With the resurgence of the 2016 Doom reboot, you’d think that new shooters would follow a similar formula. But instead, we got a resurgence of what’s now called Boomer Shooter, a subgenre of shooters that mimic the style of FPS games from the 90s, like the classic Doom. Adding to the list of these new-age classic shooters is one Warhammer 40000: Boltgun.
There’s a trailer for the game that’s slightly over a minute long. But most of the first half is effectively reinforcing the fact that Warhammer 40000: Boltgun is an homage to retro shooters. In fact, the real meat of the trailer comes in at the 48-second mark. Here, where we see the player character, a Space Marine with the Ultramarines Chapter, cracking his knuckles before unloading Bolter rounds into daemons and Chaos Marines alike.
The art is very blatantly retro, with the enemies looking a lot like 2D sprites, which manage to look both pixelated and smooth at the same time. The titular Boltgun is also very well animated, and even the shells that come flying out of the gun do so at varying trajectories. At the end, there’s a very short glimpse of a chainsword.
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As described by the developers at Auroch Digital, Warhammer 40000: Boltgun will see you “run, jump and charge across huge levels to shoot, shred and slice the worst heretics across the galaxy”. Which sounds about as close to the retro shooters of old as can be. Nothing has been revealed about the game’s plot. But then again, with this genre, it’s probably best to not expect too much on that front.
Warhammer 40000: Boltgun is slated for release sometime in 2023. While there’s no exact date yet, you can expect the game to be available on both generations of the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, the Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
(Source: Focus Entertainment / YouTube, Steam)
