Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Boom Brings Retro Space-Marine Shooting to Phones

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Boom has arrived on the App Store and Google Play after passing one million pre-registrations and pre-orders. Developed and published by Nitro Games, the mobile shooter translates the chunky retro-FPS aesthetic associated with Boltgun into a phone-friendly package of oversized weapons, pixel-heavy carnage and Space Marines demonstrating once again that diplomacy was apparently omitted from their training manual.

Players can try the opening three levels free before deciding whether to purchase the full game, a welcome approach in a market where 'free' increasingly means 'please meet our seventeen currencies'. The release is particularly interesting because premium and trial-based mobile games have become comparatively rare next to free-to-play service titles. Warhammer also continues to be unusually well represented on mobile, ranging from strategy and card games to tactical RPGs.

Boltgun Boom instead offers something refreshingly immediate: point weapon at Chaos, pull trigger, repeat until the Emperor is satisfied or your battery asks for mercy.