Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun hands-on preview

To put it succinctly, Boltgun fucks

There’s joy in being a big, chonky brute. After some hands-on with the latest Warhammer spin-off game recently, Boltgun, I was half convinced that the “40,000” in the title was in reference to the weight of the big boi that I was in control of. And maaaaaan did it feel so good.

This is Boomer Shootin’ as an 8 course meal.

1. The game has the style of a classic FPS from the 90s, but with some fantastic enhancements to the pixel design and depth. It almost looks like papercraft, with everything feeling like three-dimensional blocks or flat pieces of art, and that’s all thanks to the buttery smooth 60 fps.
2. It controls exactly as you’d expect from a game from that era. They had it right: WASD, space bar, shift key, mouse. Click, click, boom. Being mostly a controller guy when it comes to FPS games, I often forget how good this can feel, especially with a game that LOOKS like it should move in straight lines and submarine rotations.
3. Speaking of movement, there is so much of it in the game. It starts with the verticality (we can get high up very quickly) and we can mantle over obstacles. Jumping is very comfortable, too. Our heor feels BIG and HEAVY but the weight is solid and feels just right. It’s almost impossible to miss a jump, because Boltgun captures the physics side effortlessly. It’s all due to:
4. Speed. The game moves very, very fast. Whether I’m vaulting over obstacles, ducking around corners, or running headfirst into a battle, I feel agile and quick. The demo takes place in one of the early sections of the game, atop a mountain headquarters, in which we need to run in and out of hallways and rooms and jump up and around cliffs and girders. I had forgotten to grab a key in one area, so the speed of the game lets us run from one end to the other in what felt like under thirty seconds. It’s not the size (because the area is HUGE) it’s that everything I do moves at an accelerated rate.
5. Part of that is thanks to the actual Boltgun, a weapon that’s an ultra-powerful combination of a shotgun and motive assault. The gun lets us charge forward into enemies, plowing through them, or to dash through areas at high speed (if we have enough stamina/charge available to us).
6. The enemies don’t stand a chance, really. The demo experience has a generous hitbox for the daemons and Chaos Space Marines that we come across, so I don’t need to pinpoint a head shot — just run and gun and fire fire fire.
7. There’s even a taunt button that lets me shake my fist like an old man yelling at the Space Marine kids. A TAUNT BUTTON.
8. However I want to approach the game’s situations, it’s clear of one aspect: everything goes BOOM. There are explosions everywhere, enemies often erupt into geysers of pixelated blood, and I feel like I’m incredibly overpowered, which I absolutely love.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is Sadomasochism, it’s escapism, it’s nostalgia for a bygone PC era that’s witnessing a resurgence, it’s an outlet for eyeball-bursting VIDEO GAMING, and I can’t wait to get more of it. The game arrives on May 23rd on PC and consoles.

Images and video courtesy Auroch Digital and Focus Entertainment.