This game is unc-slop for sure. 8/10 However, this game perfectly captures what it is trying to be. It nails both the Warhammer setting and the classic doom-shooter feel. I would strongly recommend this game to fans of either. As a Warhammer fan I found the design really inspired and made me want more from the Warhammer 40k universe. Everything aesthetically about this game is captured perfectly. The world design, enemy design, and weapon design are all top notch. As someone very familiar with the tabletop games everything was instantly recognizable. The weapons were a particular highlight. The movement in this game is stellar, you feel weighty like a Space Marine but you still glide around the map with speed which is very fun to control. The level design of the game is intricate and well done, it reminds me of playing earlier shooters with how they would wrap around themselves. The enemy variety and design in this game is very strong, you would learn each of their move sets and learn how to play and move around them. Almost all of the weapons (I'm looking at you shotgun and plasma rifle) were very satisfying to use and had their use cases. I really enjoyed how the developers took the Strength vs Toughness mechanic from the tabletop and included it in the gameplay of the game. All that being said, while I did thoroughly enjoy the game there was some pretty big quality of life issues that plagued me (pun intended) for the entire playthrough. The first issue I found was that the Servo-Skull companion desperately needed some voice acting. He would often pop-up with hints or lore for the game. but the gameplay was so intense and needed so much attention that I found it difficult to look up to the top left to read what he was saying when fighting for my life. Even if the text was placed somewhere more central so it didn't pull your gaze so far from the gameplay would have helped, but I do think some simple voice acting or even a robot voice would have helped tremendously. This game also desperately needs a weapon wheel like in Doom 2016. Scrolling through the weapons was far to slow to have any practical use in the fast past combat, and using 1-9 on the Keyboard basically meant you'd have to stop moving and lose half your HP just to select the high damage weapons place on 7-9. Lastly, I found certain enemies had way too much HP. Even if the weapon your used was the correct strength or not some enemies like the exalted flamer would eat through 2 weapons worth of ammo before dying. On top of this I often found that enemies didn't drop enough HP to be worth killing them in high intensity situations. Boss fights had such high HP bars I often found they devolved into me having consumed all the HP on the map and sprinting in circles avoiding the hordes of enemies as they would consume too much ammo and had too many unavoidable attacks (like the stupid licking frogs) to be worth actually trying to kill them for health. In actual levels this wasn't an issues as maps were expansive enough that you could keep moving and not run into issues. But boss fights had such think health bars the map would be bled dry of loot and I would just be sprinting in circles avoiding every enemy and trying to find cheese spots to beat the boss as all my high damage weapons would be out of ammo, and all the health would be gone so I couldn't play aggressive. In particular the last boss fight of the DLC was really bad for this. Now that being said, I didn't necessarily think that this was too challenging or hard, but the gameplay ended up devolving after fights went on for so long with such massive health bars and such low health drops. Ultimately this game is very worth it, and very worth your time especially if you're a WH40k fan. It's got a quick and sweet campaign with good re-playability. The issues I listed while annoying weren't enough to stop me from thoroughly enjoying the game. Go pick it up for yourself and slay some heretics in the name of the God Emperor!
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It’s… alright? I don’t know. The game lags and stutters. This, in itself, in a fast-paced game, is a deal-breaker. You will die when the action peaks because the game is lagging on you. Or the elevator will bug out, and you will fall down, or an enemy gets stuck somewhere. -The music is non-existent, just… ‘metal’ noise. This is almost half the game: the music, especially during action. Imagine DOOM without music… yeah, not great. - The maps are either good or awful, it depends on the level. The upside-down castle was a highlight, and so was the desert, because I like deserts, but the whole first chapter is purple corridors. - At the start of the game, the maps are linear, and I like that more than a wide arena where you have to press N to find your way, and almost every level has this ‘go find red key to continue’. And there’s no map to look at and decide where to explore or where to go. Was creating a map really that hard, or goes against their vision for this game? Why would it be? - ”Secrets”: this might be the worst one yet. Each level has 6 secrets, which consist of max ammo, better ammo, or a weapon upgrade, and there’s no way to find them unless you spend 20 minutes extra checking every corner of every area of the level. Again, a map would have helped. To make it worse, tying weapon upgrades, which are essential to progress because enemies get stronger and more numerous, to optional secrets is quite the decision. - Another deal breaker for me in games is enemy variety, or the lack of it: a human with a gun, a big human with a gun, or a blue or pink beast. Add to this the fact that it is a pixel art style game, it’s almost impossible to tell who I am shooting at a distance. The real problem with this is that they are the same shapes and behaviors in every level: enemies charge brainlessly at you or stand there and shoot… There are like 10 unique enemies total. You beat a boss, then he is reintroduced later for you to beat him again: I despise this, not only hate it, no, I despise it. Everything special about the boss and its original encounter is meaningless now since I’m fighting him again. - ”Purge” encounters: all of a sudden, while playing, your screen is flashed red, and the music changes, and you are locked in a room with endlessly-spawning minions and a couple of real enemies to kill. This feels like another optional thing, like Slayer gate challenges in Doom Eternal… except they are mandatory here, you are stuck till you clear the area of heresy. - One final annoying thing is how some pickups, especially armor and health, do not get picked up unless you absolutely walk over them precisely, which is plain annoying. Furthermore, in big fights, I just want to be healed right away, there’s no time to pay attention and walk over pickups with deadly accuracy. You can’t walk by them, or near them, you must go over them or hug the wall if they are near a wall. Again, DOOM, in there, the pickups are automatically gained when you are in their vicinity. Now, the game does have nice things going for it: the movement is slick, your marine bunny-hoping and dashing straight through enemies, landing from a height shakes the ground, straight out of Doom the Dark Ages (or the other way around), the guns feel nice, running and blasting heretics with a shotgun up close and personal is fun. But. Eventually, once the novelty wears off, it gets really boring. There’s virtually no story to keep it interesting, no discernible objective, no map to collect the secrets and upgrades which makes you stronger and thus more fun to keep playing, no nothing… just run and shoot your way through the level, which is fine for some people, but for me this is just thankless toil, and then on top of that you have all those issues mentioned earlier making this game a boring slog.
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2Tight19112026-09-24
Hi! Thanks for playing Amatic Casino. tl;dr Fast, simple, and consistent retro shooter fun, it has no pretentions or ambitions beyond that and benefits from that simplicty. Weak navigation tools and some repetition hold it back, but the core loop of moving fast and deleting enemies is solid. Player context Played through the main campaign on Emperors Mercy difficulty, will probably start the Forges of Corruption DLC soon, and tried Horde mode (wasn't really my thing). Boltgun sits as a companion piece to the events around the THQ/Saber Space Marine game timeline, starting after Space Marine and much before the events of Space Marine 2. It deliberately goes in the opposite direction of Space Marine 2: much lower narrative focus, no squad play, no cinematic pacing, and no multiplayer pressure. Malum Caedo fights alone, in first-person, charging into enemies like Doomguy on meth rather than letting yourself get swarmed like Lieutenant Titus. Retro visual style can be adjusted. Movement is fast, with weighty impacts, chainsword melee, and no fall damage (thank the Emperor). Ledge climbing is a modern gaming inclusion, and works cleanly. The Good Combat loop is very strong. Movement feels great: fast traversal between enemies, but still grounded rather than floaty. Movement is comparable to the king of boomershooters Dusk, if a tad slower but weightier. Enemy variety felt strong early: you are introduced to nurglings, cultists, Chaos Marines, Chaos Terminators, plague drones, champions and more. But as soon as you hit Chapter Two you realised the game frontloaded almost all the enemy types from the very start. Unlike older shooters where you drop starting weapons immediately, here loadout swapping stays meaningful throughout. All the weapons remain relevant throughout, and all are fun to use. The boltgun and shotgun were my reliable defaults when exploring the maps, swapping out to different tools when the situation demanded it.. Enemy “rating” system pushes weapon choice. Shotgun works well for grouped low-tier enemies, but higher-tier units encourage Plasma or Melta guns. You find temporary buffs throughout most of the maps, and the buffs work differently on each weapon. This system works, but I thought it felt unitiutive, was not well explained and adds unnecessary friction. Frag and Krak grenades are everywhere, don't avoid using them, even the humble frag could do decent damage to Chaos Marines. Vortex grenades are best saved for bosses. Enemies turning on each other due to accidental friendly fire was one of my favourite things in Quake, and it's here too! Taking a leaf out of Nu-Doom level design, maps are mostly hallways in-between the set piece arena fights, where you and waves of Chaos filth are locked together until you are the last man standing. You win by prioritising enemies, using the right tools for the right enemies, noting location of powerups, health and armour. Verticality is consistently useful, fun and adds dimension to the maps. I enjoyed the Chapter 2 map biomes and environments most. Malum Caedo has some character moments through animations and taunts without overdoing it. The Bad Performance is slightly underwhelming. Around 110–120 FPS on my hardware despite simple visuals, fog-heavy limits to view distance, and a retro style that should scale higher. And yes, I did check settings to ensure FPS wasn't limited to 120. As mentioned before, enemy variety drops off after the early chapters due to front-loading. Sound design is serviceable but repetitive. Enemy audio barks and soundtrack loop quickly. Chapter pacing becomes repetitive in places. By chapter 3, frequent greater demon encounters start to blur together and slow momentum. The Ugly No automap. Navigation relies on memory and directional markers. A navigation path option (which was added later in a patch) helped here, but it does not replace a proper automap like Doom or Descent. Exploration and secret hunting suffer as a result. Conclusion Boltgun is not trying to be complex or ambitious. It is a straightforward shooter that prioritises movement and combat clarity over systems or narrative. Compared to many modern entries in the subgenre, it holds its own mechanically. It compares very strongly to even the better Boomer Shooters that started almost a decade ago. I feel no strong pull to replay for secrets or completion, but the core experience works well in short bursts. Do not expect depth beyond what it shows early. Expect a competent, focused shooter that knows exactly what it is doing and stops there, and ends before it started to outstay its welcome.