Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 Beginner Guide: Weapons and Vashtorr

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 launched on October 14 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and it drops you straight back into Auroch Digital's pixel-splattered take on the grimdark with more enemies, more weapons and a second playable crusader. The retro boomer-shooter formula from the first Boltgun is intact — fast movement, chunky sprite enemies and secret-stuffed levels — but the sequel adds a branching campaign and pits you against all four Chaos god factions instead of one. If you just unlocked it, that's a lot to process before you've even found your footing. Here's what to know before you start purging.

01Choosing Your Crusader: Malum Caedo or Nyra Veyrath

Boltgun 2 opens with a choice the original game never gave you: who you're playing as. Malum Caedo is an Ultramarines Sternguard Veteran voiced by Rahul Kohli, built around the same slow, tanky, heavy-weapon playstyle that defined the first Boltgun. He soaks up more damage and hits harder at close range, which makes him the safer pick if you're still learning enemy attack patterns.

Nyra Veyrath, a Celestian Sister of Battle voiced by Alanah Pearce, is the faster, more mobile option. She trades some of Caedo's raw durability for quicker movement and a playstyle built around staying in motion and torching enemies before they close the distance, according to Auroch Digital's official game description. If you preferred circle-strafing and kiting in the original over tanking hits head-on, start with Veyrath instead.

Your choice isn't locked for the whole campaign in every build of the game, but each character has a distinct kit, so it's worth picking based on how you actually played the first Boltgun rather than which model looks cooler. If you're not sure, the first level gives you a good read on which playstyle clicks — it throws a mixed group of fast and slow enemies at you early specifically so you can feel out your character's strengths before committing to a difficulty.

Boltgun 2 Getting Started Checklist

1. 1Caedo is tankier and hits harder up close; Veyrath is faster and built around staying mobile. Base the choice on how you played the first Boltgun.1 min
2. 2Boltgun 2 has adjustable difficulty, camera comfort settings and custom volume controls. Start a notch below your old Boltgun 1 difficulty given the busier four-faction enemy mix.2 min
3. 3Cycle through bolt weapons, shotgun, flamer and chainsword in the first level so you know what's available before a hard fight forces the decision.5 min
4. 4Weapons don't share ammo pools. Finish weakened enemies with the free chainsword instead of burning shotgun shells you'll want later.ongoing
5. 5Side paths hide ammo, armor pickups and collectibles. Clear a room fully before moving to the next branch point.ongoing
6. 6It fixes the Nurgle Nightmare frame-rate drop and an Intel Core Ultra launch crash, plus adds crosshair options.2 min

02Your Starting Arsenal: Chainsword, Shotgun and Flamer

Boltgun 2 keeps the weapon-wheel structure of the original and builds on it. You'll start cycling between your sidearm and the classics from the first game, then pick up the chainsword for melee executions, a shotgun for close-range crowd control, and a flamer that's particularly effective against the tougher, tankier Chaos infantry you'll meet in the game's jungle and swamp levels.

The flamer is worth prioritizing early. Against the horned, flesh-heavy enemies that swarm you in enclosed spaces, a sustained burn does more consistent damage than chipping away with a single-target weapon, and it clears groups instead of just the enemy directly in front of you.

Don't neglect the returning boltgun and bolt pistol either. Boomer shooters live and die on ammo economy, and Boltgun 2 doesn't give every weapon shared ammo pools — the chainsword costs nothing but a cooldown to swing, which makes it the right call for finishing off a weakened enemy instead of spending a shotgun shell you might need for the next room. Switching weapons mid-fight rather than emptying one gun into everything is the single biggest difference between a clean run through a level and burning through your healing items.

03Know Your Enemy: The Four Chaos God Factions

Where the original Boltgun kept you fighting Chaos Space Marines and a handful of daemons, the sequel pits you against all four Ruinous Powers across its campaign: Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Each faction fights differently, and recognizing which one you're up against changes how you should approach a room.

Khorne's Bloodletters charge in melee range and bring daemonic Juggernauts that are hard to stop once they're moving, so creating distance and using your chainsword's reach matters more than standing your ground. Nurgle's plague-bloated horrors are slower but absorb an enormous amount of damage, which is exactly where the flamer earns its keep. Slaanesh's Daemonettes are the opposite problem: fast, erratic, and prone to leaping around the battlefield, while Noise Marines hang back and punish you with sonic weaponry from range, so they need to be picked off early rather than left for last.

Tzeentch's forces round out the roster with the most unpredictable ranged attacks of the four factions, built around sorcery rather than brute force or numbers. The practical upshot for all four is the same: Boltgun 2 wants you reading enemy silhouettes at a glance and switching your approach faction by faction, not clearing every room the same way with whatever weapon happens to be loaded.

04The Branching Campaign: Hive Cities, Jungles and Frozen Wastes

Boltgun 2's single-player campaign branches rather than running in a straight line, with different routes taking you through distinct biomes: the upper levels of a hive city, dense mangrove jungle and swampland, frozen wastes, and eventually the Ark of Omen itself. Which branch you take changes the specific levels you see, so a second playthrough on the other path isn't just a reskin of the same rooms.

That branching structure was a deliberate design choice. Aaron Ashbrooke, creative director at Auroch Digital, has said the team wanted every level to feel distinct rather than reusing the same beats across the campaign.

“I want people to be surprised whenever they play a level.”Aaron Ashbrooke, Creative Director at Auroch Digital

In practice, that means it's worth exploring each level fully before moving on rather than beelining for the exit. Boltgun 2 carries over the original's secret-heavy level design, and side paths tend to hide extra ammo, armor pickups and the collectibles that unlock bonus content, which matters more here given how much tougher the back half of the campaign gets once all four Chaos factions start overlapping.

The branch you pick early on isn't purely cosmetic, either. Because each path funnels you through a different biome before the routes converge again, your weapon and ammo situation heading into the late campaign can look noticeably different depending on which way you went — the jungle route leans harder into enclosed, flamer-friendly spaces, while the hive city route opens up longer sightlines that favor your boltgun and ranged options. If a level feels like it's fighting your loadout, that's often a sign you picked a path that doesn't suit your character's strengths rather than a sign you're doing something wrong.

05Preparing for Vashtorr the Arkifane

The campaign builds toward a confrontation with Vashtorr the Arkifane, a Chaos Undivided daemon-engine and the game's final boss. Auroch Digital commissioned an original track from composer Mick Gordon, titled "Ascent of the Arkifane," specifically for the fight, and the studio has described the encounter as a dedicated, menacing set piece rather than another standard enemy wave.

Exact attack patterns for the fight aren't something you'll find officially documented yet, so treat the specifics as something you'll learn on the attempt rather than something to memorize beforehand. What's confirmed is that Vashtorr draws on multiple Chaos god influences rather than a single faction's toolkit, so the enemy-recognition habits you build earlier in the campaign against Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh troops will carry over directly into reading his attacks. Go in with your most reliable weapons topped off rather than saving a specific gun you haven't used much; this fight rewards familiarity with your loadout over any single "correct" answer.

Stock up before you trigger the encounter if the game gives you the option to backtrack. Arkifanes in Warhammer 40,000 lore are forge-daemons built around corrupting and repurposing war machines, which lines up with the hybrid, industrial look of the fight — expect a longer, multi-stage encounter rather than a single health bar you can burst down, and budget your heaviest weapon's ammo accordingly instead of spending it all in the opening exchange.

From Auroch Digital and Big Fan Games' Warhammer Skulls Showcase reveal of the playable demo, months before the October 14 launch.

06Settings, Difficulty and the Day-One Patch

Boltgun 2 ships with adjustable difficulty, camera comfort options and custom volume controls, plus an optional navigation guide and automap if you'd rather not get lost hunting for secrets. If you're coming from the original game's hardest settings, start a notch below where you finished Boltgun 1 — the sequel's four-faction enemy mix is noticeably busier than anything the first game threw at you solo.

Auroch Digital shipped a patch on October 20, six days after launch, adding crosshair opacity, scale and color options and fixing a frame-rate drop specific to the Nurgle "Nightmare" encounters along with a launch crash affecting Intel Core Ultra processors. If you hit stuttering or crashes in your first session, update before you dive back in; it resolves the most commonly reported issues from launch week.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 is OUT NOW! 🗺️ Explore hive cities, frozen wastelands, and dense jungles ⚔️ Purge heresy as Space Marine Malum Caedo or Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath ☠️ Face four Chaos factions in a bloody crusade for the Imperium! The Emperor demands your service:

— Big Fan Games (@BigFanPresents), October 14, 2026 on X

Boltgun 2 is digital-only on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S right now, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version confirmed to follow later, according to Auroch Digital's official FAQ. There's no multiplayer mode planned — this is built as a single-player crusade from the character-select screen through the Ark of Omen.

If you're deciding whether to jump in at launch or wait, the day-one patch is a reasonable signal that Auroch Digital is actively supporting the game post-release rather than moving straight to the next project. Keep your platform's auto-update on and you shouldn't need to chase down fixes manually beyond that first patch.