The only good thing about this game is that it made me want to replay Dusk or Amid Evil

Strip the Warhammer name and it's a terrible unfun slogfest at it's core. Extremely repetitive, weapons lack any feedback, enemies are sponges that don't react to your shots at all on higher difficulties - no sound effect, no flinching, nothing. They just stand their ground until they die, or you do. Sprinting makes you float on ice when you stop abruptly, so toggling it is a bad idea - you either slog through levels or ice skate into every chasm.

Some environments are very open and fun to explore, but for each one of those there are gonna be two linear corridor levels.

The story can be summed in three sentences, there is no voice acting apart from some taunts your main character does for flavor. The skull keeps yapping 40k flair all the time, which doesn't help, it's just annoying. After a certain point I stopped paying attention to it completely cause it was stating the obvious and narrating nothingness. Honestly would have been better if it wasn't there at all.

What about the music you might ask? My answer would be - There was music?
I consider soundtrack a very important part of the experience, especially in a (boomer)shooter game. Here we get some techno slop with some choral parts, which sounds uninspiring and there wasn't a single memorable track during my 7 hours of game time.

This game is pretty cool, it succeeds at a lot of things I'm looking for out of a game like this, primarily the violence, speed and feeling of one-against-many. however, playing on harder difficulties this game starts emphasizing peeking around corners and playing it safe rather than using your chainsword at all, ever. This is due to two big problems: audio design and visual design.

Audio design is not there. enemies categorically do not make noise. sometimes their gun does, sometimes they do when they die, but the amount of times a gigantic demon has tiptoed all the way up beside me to hit me in the side before I even notice is way too ♥♥♥♥♥♥ high. Compare to something like Darktide where you can get a sense of the battlefield from audio alone. I never have any clue where anything is unless I'm looking directly at it.

And then, when I AM looking at things, I can't always tell what I'm looking at. This is really only a problem with the basic human-with-a-gun enemies but the problem is that one of those humans-with-a-gun is holding a rocket launcher you really need to be aware of, and for some reason the visual design of this high value target is Just Black, making it really hard to pick out in dark rooms (most). And again, these enemies come with no associated noise, meaning rockets will be in your face as you're realizing there is a rocket enemy on stage.

If I could tell where things were I could weave and prioritize much easier and then this would be fantastic and a very easy posiitive review but as it is I feel like I'm bumbling around the battlefield getting randomly slapped by things I didn't even know were on stage, constantly.

It's an old school FPS with some modern enhancements. You are a space marine and need to eradicate the planet of all life forms (e.g. heretics). There are secrets to be found, old school pixelated art to be admired and plenty to shoot. Your job is to serve the emperor and cleanse the planet - you will do this over and over again until you meet the end boss of the chapter.

Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun brings you back to late 90s with games like Blood, Heretic, Hexen etc. There is something to be said to experience the atmosphere of those old games on modern hardware. This can also be a negative though - if you haven't played any of those old game you may criticise the pixelated graphics, the 16 bit sound effects or the use of sprites. But if you can overlook that you will find a fast action paced shooter.

There is a good flow in the levels and the frame rate is constantly high at all times.

I like the QoL additions; using N to find your next objective instead of running around the level like a headless chicken. Or when you fall off a cliff you are automatically transported back into the action. The frequent auto save points are good for the few times you die and need to respawn.

The game is not very hard - even on higher difficulties it is forgiving.

The music and audio effects are forgettable; think the original Doom (but maybe that is what the developers were going for).

The weapons are varied but they miss a bit of a punch.

While I enjoyed the game at first; every level that I progressed I longed more to Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal. To me they're currently one of the best FPS you can play and I can't help but comparing any other FPS to them. That doesn't mean the Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun is a bad game... but it means there are better games out there (IMHO). I also found the game to become repetitive to the point I really had to force myself to play again which is never a good sign. To me Boltgun feels to be stuck in the past. If you're looking for that then that's great but I wanted to experience something new - and I probably picked the wrong game for that.

The teleport effects in the last level of Chapter 1 are frankly terrible.

I don't like that you lose your weapons after chapter 1 and have to find them again. Why is that I went through the trouble finding them so I should just have them for the rest of the game?

I couldn't find any bugs or glitches.

There is on DLC: Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Forges of Corruption Expansion. It offers five new levels with a higher difficulty, two new weapons and some new enemies.

Warhammer 40K Boltgun is an old school fps that will appeal to people looking back with nostalgia to the late 1990 / early 2000s. Unfortunately I felt it is too repetitive and it doesn't offer something new to the genre. The more I played it, the more I wanted to replay one of my favourite FPS of all time: Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal. I guess I'm spoiled.

I look at this question whether a friend would ask me for a recommendation - sadly I wouldn't recommend Warhammer 40K Boltgun unless you really want to relive the old FPS vibe. This is where Steam should have a neutral rating but as that does not exist I would recommend against it. Instead look for Doom (2016) or Doom Eternal.

I had a blast with this - old school, gory FPS mixed with more modern, fast-paced gameplay. Sound design, level design, weapons, enemies, music were all great. The nav assist was very helpful as it's pretty easy to get lost in some of these levels, and it allowed you to easily get right back to the action.

It does begin to get repetitive towards the final chapter, which isn't helped by the fact there isn't really much of a story or anything to break it up. You've pretty much seen everything in the first chapter - weapons, enemies, etc. The gameplay is able to carry the game for the most part.

I purge the drywall from my home by devouring it's putrid mass

🎮 Gameplay
🔲 Excellent
✅ Good
🔲 Average
🔲 Poor
🔲 Staring at Walls is better

🌄 Graphics
🔲 Beautiful
✅ Good
🔲 Decent
🔲 Bad
🔲 Paint.exe

🎵 Audio
🔲 Eargasm
🔲 Amazing
✅ Good
🔲 Not too Bad
🔲 Bad

📖 Story
🔲 No story
🔲 Text or Audio Floating Around
✅ Average
🔲 Good
🔲 It will replace your life

🛡️ Difficulty
🔲 Just press "A"
🔲 Easy
✅ Average
🔲 Easy to Learn / Hard to Master
🔲 Difficult

🔁 Replayability
🔲 No replay value
✅ Maybe Once
🔲 A few times
🔲 Many Times
🔲 Infinitely replayable

⏳ Length
🔲 Short (4 to 10hr)
✅ Average (10 to 25hr)
🔲 Long (25 to 50hr)
🔲 Very Long (50 to 150hr)
🔲 To infinity and beyond

🖥️ Hardware Requirement (1440p resolution / 75+ Frames per Second)
🔲 Check if you can run paint
✅ Potato (GTX 980 equivalent)
🔲 Decent (GTX 2080 equivalent)
🔲 Fast (GTX 4080 equivalent)
🔲 Ask NASA if they have a spare computer (GTX 4090?)

🪲 Bugs
✅ Never heard of
🔲 Minor bugs
🔲 Can get annoying
🔲 Game-breaking bugs
🔲 The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

💸 Worth Buying
🔲 It’s free!
✅ Worth the price
🔲 Minor sale (<30%)
🔲 Major sale (>70%)
🔲 You could also just burn your money

📝 Rating
🔲 1
🔲 2
🔲 3
🔲 4
🔲 5
🔲 6
🔲 7
✅ 8
🔲 9
🔲 10

Description:

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a retro-style first-person shooter that delivers pure, unfiltered fun wrapped in the grimdark aesthetic of the 41st millennium. If you’ve ever wanted to step into the power armor of a Space Marine and rip through heretics with satisfying, chunky weapons — this is the game for you.

Structurally, Boltgun follows the classic level-by-level progression seen in 90s shooters like DOOM and Quake. The levels are linear in purpose but offer enough room to explore for secrets and pickups. The visuals use a crisp, sprite-based enemy design and chunky environments that perfectly capture the retro look, while still feeling clean and modern. You also have graphics filters to set how retro or modern you want the game to look.

The standout feature here is the boltgun itself — and yes, it absolutely feels like a holy weapon of the Emperor. The gunplay is heavy, impactful, and incredibly satisfying. Enemies explode in pixelated gore as you tear through Chaos cultists, daemons, and traitor Marines. The game offers a solid arsenal including shotguns, plasma weapons, and melta guns, each with distinct punch and utility. Movement is fast, smooth, and includes a dash mechanic that encourages aggressive, in-your-face combat. A small critique is that there are almost "too many" weapons to cycle through but this is not a big deal.

Pickups for health, armor, and ammo are scattered throughout the levels and drop from killing enemies as well. Boltgun is one of the few boomer shooters that I found works just as well as glory kill healing without glory kill healing. The atmosphere is the Warhammer 40K flavor — gothic architecture, blood-streaked cathedrals, and endless warzones echo the tone of the universe perfectly. Enemies are quite diverse and respect the original Warhammer lore.

The soundtrack and audio design is decent. Music ramps up dynamically with combat and features appropriately heavy, industrial riffs. Weapon audio is punchy and well-mixed, and the weapon feedback is solid.

If there’s a drawback, it’s that secrets are annoying to find without a guide (I wish the in-game pathing assist also showed secrets) and certain enemies are designed just to screw you over (Plasma Gun dudes who are like Ninjas who delete you in a few shots and Plague Toad Tongue attacks are nearly impossible to dodge).

TLDR: Warhammer 40k Boltgun is a great retro FPS game that focuses on gunplay and atmosphere making it worthy boomer shooter even for gamers new to Warhammer.

HERITIC!! It is I, Malum Caedo. I AM AN ANGEL OF DEATH! My sword is hatred; My shield is disgust; My armor is contempt. Mine is the work of the righteous. I will finish the work Captain Titus started, I will make my brothers proud. For the honor of Ultramar, GLORY TO MANKIND! Hail to the Emperor, Heritic.

Malum Caedo > Doomguy

Had an urge to play the new DOOM game but held back on splashing the cash. This game was a fantastic alternative that was immensely fun to play from beginning to end.

The power fantasy is real here, you will absolutely tear through hordes of enemies interspersed with tougher foes that require a bit more firepower, but no matter who or what you're facing they all splatter into a satisfying pile of giblets once they're dead.

You really feel like a perpetual driving force throughout this game, not only through violence but movement as well. Strafing, jumping and dodging are all imperative for survival and the flow state that occurs while you're making huge leaps and blasting heretics feels so good. Level design was really impressive with some open areas being puzzles in themselves and the environments you travel through really bring it all together.

All in all, I was really impressed by this game. I can't attest to how it handles WH40K lore as I don't know, but the fundamental gameplay of running fast and shooting hard was awesome. Oh, and the pixel art style goes hard too.

Press T