A Gory Victory Lap
HIGH Devastating new weaponry, nightmarish new areas, loathsome new enemies.
LOW Some levels feel like deja vu. Purges are even more tiresome than in the base game.
WTF Navigation mode is nice, but still no map?
Editor’s Note: This review covers only the Forges of Corruption DLC. For a deeper look at the core Boltgun systems and content, please see the original review.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun was released last year and received many accolades for its fresh take on the ’90s-style genre, reflecting the pixelated glory of early FPS games like Doom or Star Wars: Dark Forces while meeting modern standards for things like framerates, sound design and UI.
Last month, Auroch Digital released Forges of Corruption, which includes a new campaign that is equal in length and quality to one of the chapters of the base game. They simultaneously released a patch which included new achievements, a new Horde Mode, a navigation mode and general quality of life improvements.
For those who don’t know, Warhammer 40,000 began as a TTRPG back in the late ’80s, so before playing Boltgun I only knew of the IP from legions of miniature Space Marines on display at various board game retailers. Now, after eight hours of playing as a Space Marine, I’m much more interested in the whole universe.
I started by going through some of Boltgun‘s base game to get a feel for it, and after about an hour and a half it was clear that I didn’t need to understand its backstory to enjoy annihilating every last heretic on the planet Graia. When I then booted up the DLC, I was briefed by Inquisitor Seibel about the overtaking of an Imperial forge on Graia and my mission was to take it back for the Empire.
The cutscene ended with an image worthy of a power metal album cover — Mallum Caedo (the Space Marine embodied by the player) standing on a burning hill, looking determinedly at the horizon — needless to say, it got me hyped to lay waste to the Manufactorum.
I was glad to find that I was in for more stomping around as a Space Marine, taking out hordes of disgusting, slime-spewing demons and all sorts of heretics with a huge arsenal of weapons to choose from. Like the base game, the player gains more weapons as they progress, giving a sense of becoming more powerful even though there are no RPG elements of upgrading weapons or armor. By the time I got the new missile launcher, I felt like I could take anything on, even my first damage-sponge boss known as a Great Unclean One, with relative ease.
Most of my favorite weapons were less conventional, like the Vengeance Launcher (a grenade launcher loaded with tiny grenades that stick to enemies before they explode) and I still preferred anything over the shotgun, as it was weak against the new enemies and took far too long to reload.
My new favorite level soon became Escalating Chaos, which featured an eerie purple canyon and included some light platforming challenges. Overall, the color palette was muted, which worked for establishing a dystopian atmosphere but started to become monotonous in more than a few areas. This leads me to one of my main qualms with the DLC — many levels, enemies and mechanics felt as if they had been copied and pasted.
In the sewer sections and some of the arenas, I often asked myself, “Haven’t I been here before?” Also, by the end, I had grown so sick of the “Purge” sections (where players must eliminate big baddies and regular enemies spawn until they’re gone) as they became so challenging even on Medium difficulty that I found myself wishing I could just cheese my way out so that I could get back to making progress.
My last objective in this DLC was to destroy the Daemon Forge, at which point the developers pulled out all the stops with three big baddies and droves of regular enemies teleporting to my location all at the same time, and I was barely able to beat two before I died on my fifth or sixth try. Eventually, I tried to adjust the difficulty and found that there wasn’t an option to do so mid-game, but I was able to turn on invulnerability — I’m not proud to admit it, but I had to just to finish the campaign.
Ultimately though, I encountered many of the same problems in the DLC that were present in the base game — the difficulty spikes are fierce and there’s not much variety here beyond running, gunning and finding keys.
Despite the lack of DLC freshness, Forges of Corruption was engaging enough to hold my attention and enjoyable as hell most of the time, but I think it would be great if Auroch added multiplayer in future Boltgun patches or DLC — I would imagine playing with fellow Space Marines, whether it be deathmatch or co-op mode, would be a blast.
While both the core campaign and this DLC would use a little tweaking, there’s no doubt that they remain exciting, engaging plays that come recommended. As Incommodus the Servo Skull says, PURGE THE HERETICS!
Rating: 7 out of 10
— Thom Stone
Disclosures: This game was developed by Auroch Digital and published by Focus Entertainment. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5 and XBO/S/X. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for the PC. Approximately 6.5 hours were devoted to the DLC content alone. The DLC was finished. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game was rated M by the ESRB and contains Violence and Blood and Gore. The official description reads as follows: This is a retro first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a space marine investigating a planet invaded by demons. Players use a variety of machine guns and shotguns to kill hordes of stylized, pixelated enemies (e.g., demons, cultists, enemy marines). Combat is fast-paced, highlighted by frequent gunfire, explosions, and blood-splatter effects. Enemies often explode into low-resolution gore/viscera, and one weapon (chainsaw attachment) can result in up-close blood-splatter/chunks of flesh.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. All NPC dialogue is fully subtitled. Enemies will often attack off-screen with only an auditory indication for where the attack came from and some also have the ability to teleport near the player before they attack, which is always accompanied by a sound effect but has no visual cues. The game therefore is not fully accessible.
Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.
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