One of the big surprises during the Warhammer Skulls showcase this year was Warhammer 40K: Boltgun, a gloriously bloody FPS game designed to evoke the excess of classic shooters of the ’90s. It’s in development at Auroch Digital, and slated for release in 2023.
The Warhammer 40K: Boltgun trailer begins looking like it’s about to introduce a new Life is Strange game: it’s a cozy scene of an unseen person unpacking old belongings from cardboard boxes, eventually finding one that contains their old Warhammer 40K miniatures and games. In it, there’s a 3.5″ floppy diskette, lovingly labeled with a hand-drawn design.
The gameplay footage, by contrast, is pure ’90s FPS grunge, with chunky pixels, enemies with just a few frames of animation each, and a bolt pistol that ejects a steady stream of piping hot brass (each casing even has the classic artifacting around the edge – heaven!) It looks like we’ll be playing as a member of the Ultramarines, aerating our way through hordes of enemies that include daemons, cultists, and Chaos space marines as well.
Here’s the trailer:
Auroch Digital says Boltgun, which you can find on Steam now, will be launching in 2023.