Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2's Launch Trailer Unleashes Two Heroes on Vashtorr the Arkifane
Auroch Digital and Big Fan Games mark Boltgun 2's October 14 launch with a trailer pitting its two heroes against the daemon Vashtorr the Arkifane.
Auroch Digital and publisher Big Fan Games closed out Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2's launch week with a 90-second official launch trailer, posted the same day the retro-style shooter went live on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Where August's release-date trailer teased the sequel's new antagonist, this cut is pure combat: muzzle flashes, chainswords and a boss encounter dialed up well past anything the 2023 original attempted.
A Trailer Built Around One Boss Fight
The trailer opens on the Chaos-infested wreckage its two heroes have to cut through, then spends most of its runtime on a single set piece: a daemonic machine tearing itself out of a planet's crust while bolter fire rains down on it from every angle. It is a blunt, efficient pitch for a game that has never pretended to be anything other than a fast, loud shooter built in the shadow of id Software's classics, and it lands the same day critics' reviews went up, with Windows Central calling it a satisfying way to pass the time before the next DOOM.
Two Heroes Against a Daemon Demigod
Boltgun 2 keeps returning Sternguard Veteran Malum Caedo from the first game and pairs him with a new playable lead, Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath, who fights with a power sword and melta bomb rather than Malum's bolter-and-chainsword loadout. Together they are sent after Vashtorr the Arkifane, a daemon demigod who has woken a colossal machine buried at a planet's core and detonated it, gutting a chunk of the Imperial fleet in the process. The pair's job across the campaign is to burn out the corruption feeding that machine before Vashtorr can finish what he started and drag the Emperor's champions back into the Warp with him.
Branching Missions Built for Replays
Unlike the linear original, Boltgun 2 splits several of its missions into choice-based branches: picking one path locks the other away for that playthrough, which means seeing everything the campaign has to offer takes more than one trip through it. It is a small structural change, but paired with two characters who handle differently in a fight, it gives a game built around repeat bolter-fodder runs an actual reason to go back in once the credits roll.
Mick Gordon Returns for the Boss Theme
The other carryover from August's reveal is the soundtrack. Guest composer Mick Gordon, best known for his scores on DOOM (2016), DOOM Eternal and Wolfenstein: The New Order, contributed an original track built around Vashtorr's boss encounter, which Warhammer Community's release-date trailer first previewed back in August. Creative director Aaron Ashbrooke has talked about the design philosophy behind the sequel's levels in terms that line up with what the launch trailer sells: fewer wasted moments and a harder push toward spectacle in every encounter.
Escalating From the 2023 Original
The first Boltgun arrived in May 2023 as a smaller, pixel-shaded throwback that leaned hard on the look of mid-90s shooters while still running on a modern engine underneath. It found a following among players who wanted something closer to the original DOOM or Quake than the slower, more cinematic shooters Warhammer 40,000 had mostly been adapted into before it. Boltgun 2 keeps that pixelated art style but widens almost everything built on top of it: a second playable character with her own weapon kit, a campaign that branches instead of running in a straight line, and now a licensed-feeling boss theme from one of the genre's best-known composers. The launch trailer is the clearest statement yet that the sequel is aiming to be a bigger, louder version of the same idea rather than a reinvention of it.
“I want people to be surprised whenever they play a level.”Aaron Ashbrooke, Creative Director, Auroch Digital
Where to Play Boltgun 2 Now
Boltgun 2 is out now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version confirmed to follow at an unannounced later date. The Steam release launched Steam Deck Verified, and both console versions ship day one rather than trailing the PC build, a change from how the original staggered its platform rollout back in 2023. For anyone who sat out the first game, Auroch Digital has kept the core pitch the same: short, violent levels, a soundtrack doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and now, for the first time, a reason to run the campaign twice.
Official links
Mira leads previews at Gamers6. She has spent fifteen years playing co-op shooters badly and writing about them well, and she still keeps a spreadsheet of every weapon reload animation worth the frame count.
