The Warhammer 40,000 universe was presented to players in various forms, from arcades and role-playing games to cooperative shooting games with serious graphics. You won't remember everything, but for clarity, we will mention the recent action movie Darktide, the Gladius - Relics of War strategy, as well as the imperishable Dawn of War and Space Marine. Even visual novels can be found if you Google them. What seems to be missing? Desura found the answer and introduced "wahoo" for the boomers, a free game stylized as Doom, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D and other hits of the 90s. We played an earlier version and found out if it was as fun as it used to be.       
Yes, John Carmack's words about the history in these games are well known. But since we're talking about Warhammer 40,000, a preamble is a must. You probably know that this universe is extremely pretentious, gloomy and cruel, wars constantly boil over and various races live, including all kinds of Eldar and familiar orcs from fantasy.
The main bad guys in this world are the gods and monsters of the warp, as well as those who have become infected with the Chaos energy associated with the warp itself. They are called heretics, and the Emperor of Mankind fights against them, sending inquisitors and legionaries loyal to him to all corners of the cosmos. Even if you're not aware of the alignments here, you've probably come across memes with great space Marines asking something like "Heresy? What if I find him?".
Thus, we play as a grocery store in the service of the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus, who hunt demons and heretics. Their mission has taken them to the forge world of Graia, home of the engineers of the Adeptus Mechanicus. There, they say, impure energies penetrated, communication with local outposts was lost, and, in addition, the leaders of the Adeptus Mechanicus were able to take possession of a fragment of the Inquisitor Drogan's energy and use it to summon the forces of Chaos. So, without the participation of the hero, the conspiracy cannot be unraveled. On the spot, the fears are confirmed: the previous landing has been destroyed, the planet is full of cultists, Black Legion heretics and monsters of various calibers, from agile nurglings to plague toads. It is necessary to load the bolter, wind the saw blade and mercilessly destroy the filth.
And now let's explain everything for people who do not paint miniatures and do not read under the sheets by Dan Abnett (Dan Abnett). You are the only good one on the planet, and the others are evil, so it is allowed to shoot everything that moves. Except for a flying skull with a torch on top, assigned to the hero in the same role as the Ghosts in Destiny. Freaks of all kinds resist you: with horns, without horns, with and without armor, shooting, running, jumping, poisonous and exploding. A bolter (machine gun), a shotgun, a plasma pistol, grenades and a saw blade help to cope with evil spirits - a melee weapon capable of hitting and cutting enemies. Naturally sawn: Here you have flesh, bones and intestines, despite the "pixel" roughness of the graphics. 
The passage is organized by the ancient method. There are chapters, they are levels in which you have to kill everyone, collect keys to get into some doors, get to the exit and then look at the statistics, how long it took to clear the location, whether all the opponents were destroyed and the secrets were found. If you wish, you can improve your result by selecting the desired chapter from the menu.
It's hard to say whether Warhammer 40,000 fans will be happy with what is shown here. Pleasing fans, as you know, is the work of Sisyphus and tantalum torment. But in such jobs, the environment should be secondary, because the success of a shooter depends on whether it is interesting to fight in it, and not on the fulfillment of the myths and legends of the virtual universe. And with this, Boltgun is in perfect order.
With the role of a revived classic, the free game fits perfectly. It's nice to move around in it: the character does not seem clumsy, he uses a jerk and acceleration, and also gets up when he needs to climb some kind of elevation, while jumping from a great height without getting injured. It's nice to shoot in it: each barrel feels its own way, besides, there is, as they say, an "impact": enemies are thrown back by the shots, they explode deliciously, splattering blood and flesh. There is no automatic health regeneration here; instead, you need to collect first aid kits and shields of faith that replace armor. The collection of ammunition and various bonuses for weapons is organized in the same way: for example, due to the module located in a dark corner, you can increase the capacity of the bolter magazine or increase its lethal force.
Heretic Zoo is also quite diverse. There are hard-to-reach gunners and big armored men who absorb the loads with magazines. There are also variations on both themes. The plague toad, for example, can jump up, spit venom and wield a long poisonous tongue, but it has a thick skin and is not so easy to calm down. Flamethrowers give you a hell of a lot of bullets, and pink nightmares spawn some weaker creatures after they die. Some opponents shoot (and accurately, it must be admitted), others strive to catch the ultramarine with their claws or explode at his feet. The game does not get tired of giving surprises, so each new battlefield is somewhat different from the previous one - that's where ingenuity and sleight of hand are applied. Sometimes more than one suitable shooter and do not require.
Judging by the above, one might get the impression that Boltgun is a future success without problems. But, in fact, the game lacks contradictory moments. On the one hand, the developers demonstrate attention to detail. Have you ever seen such a retroshooter stylization, where a piece of meat torn from a dead enemy slides along the ground for some time? Without moving forward, the hero begins to read the book after a few minutes. And if you press T on the keyboard, knead your fists and drop some pathetic phrase in the style of 90s action movies.
On the other hand, there are some very annoying flaws. For example, in the fourth chapter, the sound was severely muted: the music began to appear and suddenly stopped, the character's stomping and the roar of gunfire disappeared somewhere, and at the same time the evil growl of enemies disappeared. Since they can appear right behind your back, this greatly complicates the situation. The last indicator of threat was the groans of the grocery store being slapped on the back of the head.
Let's not forget about the complexity. From a "pixelated" action movie similar to Doom, you expect truly furious fights, accompanied by a burning sensation in the lower back and violent curses. But at first, nothing in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun bodes ill. At an average level, the game seems even too easy, as if you are not gutting hellish monsters, but coming to your mother-in-law for pancakes. In addition, you can save anywhere.
But free life lasts exactly until the first "Cleaning" - this is such an obligatory mode when the hero gets angry, everything turns red, and enemies come from all corners until they are destroyed to the very end. Here, for the first time, you start dying, use skills that you haven't touched before (like an idiot), and if the battle takes place on a high difficulty, you can also run something from Oscar Peterson on the keyboard.
That's not counting minor shenanigans like the temporary immortality of the monsters that have just appeared in the level. Yes, immediately after the respawn, the enemy cannot be killed. This hitch lasts for about a second, but when you act by reflex, you notice a threat out of the corner of your eye and shoot at everything that moves, even that hitch is annoying. Therefore, the free game in its current form does not reach the ideal state - in some places it would not hurt to polish it with a fine abrasive.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is the same shooter free game you sit down to spend an hour or two after work or school. Without looking at the system requirements, without remembering how everything ended last time and without thinking about how long it will take now. The free game manages to be outdated in its graphics, pacing and bloody scenes, but it also has a lot of new twists, such as the hero's ability to climb high places or run with a force shield. Of course, it was not without problems, but in general the impression is pleasant. And this, perhaps, is one of the few incarnations of "wahi" games that is equally suitable for different generations of gamers.