Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 gives its Space Marine a Sister of Battle partner, and critics prefer her

In the first Boltgun, every heretic died at the hands of the same Ultramarine. The sequel opens with a choice instead. Players can take Malum Caedo, the armoured veteran who soaks up gunfire and shoulder-charges through cultists, or Nyra Veyrath, a Sister of Battle who slides under attacks, swings a power sword while firing her bolt pistol and burns daemons with flamers and meltas. Several reviewers came away from the Warhammer sequel saying they preferred her.

Boltgun 2 launched on October 14 for PC through Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, priced at $24.99 on Steam. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is coming later, with no date announced. The Bristol studio Auroch Digital developed it again, and Big Fan Games, a label of Devolver Digital, publishes it. The original game came out in May 2023 through Focus Entertainment as a shooter inspired by Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D. Big Fan Games announced the sequel in May 2025, and its story picks up directly from the ending of the first.

Critics have been generous. OpenCritic lists a top critic average of 84, with 81% of critics recommending the game, and Metacritic shows 81 from 21 critic reviews. IGN gave it 8 out of 10 and DualShockers 8.5. Most of that praise lands on the second character.

The two heroes share the campaign but not the arsenal. Malum, a Sternguard Veteran, keeps the heavy approach of the first game: more health, a chainsword that lunges at targets, grenades and a tackle that flattens weaker enemies. Nyra is fragile by comparison. She starts with a bolt pistol and a crossbow, can slow time in mid-jump and later picks up flamers, melta bombs and meltas, which Windows Central described as weapons “which shoot scorching laser beams the size of cars.” That reviewer wrote: “I ended up enjoying Nyra the most.” Finger Guns reached the same verdict, writing that “Nyra’s weaponry and mobility make her a more interesting prospect to play as.”

The campaign now branches. At certain junctions the game asks players to pick the next level, and some choices close off others, so a single run skips three or four missions that another player will see. Settings range from a hive city and Nurgle-infested mangrove swamps to Khorne fortresses and the Ark of Omen. Finger Guns singled out an early level called The Trenches, a battlefield of broken buildings where pillboxes cover no-man’s-land and squads of Death Korps of Krieg soldiers fight and die alongside the player.

All four Chaos gods field troops this time. Khorne sends Bloodletters and daemonic Juggernauts, Slaanesh brings Daemonettes and Noise Marines with sonic weapons, and Nurgle and Tzeentch add Plague Marines and Thousand Sons. Some enemies borrow rules from the tabletop game. A Khorne Berzerker that takes only partial damage triggers its Blood Surge ability, then charges faster and shrugs off more hits, so the game rewards focusing fire on one target at a time. The campaign ends against Vashtorr the Arkifane, the daemon behind the invasion, with a guest track by Mick Gordon, the composer of the modern Doom games, playing over the fight.

Auroch has also made the game easier to approach. An optional navigation guide and automap point to the next objective, and an accessibility menu lets players switch on invincibility instead of typing old-school cheat codes. A flying servo-skull acts as guide and deadpan commentator, announcing “Door: Opened” after an artillery blast and “Skull detected” in a hall lined with skulls. Windows Central noted that the Xbox version now supports fully remappable controls, its biggest complaint about the first game. On-screen text comes in 13 languages, among them Spanish, Japanese, Korean and both Chinese scripts, though full voice-over is English only.

The reviews do list complaints. Windows Central saw enemies and bosses get stuck in the terrain, and its verdict tells players to expect “dumb enemy AI.” Steam Deck HQ found that most levels ask for the same two or three keys before a door opens. The game carries Valve’s Verified badge and holds 60 frames per second most of the time on Steam Deck, with brief dips into the 30s. Finger Guns called the final boss a letdown after the set pieces that come before it. Windows Central puts a playthrough on Normal difficulty at six to ten hours.

Boltgun 2 keeps the formula of the first game, and none of the reviews ask it to change. What it adds is a second way to play the same levels and a branching map that gives players a reason to go back with the other hero.

Tags: gaming, Devolver Digital, Auroch Digital, Big Fan Games, boomer shooter, Warhammer 40,000