Boltgun - DOOM meets Warhammer 40,000

While there has never been an official connection between the 1993 DOOM and Warhammer 40,000, it is hard not to see the similarities between the iconic Doomguy and a Space Marine. Both are decked out in power armour, become one-man armies on the battlefield, and have a particular penchant for delivering some of the most brutal deaths imaginable to demons.

Boltgun, the upcoming FPS from Auroch Digital and Focus Entertainment, feels as though it it is a game destined to exist. The Warhammer 40,000 setting, with daemons and Space Marines galore, seems perfectly fit for a stylised boomer shooter filled with guts, gore, and guns. For fans of the Warhammer 40,000 IP, this may seem like a great setup for a game, and we've managed to sit down with it for a couple of hours, and have some first impressions of Boltgun.

As you may have expected from the boomer shooter tag Boltgun wears so proudly, you don't get or need much in terms of narrative setup. You are a Space Marine, as expected, and you are dropped onto a hostile planet filled with Chaos worshippers, enemy marines, and daemons spawning in from Warhammer 40,000's own version of hell known as the Warp.

As much as I may loathe to type it, after the phrase has been butchered and devalued by infamous reviews in the past, you do "feel like" a Space Marine, or that you're in control of one, more so in Boltgun than perhaps any Warhammer 40,000 game I've touched besides perhaps 2011's Space Marine. Every footstep feels weighty, you appear as a walking tank among mortal foes, but are not completely impervious to fire from some more deadly enemies. There is an immediate sense of everything clicking as soon as you take on the first couple of levels in Boltgun.

This sense of satisfaction extends beyond just feeling like you're in control of a Space Marine as you play. The gameplay is fast, tight, and absolutely hectic when it wants to be. Both melee and the gunplay feels engaging, though there is a significant focus on the latter. The former allows you to get the most blood on your screen, however, so if you're after gore and nothing more you'll have plenty of fun shredding your enemies with a chain sword.

Despite the previous mentions of shredding through enemies, you won't find combat to be a cakewalk in Boltgun. At least, not always. If it's a power fantasy you're after, there are plenty of cultists that pop like red grapes when you hit them with a single bullet, but something that came as a pleasant surprise was how Boltgun doesn't just aim to give the player a few hours of violent fun before they move onto something else. The difficulty does ramp up at times, and you'll have to be smart and quick if you want to avoid the onslaught the larger Chaos daemons can bring. In a similar vein to the popular Ultrakill, it seems Boltgun has a lot of potential for people who want the accolade of beating it on the hardest difficulty with the quickest time. There is a lot of replayability in these levels, something only enhanced by the secrets you can find within them.

While the visuals are all well-constructed and evoke the nostalgia of a boomer shooter while representing the creations of Warhammer 40,000, something else that shouldn't be understated is how strong Boltgun's sound design is. From the chunk of each footstep to the satisfying thunder of the weapon the game is named after, the sound design in Boltgun lifts the violence in the gameplay and visuals, making everything that little bit more visceral.

Even in just a few levels, Boltgun leaves a strong impression. It's packed with all the gore and glory you'd expect in a Warhammer 40,000 boomer shooter, but sometimes meeting expectations is more than enough to make a game stand out. As a game that might fly under the radar, even for fans of the grimdark far future, it must be stressed this is one to keep your eye on so long as the rest of it lives up to the great enemy variety, gameplay, and sound design of this preview.