Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 Sets October 14 Launch With a Mick Gordon Boss Theme

Bristol developer Auroch Digital has set a release date for Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2, the follow-up to its 2023 retro shooter. The sequel lands on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on October 14, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version confirmed to follow later. It's published by Big Fan Games, a Devolver Digital label, and arrives on the Steam store page priced at $24.99, discounted to $22.49 for anyone who pre-orders.

Two Campaigns, One Grimdark Crusade

The original 2023 Boltgun put players in the boots of Ultramarine Malum Caedo, chainsword and heavy bolter in hand, blasting through a low-poly, pixel-shaded take on the Warhammer 40,000 universe built in the mold of classic 1990s boomer shooters. The sequel picks up immediately after that story and keeps Caedo as a playable option, but splits the campaign in two: a second, parallel path follows Nyra Veyrath, a Sister of Battle making her series debut. Auroch Digital's own storefront listing promises more enemies, more weapons and new ways to purge heretics across both routes, and the branching structure lets each character's chapters be tackled in either order, with encounters, armaments and pacing tuned around their different fighting styles rather than reusing the same levels twice.

Vashtorr Enters the Fight

The October 14 announcement also confirmed the sequel's central antagonist: Vashtorr the Arkifane, a daemon-forged demigod who, according to the reveal, awakens a colossal machine buried at the heart of an Imperial world and triggers an explosion that wipes out much of the fleet stationed there. That catastrophe sets the stage for both campaigns, with Caedo and Veyrath converging on the same crisis from opposite sides of the front line.

A Doom Composer Joins the Soundtrack

Boltgun 2's reveal trailer also introduced a new collaborator: Mick Gordon, the composer behind Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, contributed an original boss track titled "Ascent of the Arkifane" written specifically for the Vashtorr encounter. It's Gordon's first credited work on a Warhammer game, and the trailer built around it was published on the official PlayStation YouTube channel back in late August, well ahead of this week's release-date confirmation, as the first look at how that fight actually sounds.

What's Already Playable

Players don't have to wait until the 14th to get a sense of the combat. A free two-level demo, released back in May alongside the Warhammer Skulls Showcase, has been sitting on Steam ever since and is scheduled to come down once the full game launches. It covers an early slice of Caedo's campaign and has been the main way press and fans have judged the game's pacing ahead of release, without needing to commit to a purchase first. The Switch 2 edition, meanwhile, wasn't locked in until late August, when Auroch Digital confirmed the port alongside the game's Vashtorr reveal trailer, though it still has no firm date of its own.

Series fans weighing other 40k-flavored options this month have plenty to pick from: if turn-based strategy is more your speed than a boomstick, Creative Assembly recently expanded its own corner of the setting, where Legendary Lords just added to Total War: Warhammer III gave that campaign map a fresh set of factions to command.

Release Details

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 launches October 14 on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with the Nintendo Switch 2 edition following at an unspecified later date. The game remains strictly single-player, mirroring the structure of the first entry, and neither Auroch Digital nor Devolver Digital has announced any post-launch content beyond the base campaigns at this point. For now, the release-date trailer is the clearest look yet at what both soldiers are walking into.

The Release Date Announce Trailer, published on PlayStation's official channel back in August, well before this week's October 14 confirmation.