
Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun: Words of Vengeance originally launched as a stopgap/marketing gimmick to coincide with the announcement of Boltgun 2. But it appears to have gone down swimmingly with the Boltgun playerbase in its own right, having accrued a 'Very Positive' Steam rating out of 1,700 reviews. The 2.5D blaster's free-to-play spinoff swaps out clicking on enemy heads to kill them in traditional shooter fashion for keyboard-based mass murder a-la The Typing of The Dead.
Words of Vengeance is deeply silly and entirely disposable, but a far more entertaining way to test your WPM than Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. There is one recurring complaint developer Auroch Digital has received, however. Well, actually there were two complaints, but one of them was from players who had mistaken Words of Vengeance for vanilla Boltgun and were aggrieved that they had to kill people with words rather than bullets, so we can disregard that.
The actual complaint was that there wasn't enough of Words of Vengeance, from both a structural and lexical standpoint. In response, the developer has released a new update that effectively doubles the spinoff's size.
The update introduces three new levels of keyboard-based blasting, with Canyon Magrails, The Deep Vault and one other level borrowed from Boltgun increasing the total to six. Alongside this, the update adds 400 new phrases to broaden the diversity of the typing challenge and reduce repeated words. Finally, the update adds a small mechanical flourish in the form of timed textboxes. These are implemented mainly for health pickups, lending you greater control over your chances of survival.
That extra slice of typing-based terminating should help keep Boltgun fans satisfied until the sequel arrives next year. Boltgun 2 seems like it'll be a mostly straightforward follow up to the original, introducing new weapons, enemies and locations. Its branching singleplayer campaign sounds slightly more ambitious, but even if the sequel ultimately transpires to be Just More Boltgun, that's by no means a bad thing.
Best laptop games: Low-spec life
Best Steam Deck games: Handheld must-haves
Best browser games: No install needed
Best indie games: Independent excellence
Best co-op games: Better together
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.