specific sin). If a weapon doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll almost never need to settle. The handful of times my bullets ran dry it was just because I hadn’t circled around to the side of the arena with the appropriate ammo pickups. Combat operates on a very basic system of power levels. The bigger the numbers, the better at dropping the enemies with big numbers attached to their life bars. Though even the starting weapon is capable of transforming your quarry into unidentifiable mulch in just a handful of shots. 

The simple cutscenes and briefings are a pleasant surprise, but don’t be fooled by the complexity of your crusade, you fight this menace primarily by pulling levers and gathering keys. Heavy backtracking is rare, the level design is excellent in that regard. The devs consistently find new ways to make the same industrial complexes, cathedrals, and caves feel dramatic. A quick note to all designers reading this, no more M.C. Escher inspired portal mazes. I’m pretty sure there’s never been a good one. 

A few annoyances manage to crest just above this ocean of blood. The floating skull assigned to you, your traveling companion, is worthless. This is partly because his comments are confined to a text box in the top left of the screen (though this is probably a blessing in disguise considering how often he chooses to chime in). As it stands, he solely exists as a dispenser for bad information. One time, after I got turned around in one of Boltgun’s cavernous arenas, he informed me that a door had been located. I searched for five more minutes before I realized the door was actually an elevator. On a different occasion he told me I’d completed my purge while I was still being shot from multiple directions. 

Sir, I think you are mistaken. 

All the other details around the edges are very Warhammer. Your armor is named “contempt.” Your melee attack is a sword and chainsaw hybrid (or a “chainsword” if you prefer the technical term). The weight of your footsteps could crack ribs and echo satisfyingly with every stomp. On the Xbox controller, the Y button acts as a flavor text trigger. Each press has your protagonist yell things like “my sword is hatred” and “triumph or oblivion” with full conviction. These aren’t that different from the aspirations I bark in the mirror before sitting down to write essays about video games. 

The pause and post level screens provide a breakdown of villains vanquished and secrets discovered for completionists. Confusingly, the percentage of enemies killed seems to be based on the number that have spawned in to that point. I stress the “seems to be” in that sentence. This makes it impossible to gauge how much progress you’ve made in a given level (most run a uniform 20-25 minutes). The secrets are, unfortunately, a bit limp. The items contained in these nooks (frequently crammed into the backside of a storage container or a high ledge) are always useful, but the minimal exploration required to find them rarely felt stimulating. Though I guess a grenade that can banish an entire room of chaos soldiers to another dimension is supposed to be its own reward. 

I recommend Boltgun. For me, it was the best way to engage with a hobby I would have continued to neglect, otherwise. It’s on Game Pass (that alone should considerably cut down the intimidation factor for most people who are at least a little bit curious). I was able to bless my hands with the blood of my enemies without the need to scrape superglue and model paint crust from under my fingernails. Hopefully, it won’t be my last crusade–devs working in this shared universe have been on a spectacular run lately with titles like Necromunda, Rogue Trader, Chaos Gate, and Space Marine 2 (the latter is set to launch in September). Though I may need to upgrade to a mansion with a room dedicated to display cases before I commit to piecing together any miniatures.