Malum Caedo is back following the events of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. While traveling aboard one of the Imperium’s colossal ships, he finds himself under attack by the ever-present forces of Chaos. Because this is Warhammer 40,000, after all, and in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. Playing as either Malum or series newcomer Nyra Veyrath, a Sister of Battle, you’ll fight to repel the invading forces before taking the battle straight to the Chaos Gods themselves: Slaanesh, Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeentch. It’s time to remind them exactly what happens when you mess with the children of Terra, and why this series is so aptly subtitled Boltgun.

Malum plays exactly as you’d remember from the previous game. He’s a hulking Ultramarine, essentially a walking tank clad in power armor, armed with a chainsword that’s particularly effective at turning Chaos scum into minced meat. This time around, he also comes equipped with a handy dash attack, perfect for pinning enemies against walls or sending them flying into the game’s many environmental hazards. After all, there’s a reason gothic architecture has so many spikes!

The weapon levels from the original Boltgun are also gone. Instead, weapons now deal a fixed amount of damage to each enemy type, removing the previous emphasis on choosing weapons based on their relative effectiveness against particular foes. This gives you considerably more freedom in how you dish out the pain. I found myself switching between weapons far more frequently than before, choosing them based on how they handled rather than worrying about whether one dealt slightly more damage to a particular enemy. Around these parts, we live and die by splash damage. Numbers be damned!

The levels in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 are considerably more varied than those of its predecessor, which works particularly well given the much larger scale of the conflict. You’ll hop between planets far more frequently, fighting through urban environments, enormous gothic castles, dense jungles, and snowy plateaus. One particularly memorable mission even pulls off a fantastic Watchmen impression, throwing you into a prison to sort out its unruly inmates. As mentioned earlier, the introductory mission also has you battling through a colossal Imperial spacecraft while it’s under siege. This environmental variety goes a long way toward addressing one of my biggest complaints about the original: the campaign’s lack of visual and thematic diversity.

Beyond the greater variety of environments, I also found the pacing and design of individual levels to be significantly stronger. The original could occasionally feel like a bit of a slog, but in Boltgun 2, I rarely encountered a stage that overstayed its welcome or felt padded out simply to extend the runtime. The developers also seem to have leaned further into the game’s boomer shooter roots, making enemy encounters and placements feel more organic. One of my biggest gripes with the original was its overreliance on enclosed combat arenas that locked you in until every enemy had been eliminated.

While these encounters still exist in Boltgun 2, they’re considerably less frequent. Instead, you’ll stumble upon enemies more naturally as you progress through each stage, allowing combat to flow without constantly being interrupted by another mandatory round of Chaos extermination.

It’s not quite as lonely an experience as the original Boltgun, either. This time around, you’ll frequently stumble into battles already raging between the forces of Humanity and Chaos, with friendly NPCs scattered across the battlefield. Admittedly, they don’t tend to last very long without your assistance, but there’s also no punishment for tactically using them as human shields while you dash around looking for ammunition or health, desperately avoiding the wrath of some of the Chaos Gods’ more ravenous followers. The Emperor protects, but apparently not everyone equally.

Enemy variety has also received a massive boost, thanks in no small part to the fact that you’re now facing the forces of all four Chaos Gods. One minute, you’ll be dealing with swarms of Nurgle’s disgusting Nurglings and his hulking Blightmarines; the next, you’ll be taking aim at the nightmarish, eldritch daemons of Tzeentch. The game certainly isn’t shy about throwing as many enemies as possible in your direction, and if the Imperium actually paid you for your services as a walking plague upon Chaos, you’d be earning every last credit and then some.

Boss fights take more inspiration from modern gaming than from classics like Doom, featuring readable attack patterns, enormous enemies, and encounters that require a little more strategy than simply circle-strafing until your opponent is reduced to bloody chunks at your feet. These battles are tough but rewarding, often stacking the odds against you while still feeling considerably fairer and easier to read than before. Better yet, each boss is a unique encounter rather than an enemy that eventually becomes commonplace later in the campaign. As a result, defeating one genuinely feels like the monumental victory it should be.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 also retains the heavily pixelated aesthetic of its predecessor, giving the game that unmistakable retro look. Enemies are represented by gloriously detailed 2D sprites, while their gruesome innards are fully rendered in 3D, much like the environments, items, and weapons scattered throughout the levels. Explosions look fantastic, and the environmental effects are a massive step up from the original. It genuinely feels like the developers have become far more comfortable with the engine, allowing them to crank practically every aspect of the presentation up to 11.

The soundtrack is exactly as good as you’d expect, seamlessly blending blisteringly fast, thunderous heavy metal with more melodic compositions that perfectly capture the war-torn universe of Warhammer 40,000. Of course, it would be downright criminal not to mention the immensely talented Mick Gordon, who has contributed an absolute face-melter of a boss theme for the game’s final encounter. It’s the kind of track that cranks the intensity up so ridiculously high that even the Terrors of the Warp would cower the moment that first note hits.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 is essentially the perfect sequel. As much as I enjoyed the original, this old boomer shooter veteran had a few gripes with how loosely it adhered to the genre’s conventions. Boltgun 2 not only addresses those issues, but practically John Romero’d me for ever questioning whether it would just be more of the same. It’s a loud, brutal, gloriously gory experience, packed with excellent level design, surprising set pieces, and an enormous branching campaign that had me jumping straight back in the moment the credits rolled. After all, I had to make sure every last planet felt the presence of the God-Emperor. An essential experience for fans of Warhammer 40,000 and classic boomer shooters alike.