In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, and apparently also a strong market for games that look as though they’ve escaped from a 1994 PC magazine cover disc. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 lands on 14 October on PC via Steam, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a Switch 2 version promised for later. If the 2023 original was a love letter to Doom and Quake written in heretic blood, the sequel looks like the same letter, only longer, louder and with considerably more exclamation marks.
Bristol studio Auroch Digital is back behind the chainsword, and publishing duties have passed to Big Fan, a label of Devolver Digital. The story picks up directly after the first game. Ultramarine Malum Caedo and his new partner travel to an isolated star system to look into reports of increased Chaos activity, which in the 41st millennium is a bit like popping round to check on a smoke alarm in a fireworks factory. Waiting for them is Vashtorr the Arkifane, a daemonic demigod with a vast daemonic machine at the heart of a planet. He switches it on, the resulting explosion takes out much of the Imperial fleet, and our heroes are left hopping from world to world, cleansing corruption with the Imperium’s traditional cleaning products: bolter rounds and promethium.
The new partner is the biggest change. Nyra Veyrath is a Sister of Battle, and she is the second playable character. Where Malum is the tanky powerhouse, Nyra is the agile, blade-wielding alternative, presumably for players who prefer their righteous fury delivered at a slightly faster jog. Each character has their own weapons, abilities and play style. The campaign now branches as well, so there is a reason to replay it as the other one. The worlds on the itinerary include the towering heights of a hive city and a Death World jungle, where you wade through mangrove swamps full of Nurgle daemons and cultists. If you ever wondered what a plague god’s idea of a water feature looks like, here’s your answer.
For the first time in the series, all four Chaos god factions are in. That means Daemonettes, Blightlord Terminators, and Bloodletters riding Juggernauts, the series’ first mounted enemy. The publisher’s own blurb promises the return of “sassy” Nurglings, which is a word we did not expect to type about the plague-spreading pustule-imps of Grandfather Nurgle. Even more unexpected, you get allies this time, in the shape of the Death Korps of Krieg. Their idea of a cheerful pep talk is reminding everyone that dying for the Emperor is the best possible outcome, so you probably won’t want to share a foxhole with them, but at least they’ll soak up a few bullets.
The release date trailer gives a first look at Vashtorr himself and a first listen to a track by guest composer Mick Gordon, the man responsible for the thrash-metal engines of Doom (2016), Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein: The New Order. To be clear, he is writing the music for the final boss battle, not the whole soundtrack. But hiring the composer of modern Doom to score the climax of a game that is essentially Doom in power armour is about as on-brand as a decision gets. For anyone who can’t wait until the 14th, there’s a free demo on Steam with two levels, and you can play either character.
There is a lot of competition this month, including Gears of War: E-Day on the 6th and a new Call of Duty on the 23rd. Boltgun 2 isn’t trying to out-polygon either of them. It is a chunky, pixelated, gloriously silly slab of grimdark violence that runs at full sprint and never stops to ask how you feel about it. Which, as any Commissar will tell you, is exactly how the Emperor likes it.
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