You can often tell what a Warhammer game's about by its title alone. Total War: Warhammer? So much war. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2? You're a marine! In space! Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2? Well, that's just the first Boltgun… but more.
When it comes to following up a game that's named after a gun that shoots exploding bullets, building upon its foundations is pretty straightforward. "Expect more explosions, more blood, and more gore," lead designer Matt Bone tells GamesRadar+.
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Retro-born shooters are simple by design. You run, shoot, and sometimes things explode. But if you look at the Doom series – one of Boltgun's biggest inspirations – you can see iterations to that premise over time, namely recent changes to pacing (Doom Eternal) and the addition of parrying (Doom: The Dark Ages). These changes can be quite polarizing – just look at our Doom: The Dark Ages review – and it begs the question: is tweaking the formula necessary?
For Auroch Digital, Boltgun 2's developer, the answer is no. "The original Boltgun went down very well with players, so we're keen not to stray too far from the core gameplay," says Bone. "We want to deliver more of what people loved in terms of the fast-paced retro shooter gameplay and the tongue-in-cheek humor, and amp those aspects up even more."
Instead, changes in Boltgun 2 tend to boil down to 'more is more'. "Level variety" was a big focus for Auroch this time around – it wants to visit "numerous worlds" for players to "really get the most out of the huge grimdark universe" of 40K – but that approach also means creating new weapons and enemies to use them on. "Our artists had a lot of fun creating the Bloodletters and Juggernauts and adding them to the game," says Bone, pointing to the red-and-angry Khorne demons in Boltgun 2's trailer. Besides having plenty of character – yes, Bloodletters lick their swords – the pair can combine to form a mounted Bloodcrusher, and I'm already dreading having something scarier than the first game's Aspiring Champions barreling at me.
There are some tweaks that Auroch is keeping closer to its chest. "We are also adding some new things to keep combat fresh and exciting for both new [and veteran] players and give them reasons to play it multiple times," says Bone. That doesn't include multiplayer – which Auroch doesn't "currently have any plans" for – but looking ahead, the studio "absolutely" wants to make more factions or races playable. "Watch this space," says Bone.
Regardless of how much Boltgun 2 changes (or doesn't), it retains the same crunchy '90s aesthetic as its predecessor. Between mutilating pink horrors and dying to plague toads, I got the sense that making a modern-day game look like a decades-old shooter is harder than it sounds.
"There's definitely an art to it," agrees Bone. "A phrase we use often when developing Boltgun is that it should feel like a game made in the '90s, but not necessarily play like one. Nostalgia idealizes our memory of these games, smoothing off a lot of the rough edges – we want to deliver that idealized version. Finding the balance can be tricky, and it's often tempting to go too far in terms of modern shooter mechanics or features, or the visuals in general. It's important to recognize when you're straying too far from that retro core, as we don't want to lose the old-school charm."
Writing a litany
While Boltgun 2 doesn't launch until 2026, Boltgun – Words of Vengeance, a spin-off released alongside the sequel's announcement, means fans can get their fix sooner. Well, sort of. For one, it's marked as an 'Education' game on Steam. Secondly, you don't point and shoot baddies this time around – it's a word game, so you type things like "Purge the unclean" and "Thin your paints" to bring them down.
Yes, it's very silly. But it's also brilliant, and exactly the sort of weird punt I'd love to see happen more often for Warhammer. Describing it as "something fun and a little silly that we can give away to players as a thank you for supporting us," creative director Aaron Ashbrook says that its brainstorming process was every bit as serious as you'd expect.
"Words of Vengeance originally came about as a joke," he admits. "I thought it would be funny to make a Warhammer game that you could play by typing, especially given how difficult it is to spell some of the complicated Warhammer terms like Plasmacyte or Necrontyr. Given that we’d already created Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, I mocked up this idea on a Boltgun screenshot and it ended up being passed around the entire team and everyone loved the concept."
"So, we pitched it to Games Workshop and for some reason they said yes, and then we made it a reality."
It's the same acknowledgement Boltgun makes – that Warhammer 40K can be deeply silly – taken to an extreme. Bone credits the first game's "lovingly tongue-in-cheek celebration" of 40K as one of the reasons for its popularity, along with its low barrier to entry. There are times I wish more Warhammer spin-offs would, as Bone describes Boltgun, "go a little over the top" – but he says there are plenty of draws that brought Auroch back to Games Workshop.
"Warhammer 40K is a fantastic universe to get to play around in," Bone explains. "It can be overwhelming, simply because it's so vast, but there's a wealth of lore and infinite stories you can tell within it for the same reason. It makes our job a lot easier when there's an established, deep, evocative setting to use."
When people say "less is more," they're talking about perfume, sweets, and minimalist apartments. In 40K, more is more – this is a universe where gigantic demigods carry gigantic guns and wear gigantic armor and can eat flesh to consume memories – and Boltgun 2's team seems to get this. I'm digging everything I hear about the sequel, and given it's not the only upcoming Warhammer game on the horizon, my colleague said it best: it's a great day to be a Warhammer fan.
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