Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 wants to recapture the first game's "lightning in a bottle," and after playing two levels I think it already has

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 understands the primal joy of pixelated carnage. I've been playing two levels from the upcoming FPS sequel, and I'm not sure I could have stopped playing if I wanted to. There's a rhythmic compulsion to sending cultists to their doom by shooting the ice beneath them, and the click-click-click of hitmarkers – particularly while melting hordes of demons with a flamer – is trancelike.

All of this happens at 1000 miles per hour, as I'm playing Boltgun 2's new protagonist. Battle Sister Nyra Veyrath is quicker and nimbler than the first game's Malum Caedo (although you can choose to play as either), better-suited to sliding and leaping around battlefields than charging through them, and relies on a completely different set of weapons to get the job done.

Boltgun 2 already feels like an ambitious step up from the original game, with developer Auroch Digital displaying an even sharper understanding of boomer shooters and a willingness to lean further into the 40K universe's bombast. After playing the demo, I caught up with lead artist Mark Chambers and associate designer Ben Spratt to learn how the studio wants to push Boltgun further.

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"[The first] Boltgun was kind of a runaway success," says Chambers. "There's a lot of good elements and stuff in there – it's almost like lightning in a bottle. It was very easy to identify the areas we wanted to push and the natural evolution of where we wanted it to go."

"Bigger and better," specifies Spratt.

Pray and tear

That's certainly the impression I get from Boltgun 2's demo, which begins in Chaos-infested jungles and ends on a snowy mountain base. Enemies are more numerous (at several points I can barely see what I'm shooting at for all the flying viscera) and environments are more lively – carnivorous plants snap shut on Battle Sister and Death Guard alike, and although I've already mentioned shooting platforms out from under enemies, giving a World Bearer the Mario 64 penguin treatment is a thrill worth shouting about twice.

"We did a lot of prototyping when we started making the game, and basically we just threw ideas out there," says Spratt, pointing to the breakable ice as an example. "That was just an idea we had, then it got prototyped up. We have lots more to come in the full game – levels built around new mechanics and ideas we've had.

"We've got some levels that are huge," he continues. "We've got some that are sort of claustrophobic and winding or mazelike. We've got some where you can complete sections in different orders, so they're a bit less linear. [We're] just trying to get that variety in, and lots of lots of new unique mechanics that I won't spoil."

Variety comes up several times in our chat. There are significantly more enemy types than in the first Boltgun – "I think we're on about like 70 plus enemies at the moment," says Chambers – along with newly-introduced allied characters and a host of new weapons to accidentally kill them with. Malum's weapons will be familiar to existing fans, while Nyra's arsenal packs more surprises. The crossbow-style Condemnor Bolter has devastating one-shot potential, but my current favorite is the flamer, a handheld flamethrower that works exceptionally well for purging the sequel's larger hordes.

Even Boltgun's returning guns feel stronger, particularly Malum's boltgun and shotgun. The first game's armor system has been done away with, meaning you no longer need to spin through your weapon wheel to examine armor penetration values. Now, combat is more intuitive. Nyra's bolt pistol is effective against squishy human targets but its small clip size makes it awkward against hordes of nurglings, for example, while a flamer can clear a room in seconds yet barely fluster a Death Guard warrior.

I'm reminded of the Nintendo 64's frenetic shooters – think Quake, Duke Nukem, GoldenEye – and already prefer the breathlessness of the sequel in comparison to the first game's more methodical approach. "We really wanted the levels – particularly that second level in the demo – to feel like a rollercoaster," says Spratt, who grew up playing Nintendo 64-era games. "[As if] you're zooming through these different environments with different beats and interesting sections in the level that change the pace."

All said, the result is a quicker and bloodier shooter. It's easy to dissect Boltgun 2's changes individually, but more impressive is the way it all comes together during play. See for yourself: the same demo I've been playing is now available for free on Steam, boasting more blood-waterfalls and pixelated intestines than any demo I've played before. Oh, Warhammer. Never change.

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