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.
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A perfectly fine boomer shooter for a couple hours, but it gets very samey and monotonous. Maybe if there was more to the melee stuff the gameplay would have more staying power. I dunno. Very cool aestheic.
81 people found this review helpful
D1 CapCut hater2026-09-20
Hi! Thanks for playing Inetbet Casino. +++SCAM+++ You think you are buying a boomer shooter, but really it's a giant SCAM. After 2+ hours it changes into a weird labyrinth game where you go through teleports and keep getting back to the same place where you started. If you feel like playing with your laptop next to you and watching a walkthrough frame by frame maybe it's a game for you. It's not for me. Can't even get a refund because they put this level late enough in the game. ++++SCAM++++