I Played Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 — Here’s What’s New

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 starts exactly where you would expect. A Space Marine, a bolter, and a whole lot of heretics who need converting via extreme cranial trauma. I got hands-on with an early demo build featuring two stages, two playable characters, and roughly forty minutes of carnage split across both. Here is what I found.

Two Heroes, Same Fight

By far the biggest addition is a second playable character. Nyra Veyrath, a Sister of Battle, joins returning Ultramarine Malum Caedo. Each gets unique levels, their own arsenal, and separate special moves. On paper, this sounds like a meaningful expansion. A nimble acrobat and a walking tank. Something closer to Doom Eternal versus Doom: The Dark Ages.

But there is a catch.

Nyra and Malum feel nearly identical. Both have a heavy melee attack, a charging slide that doubles as damage-dealing evasion, and grenades so slow to detonate that swifter enemies practically laugh and stroll away. The special moves have different names and visual flourishes. Beneath the surface, they perform the same functions. I was genuinely disappointed. Dual protagonists in a boomer shooter should mean two radically different ways to tear through a level. Instead, the distinction lands almost entirely on which guns you are holding.

The two characters in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 are way too similar. When I first learned of the dual protagonists, I was hoping for a more agile hero who could evade attacks and a tank who could absorb or deflect hits, kind of like the difference between the Doom Slayer from Doom Eternal and Doom: The Dark Ages.

What Each Warrior Brings

The weapon split is where the personality finally emerges, and it almost redeems the character sameness. The only firearm they share is the Heavy Bolter. Everything else is exclusive.

Malum's Loadout

• Trusty boltgun, reliable and rapid
• Shotgun for close-range obliteration
• Plasma rifle with strong range and projectile speed

Nyra's Tools

• Pistol, slow but devastating per shot
• Crossbow, limited ammo and heavy impact
• Flamethrower, wildly satisfying against clustered mobs

Nyra's pistol and crossbow carry less ammunition and fire slower than Malum's equivalents. The tradeoff is raw stopping power. Her flamethrower in particular feels fantastic, painting corridors with promethium while Nurgle cultists shriek and scatter. Malum's plasma rifle is no slouch either, popping heads clean at mid-range, but it lacks the visceral glee of setting an entire room ablaze.

Purge Mode Finally Delivers

The Purge sections return from the first game, those locked-room kill-boxes where the doors stay shut until you paint the floor with enough corpses. The original Boltgun had them. Boltgun 2 makes them sing.

One Purge threw me into winding subterranean caves packed with encroaching Nurgle servants. Tight corridors, low visibility, enemies pouring from every crevice. Nyra's flamethrower turned that claustrophobic nightmare into a fireworks display. Another Purge unfolded on a bridge with breakable floor sections, Khorne warriors riding Bloodcrushers across the span while explosive-laden grunts charged from the far side. Here, Malum's plasma rifle gave me the range and accuracy to thin the horde before they reached melee distance.

These encounters are the best argument for the dual-character system. Swapping heroes between Purge types reveals genuine tactical wrinkles. In regular stage navigation, the distinction hardly registers. Under pressure, it clicks.

Allies, Enemies, and What's New

Imperial Guard soldiers now fight alongside you in certain sections. Members of the Death Korps of Krieg appeared during the first level, blasting away at Chaos forces before being overwhelmed. They are not exactly avatars of destruction, and they fold quickly under sustained fire, but their presence adds texture. Dying alongside the Guard feels appropriately grimdark.

New enemy types have joined the fray. Servants of Khorne take the field, resembling horned devils and hitting hard. Some ride Bloodcrushers into battle before dismounting to slash with blades. These fights were the most demanding moments of the demo and easily the most exhilarating.

The retro 2.5D pixel art returns unchanged from the first game. Secrets hide behind false walls. Puzzles never get more complicated than finding the red key for the red door. A quest marker line shows the route forward, which is a godsend when stages branch into multiple directions and you lack the patience to wander aimlessly like it is 1993. Dialogue warbles through mission comms, but tuning out is effortless. This is boom, shoot, repeat. Nothing more.

Forty Minutes In

Both stages lasted roughly twenty minutes per character. That is not much time to render a final verdict. What the demo did prove is that Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 has not lost the kinetic magic of its predecessor. The shooting feels crisp, the Purge arenas have been meaningfully upgraded, and the expanded bestiary keeps encounters tense.

Twenty minutes per character. Short, sharp, and already enough to make me want a full suit of Power Armor and a ticket back to the 41st millennium. The character similarity is a real frustration, an echo of wasted potential that nags at an otherwise confident sequel. If Auroch Digital can sharpen that distinction before launch, this could surpass the original outright. Even if they do not, the fundamentals are rock solid.

Nyra Veyrath and Malum Caedo may move alike, but the guns they carry tell different stories. And in a boomer shooter, the gun is still the point. The demo hits Steam on May 21, 2026.