Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Review: a labyrinthine shooter

Business events always cause me severe pain in my feet (I blame my dress shoes) in addition to mentally exhausting me: eight hours in a row, with no chance to sit down, spent reciting from memory to each potential client how an AI software works that can predict the propensity to buy of each lead within a certain contact list. You can’t imagine my joy the moment I received an Xbox Series X/S code from Focus Entertainment for Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, the boomer shoters developed by Auroch Digital and based on the universe created by Games Workshop.

When the email arrived with the review key, my thought was “Tonight I will finally get home after 3 hours on Italo. I’ll turn on the console and start shooting nonstop, without a thought“. After my atypical Rome-Seville airplane trip with Post Void (here is our review of Post Void), another slightly different one began, this time by train, anxious to finally get my hands on this first person shooter that promises to be as ignorant as I like. I cross the threshold of the house, turn on the console, and finally start shooting. The first hour of the game flies by not even if I were in Doom Eternal, and as I was already preparing for the final close, the sound of the intercom signals the end of the session. Time to eat a good pizza.

Tasteful shooting

In Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, there is shooting that is a delight. You move constantly because the amount of mobs that want to get in your way is considerable. I fire and dodge and then move behind cover and respawn for a moment. Enemies are nice projectile sponges-in fact, dare I say more: they really seem to draw energy from my blows and not vice versa.

After several minutes spent cold-cocking every poor unfortunate who came within range, here comes the first setback: I have run out of ammunition for the two weapons available up to that point (several will be found over the course of the campaign, which lasts about ten hours). No problem, it’s on to hand-to-hand combat with my chain sword that smashes the brains out of every monstrosity. The result of the carnage? A beautiful pool of blood so reminiscent of a red-colored world pool.

I then unlock the Heavy Requiem (in retrospect, the coolest moment of my adventure), a very high quality machine gun with a high rate of fire and capable, with its off-the-charts bullets, of piercing even the most seemingly impenetrable armor. I therefore seem to be heading triumphantly toward the end credits. However, from about halfway through the game onward,I began to experience principles of fatigue, due primarily- but not only- to the level design.

A labyrinth with no apparent way out

Before proceeding with the reading, I would like to specify that my sense of direction is comparable to Zoro’s in One Piece. This is true in both real and “virtual” life. You did not see me in Elden Ring, and I hope you never see me. Even with Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun I had my daily dose of bewilderment trying to retrieve some darn colored keys and thus unlock some otherwise inaccessible doors.

I lost my bearings several times because of some scenarios that followed one another and all looked the same to me, regardless of the visual quality – more than good – of them. Once I even returned to the beginning of the level. Most affected by this was the pace of play, which is essential in a shooter, which was repeatedly broken by this constant search for the correct path to follow.

To this then must be added rather forced difficulty spikes in boss fights. Against one specific behemoth, for example, it took several tries before we managed to take it down once and for all. The complications all stemmed from the sum of two factors: the boss’s high vitality and the countless hordes of secondary enemies that seemed never-ending. On the one hand, then, the Blue Horrors, long-tongued bipedal demons who chase you as if they were professional stalkers; on the other, a giant angel of death capable of draining the hero’s health in six to seven strokes. Game over and on with the ordes again.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun: Conclusion

Slight underlying repetitiveness in shooter gameplay is legitimate and physiological (here, meanwhile, find the best shooters available on Game Pass). However, in this specific case, it was accentuated by what I explained to you in the previous paragraph. I began, as I progressed through the main mission, to reflect on the fact that I might run into such a situation again and again.

I arrived exhausted at the final stages of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, and I say this with a tinge of regret given the overall quality of gunplay capable of making you truly feel like a god on earth. The first three hours of the campaign felt like six and so on. Either way, we are still talking about an excellent product and a great homage to the iconic three-dimensional wargame born in 1987 and produced by Games Workshop.

VERDICT: 7/10