“I am the edge of his blade!”
Warhammer has been a franchise I've only ever sampled through its variety of gaming titles. From Space Marine to Inquisitor Martyr, and its more fantasy setting in the likes of Vermintide, each game dove into the wealth of lore built around this juggernaut property. Boltgun, the latest game to carry the banner is here, a pixelated shooter inspired by the likes of retro classics like Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake. While its shooting mechanics excel to create an immediately visceral experience, its paper-thin narrative, repetition, and maze-like level design often disappoint from time to time.
Boltgun gleefully pulls from those well-known and classic shooters, with even the aesthetics to match. While the locations and their items are presented with 3D models, enemies, and their corpses are delicious 2D sprites, rotating with your view like the games of yesteryear. And, in typical fashion, you'll be racking up kills as you collect multi-colored keys, flip switches, and use elevators to progress to each level's end. This concept and format colors in the lines of many of the game's 24 levels spread across three chapters, albeit getting a bit too repetitive even by the end of the game’s first chapter.
You begin the game by being gifted a floating cybernetic eye servo skull called Incommodus. They will relay information to you throughout the action, but sadly only via text. The two central characters present in the story are provided voices, with Midnight Mass actor, Rahul Kholi, voicing the protagonist, Malem Caedo, and Rachel Atkins voicing Inquisitor Seibel. Had Incommodus had a voice, I likely would have taken to his information a lot easier, especially as you're often platforming or killing things when his dialogue is being given to you in the top left corner.
In between each of the game's three chapters you're treated to pixelated cutscenes progressing the pretty basic story of tracking down a particular plot device. To be honest, I wasn't looking to Boltgun for any sort of well-told story and found what was here to feel predictably layered with lore and names that Warhammer fans will be eager to eat up, but as a novice to the world of the franchise, little of it made sense other than the brief write-ups of each mission's objective. There is a story here to follow, I simply found it underwhelming and more of an objective list than much else.
When Rahul Kholi was announced to play Caedo, I was pretty stoked. As a fan of the actor, and seeing his recent love for the brand via social media and his Twitch streams, seeing him get this role was pretty damn cool. However, unless Caedo appears in future releases, all he performs here are the taunts you make to spur enemies on. All in all, there is a solid amount of lines for said taunts, but it really feels like Kholi's talents were incredibly wasted.
Had Caedo and Incommodus had some sort of banter or dialogue together during missions or random lines by Kholi to give the character more presence, then I would have been far more invested in both characters, the story, and the presentation to make these characters matter here. Given the connections to 2011's Space Marine, I would love to see Caedo return in some capacity in Space Marine 2 given the events that transpire here.
Boltgun's action is where the game absolutely excels, regardless of its issues. Combat is constantly brutal and the game does offer a few difficulty choices to cater to how difficult it can be, and it can get pretty gnarly with some unforgiving difficulty spikes. Given its influences, you'll be managing a health and armor gauge as you run around collecting more, often pulling it in shards from the bodies of the fallen. And, in typical Warhammer fashion, armor is called contempt here, given the Space Marine mantra. Thankfully, you don't need to pick up a single thing. Ammo, weapons, keys, health, contempt, and secret pickups that can affect your gun all are automatically picked as you fly by them so that you can just focus on the action, shooting the wealth of guns and simply blowing shit up.
Weapons are accessed via the d-pad, selecting them in a cross format of two weapons available on each input. Strangely, your weapon selection resets each chapter with no narrative reason for its justification. You'll then rediscover each weapon again as you explore each level, navigating dead ends, secrets, and elevators that will take you into the depths or high atop each locale, with the odd jetpack here and there to catapult you to out-of-reach platforms. You also can jump on your own with a nice weight given to Caedo to really make it feel like that bulky armor weighs something.
Weapon variety begins with your arm-mounted chainsword and eventually the titular Boltgun. This weapon will be your constant ally, even when it begins to be temporarily replaced by more powerful and hard-hitting alternatives. From the sticky grenade Vengeance Launcher to the constant spray of the Heavy Bolter, and the constant beam of the Volkite Caliver, you'll be converting those enemy sprites into bloody chunks in each dark and moody corner of the map. Each enemy type will take to each gun differently, so it’s best to play around with your arsenal to get a feel for how effective each lethal choice is.
Each chapter consists of 8 levels, ranging from winter factories, and lava-filled ruins, to desert-layered mountain ranges and multi-level complexes. A few ideas do outstay their welcome, but the wide open spaces in a few locations really sell how massive this world is. The tight corridor environments don't help matters with navigating, but thankfully this claustrophobic format is limited across each chapter.
Boltgun ran flawlessly from start to finish, taking me about 12 hours to push through its three chapters. The level variety is fair, although a few of the chapters had levels that felt far too similar in their concepts, making them less impressive than others. I also was over the maze-like format pretty early and found I was getting lost for the wrong reasons. I would have loved some crude map or navigation mechanic to keep me focused on where I needed to go. While I don't see this affecting all players, I can see some having frustrations with it. Your servo skull friend does flash at certain points in the level as to where to go, or that appeared to be the case, but it was inconsistent for me to rely on it. Often, I waited for the game to flash an autosave to tell me if I was going in the right direction.
Boltgun is fast-paced, fun, and consistently impressive from a pure action standpoint. I don't quite care for most of its level design or how minimalist its story was, but ultimately had a good time with it. If you are really taken by its retro aesthetic and intense action, then I honestly think you'll really find Boltgun to offer enough to keep you satisfied.
Developer - Auroch Digital. Publisher - Focus Entertaiment. Released - May 23rd, 2023. Available On - Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4/PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC. Rated - (M) Violence, Blood and Gore. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.