More than three years after a first game that retro FPS fans took to heart, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 launched on 14 October 2026 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. I played it on PC, and I’ll be upfront: this sequel improves on the original in almost every way. There’s more gore, more spectacle and more fun, and the levels finally stop getting you lost. Auroch Digital’s shooter still has one real flaw, a visual chaos that makes some fights hard to read. And its difficulty, even on normal, will catch plenty of players off guard.
At a glance
Boltgun 2 comfortably outclasses the first game, with more gore, more spectacle and levels you can finally read.
Two very different heroes, Ultramarine Malum Caedo and Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath, stretch a six-hour campaign past twenty hours.
Visual chaos in the busiest fights and a steep difficulty even on normal are the two catches.
Boltgun 2 leaves the original firmly behind
The first Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, released on 23 May 2023 by Focus Entertainment, found its audience: on Steam, 89% of its 18,410 reviews are positive at the time of writing. Bristol studio Auroch Digital is back with the same recipe, an old-school FPS dropped into the grim darkness of Warhammer 40,000, this time published by Big Fan Games and Devolver Digital. The story of Boltgun 2 picks up right where the first game ended.
For me, the comparison is settled quickly. Boltgun 2 is a far better sequel than the first game, with more gore, more spectacle and more fun. Everything that made the original work, the speed, the brutality and the joy of emptying a magazine into a crowd of heretics, is still there. And its main flaws have been fixed, starting with levels that used to leave you disoriented.
Auroch Digital isn’t done with Warhammer this year either, as the studio is also releasing Warhammer Survivors, its bullet heaven due on 10 November. Until then, Boltgun 2 promises a campaign of more than 30 levels, according to the overview the studio posted on Steam in late September.
Malum or Nyra: the Sister of Battle won me over
Two playable characters are the big addition in Boltgun 2, and their styles couldn’t be further apart. On one hand there’s the Ultramarine Malum Caedo, the brutal Space Marine that returning players already know. On the other there’s Nyra Veyrath, a far more agile Sister of Battle built around speed and dodging.
Each of them comes with a varied arsenal. Malum leans on a shotgun that works well at short and medium range, while Nyra gets a particularly powerful crossbow. I much prefer playing as Nyra, because her mobility and her ability to dodge attacks make fights easier to manage. With her, you slip between enemy shots and soak up far fewer hits.
Both characters were also tweaked after the demo, based on player feedback. In the launch announcement on the game’s Steam page, Auroch Digital lists the changes: Nyra can now melee while reloading her pistol, Malum’s charge knocks enemies back, and the pistol’s magazine goes from six rounds to eight. The blizzard on the ice world has also been toned down, because demo players found it too dense.
Jumping changes everything in the arena fights
The heart of Boltgun 2 is its fast arena battles, and they’re what I enjoyed most. You chain shots, melee strikes and the clearing of entire hordes, with barely a pause. The studio promises more than 40 new enemies, spread across the four Chaos gods, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Khorne and Slaanesh, which makes for waves with very different profiles. On some planets, Imperial troops even join the fight alongside you, a first for the series according to the studio, which also says it gave the bosses extra design attention so they don’t turn into bullet sponges.
Movement feels superb, thanks to some impressive jumping abilities that reward a highly mobile style of play. Those jumps let you stay above a horde before dropping back into the fray at the right moment, and they give the fights a real sense of air. That blend of nineties FPS brutality and freedom of movement is what makes Boltgun 2 such a pleasure to play.
If this return of old-school shooters appeals, the site’s Indie Zone is following a few others right now, such as Gunmetal Gothic, a retro co-op shooter made by a single developer, or Cop Bastard and its nineties-style yakuza hunt.
The heroes’ taunts land right in the thick of battle
I’ve got a real soft spot for the characters’ lines, especially the taunts they throw out mid-fight. They pull you deeper into the Warhammer 40,000 universe and give both Malum and Nyra plenty of personality. In Boltgun 2, where you spend your time shooting, those little one-liners remind you who you’re playing.
The rock soundtrack suits the action well. I do wish the tracks had more memorable melodies: they carry the fights, then fade from memory once the session’s over. Worth noting, composer Mick Gordon, best known for the music of DOOM Eternal, contributes a guest track for the final boss, as Wargamer’s piece on the track explains.
Rounder levels that no longer leave you lost
This is where the progress feels most obvious to me. Level design is clearly better than in the first game, with more circular layouts that are far less disorienting. You understand where you’re going, and you loop back naturally to cleared areas without feeling like you’re going round in circles.
I also like being able to unlock shortcuts and bring up a marker to find my objective easily. The studio has even added a navigation guide and an automap, both optional, so anyone who’d prefer to find their own way can simply leave them switched off.
As for length, the Boltgun 2 campaign takes around six hours. It does branch, however, and Auroch Digital warns that you can’t see everything in a single playthrough. Between the two characters, the alternative routes and the collectibles, there’s easily more than twenty hours here.
Art direction that blends 2D sprites with modern lighting
Visually, Boltgun 2 has real personality. The art direction is superb, mixing 2D sprites, dynamic lighting and colourful environments that give the fights a lot of character. There’s also a choice of pixelation styles, so there’s something for every taste. The worlds you visit vary hugely in mood, from a towering hive city to a mangrove jungle and frozen planets.
The visual effects in Boltgun 2 are particularly impressive, between the explosions, the sprays of blood and the dismemberment. The flip side of that generosity is that the busiest fights can become hard to read. When the screen fills with enemies, flames and projectiles, readability takes a real hit.
Technically, I’ve got no complaints on PC. On the setup used for this review, Boltgun 2 runs at 4K and a steady 120 frames per second, even when the hordes pile up.
Steep difficulty, even on normal
Let’s be clear from the start: Boltgun 2 is a demanding game. The difficulty is high, even on normal, and the hordes keep the pressure on constantly. That’s a big part of why I took to Nyra, since her mobility helps enormously against those waves. Invincibility mode is still there too, and it’s a welcome safety net when the difficulty gets too much.
The price of Boltgun 2 is reasonable, at £22.49 on Steam, where early players are clearly won over: reviews were rated “Very Positive” the day after launch, with 179 positive out of 187. Trophy hunters get a treat as well, with a Platinum that’s far more enjoyable to chase than the first game’s. The game is also out on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and Auroch Digital has announced a Switch 2 version shortly afterwards.
Boltgun 2 fixes what held the first game back
All told, Boltgun 2 fixes its predecessor’s main flaws and delivers a very good boomer shooter. It’s gorier, more spectacular and better built, and its two characters give you a genuine reason to replay the campaign. The visual chaos of the busiest fights and a high difficulty even on normal keep it from going higher, but I’d recommend it without hesitation to anyone who enjoyed the first game. Warhammer fans should pick it up without a second thought, and for everyone else, it’s a great way into a universe well worth exploring. In a very different genre, our Valor Mortis review, covering a first-person soulslike, should also appeal to fans of demanding indie games.
| What we like | What we like a lot less |
|---|---|
| A sequel far better than the first game, gorier and more spectacular | The busiest fights can be hard to read |
| Two heroes with distinct styles, from brutal Malum to agile Nyra | A rock soundtrack without truly memorable melodies |
| Superb movement, driven by impressive jumps | High difficulty, even on normal |
| Rounder levels, with shortcuts and an objective marker | |
| Striking art direction, mixing 2D sprites and dynamic lighting | |
| Mid-fight taunts that deepen the immersion | |
| More than twenty hours with both heroes and the alternative routes | |
| An invincibility mode for anyone put off by the difficulty | |
| A choice of pixelation styles | |
| What might make you buy itA brutal, highly mobile boomer shooter that fixes the first Boltgun’s flaws | What might put you offVisual chaos that can turn unreadable and a difficulty that doesn’t forgive |
To see what’s landing over the next few weeks, the Hitbox release calendar lists every date with its official source.