Since Id Software pioneered the fast-paced shooter in the early 90's with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, first-person shooters have gone from strength to strength. But as shooters evolved into more cinematic endeavours, developers and players grew nostalgic for the return of hectic action.
Three years since Auroch Digital released the original Warhammer 40K: Boltgun, they're back with a sequel in Boltgun 2 - a direct continuation of Ultramarine Malum Caedo's conquest to cleanse the world of demonic heretics.
But this time, Malum Caedo is accompanied by Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath. A fantastic choice to enable player's the option to playthrough the whole game with different weapons and abilities. While Malum Caedo returns as the same murderous marauder, Nyra Veyrath is a nimble killing machine with her own penchant for death.
You begin by selecting your character and one of four difficulties to play the campaign on. An important decision, as it locks you out of switching characters until you start a new campaign, or replay levels on level select. While it would've been good to switch characters between levels, replayability is an area where Boltgun 2 improves on from the original game. As there's now many optional and branching levels.
Image: Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 - Flamethrower
Most levels are split into multiple missions. Although, branching missions don't have a massive impact, it gives you a sense of narrative choice. Playing missions on normal difficulty last between 10-20 minutes; short and snappy violent conquests through a variety of biomes. Like the original Boltgun, the sequel maintains the sensibilities of Doom's frenetic moment-to-moment gunplay, and rivals its most hectic moments. Yet it unfortunately overuses the same level design of finding coloured keys to unlock gates and continue to the end point. But by the end, it does use a few different missions types, such as escorting a tank.
Yet the meat of any first-person so-called boomer shooter is the gameplay. Both Malum and Nyra can sprint, jump, fire weapons, do a form of a charge attack that obliterates rows of weaker enemies, use their melee weapons to take out lesser foes, throw a bomb to clear out a group, and slam down from above to crush them. Both characters also have a passive ability: Malum can regenerate health when near death, and Nyra can rebuild the faith that powers her shield.
You can also press a button to speak to your comrades, or taunt enemies. Malum Caedo is again played by Rahul Kohli, the talented actor from Saros and Midnight Mass. He has a gruff no nonsense delivery that suits the hulking space marine. His weapons are also appropriately devastating: there's the reliable titular boltgun, a mulching shotgun, meltagun, missile launcher, and more weapons of destruction.
Whereas, Nyra Veyrath is portrayed by V/H/S/Beyond and Dispatch actor, Alanah Pearce, who brings the Sister of Battle's determination and directness to life with every line. She is also more agile as you can slide attack and chain into a jump to slow down time, perfect for using her weapons. While their movement feels similar in many ways, Nyra reloads often and relies on accuracy. Instead of the wide spreading shotgun, she has a powerful crossbow to land clean shots, and a far-reaching flamethrower to incinerate foes. There's just enough weapon variety and branching missions, to want to experience the campaign twice, as it is fun to take on hordes of enemies.
Image: Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 - Boltgun
But if you ever get lost or stuck during a level, Boltgun 2 features a navigation guide, a map, and a suite of accessibility options to make the game easier. The navigation guide can be activated anywhere that's on solid ground, spawning a clear line to follow to the next objective. Most of the time it's a helpful tool, but there were occasions when the line would get confused and refuse to lead to the correct location.
Thankfully, the map offers a nice 3D view of each level, to help locate any vertical sections. As Boltgun 2 features a lot of verticality and secret areas that hide combat modifiers or other collectibles. But if you choose to play without the navigation guide, it really ups the immersion and feeling of exploration, especially during levels on alien planets with both humanoid and flora based threats.
However, if you still find the game too difficult after adjusting the difficulty to easy, you can enable invincibility and unlimited ammunition from the accessibility menu. Or even unlock every mission in level select, to play the bonus levels you've missed with either character.
But the ultra-violent heart of Boltgun 2 is the tireless, nonstop combat loop, where lunging through half a dozen enemies, then jumping to saw one in half, and finally, shoot the remainder with your strongest firearm, quickly becomes muscle memory. It's immediately simple to do, but it's difficult to master, especially on the higher difficulties. As Boltgun 2 introduces new enemy types every level, such as snipers, corrupted ultramarines, demonic forces, and giant bosses.
The relentless aggression of the enemies forces you to partake in the typical boomer shooter kill to heal cycle, where enemies drop small doses of health and faith to recharge your shield. The level design while exploring distributes just enough health items to keep you on the edge of death after tougher encounters. But it's the purge battle arenas that lock you into a zone until you've killed everything that really forces you to lean into a careful but aggressive playstyle. Each new enemy type forcing you to quickly use the weapon wheel, and tweak your strategy.
Image: Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 - Shotgun
Purge arenas often feature relentless waves of enemies, and a few allied soldiers who quickly die if you accidentally shoot them. Whatever you do, it's more important to keep moving than hiding behind cover. While you need to kill to get health, you also need to brave the arenas to pick up ammo drops. Another way Boltgun 2 creates balance and gameplay variety, as once your strongest weapons run out of ammunition, you're encouraged to cycle between every one of them. But thankfully, every firearm feels good to use.
The same combat techniques apply when fighting Boltgun 2's bosses, as most have you battling waves of normal enemies at the same time as a menacing boss. While others have distinct attack patterns that force you to jump and move to avoid severe damage.
But I did enjoy how Auroch Digital added environmental hazards to later levels, such as an assembly line that can crush you with one wrong move, high-speed platforming whilst under fire, and dual train tracks where you need to change tracks to avoid a fatal collision with a high-speed train.
Yet none of this would be as impactful without Boltgun 2's pixelated cutscenes, and extraordinary 3D retro in-game graphics. The sublime visuals are a perfect balance between old school pixelation, nostalgic enemy sprites that follow you wherever you look, superb animations and humorous idle animations, ultraviolent gore, and modern lighting and fidelity. It looks exactly how you'd imagine the original Doom looked in your head when you first played it.
There's also a pulse-pounding score that matches the high intensity combat encounters and punchy kill shots. I really enjoyed the track created by the Doom 2016 composer Mick Gordon. Auroch Digital also understands how bullet and chainsaw sounds can be the differentiating factor to tip the feeling of combat into a higher gear. You even feel every death scream as you wind down tight corridors, or break the glass floor on a bridge suspended high above the ground.
Image: Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 - Sword
Although Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 is an extremely fun game, it isn't without a few flaws. Some tighter environments get hard to read with too many enemies being bombarded by your strongest weapons. But it's the jungle locale that obscured enemies behind tall shrubs; little things that affected the readability of some encounters. I would've also appreciated some interplay between the two playable characters to add a few more story flourishes, as being unable to switch mid campaign is disappointing.
But if you adore high intensity, first-person shooters from the 90's and the Warhammer 40K universe, Boltgun 2 adds more than enough improvements for it to be worth your time. While it isn't a gargantuan leap from the first game, the inclusion of two protagonists, new weapons, branching levels, and more replayability, make Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 a strong sequel.
*Review Code Provided By Publisher
