A few years back, Warhammer: Boltgun hit PC and console and won me over with its snappy combat, crunchy retro visuals, and dark humor that made it clear that the people who built the game understood the universe of W40k. And at first, Boltgun 2, out now, didn’t seem like a huge improvement over the last game. But as I’ve played more, I’ve discovered that this new sequel is bigger and better in every way.
Boltgun 2 is set directly after the events of the first game, but you don’t need to have played that game to hop into this one. Long story short, you play as a tough-as-nails Space Marine who is focused on one thing: Destroying enemies of the Imperium of Man and doing it as brutally and effectively as possible. This involves a lot of shooting and explosions. Heretics tend to put up a fight.
This time around, however, players can take up the fight against heretical demons and soldiers as either returning protagonist Malum Caedo or new playable character and badass Battle Sister Nyla Veyrath. Both are very deadly warriors, but they get the job done differently. Malum hits hard and moves slower. He also uses guns from the first game, like the titular boltgun and the immensely satisfying-to-fire shotgun. Meanwhile, Nyla is more nimble and has a different array of firearms that include a flamethrower and a powerful crossbow.
As you complete levels in the main campaign as one character, you can go back and replay them as the other whenever you want. While they don’t shake things up so dramatically that I felt the need to replay every level twice, I did enjoy how different they felt moment-to-moment, offering me the chance to be faster or heavier depending on the combat encounters in each level.
The other big improvement in Boltgun 2 is the increase in overall variety. In the first game, it could start to feel like you were exploring similar halls and shooting the same enemies over and over. In Boltgun 2, there’s a much wider variety of both environments to see and enemies to kill. At first, I was fighting armed cultists in a big, gothic space castle. Then I was killing zombies and toads in a creepy swamp biome. Later, I was dodging snipers and red demons in a nightmarish hellscape.
All these different places to explore make Boltgun 2 feel bigger and more like an epic Warhammer 40k adventure. And I appreciate the improved level design in the sequel.
The first game far too frequently made players fight large waves of enemies in closed-off arenas. It was fun, but could get tedious. Boltgun 2 features levels that feel ripped out of the ’90s and early ’00s shooters it’s clearly inspired by, with winding pathways and big rooms that connect to smaller areas that loop around. It makes combat encounters more varied and overall makes Boltgun 2 feel more sprawling, but in a good way. And if you ever get lost or turned around, you can tap a button to spawn a line on the ground that points you to your main objective.
The main campaign so far has been a blast, featuring different levels that you have to choose between as you progress through the game’s story. I’m really digging all of the new weapons, the improved level design, and the bigger roster of monsters and enemies to blast away. Boltgun 2 really does feel like the perfect sequel to an already stellar game, and if by the end of its runtime I’m still enjoying its maps and action, it will likely be on my list of best shooters of 2026.