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The retro FPS genre has seen a resurgence as of late, and it’s been beyond glorious for anyone wanting to dabble in some good ol’ “boom shoot” action. With the likes of Dusk, Amid Evil, and Dread Templar (to name a few), gamers have been eating well for years now. Then Boltgun was announced, and the hairs on the back of our nerdy neck started to stand.
Boltgun is based in the legendarily nerdy Warhammer 40,000 universe, and it was crying out for attention. A game that was a retro throwback in a world beloved by many with chunky pixels to die for. It’s an excellent game on PC, of that, there is no doubt. But the Switch version isn’t all rainbows and sunshine.
More Warhammer 40,000 content:
Boltgun Gameplay Trailer | Release Date | Darktide Update | Best Weapons In Darktide
Frame Rate Issues
Right off the bat, Boltgun runs terribly on Switch. The game runs at a sluggish 30FPS which is a terrible start considering this is a highly mobile, action-focused boomer shooter. 60FPS is the target, and anything lower hampers the experience in these kinds of games. This is a huge blow.
It only gets worse though. That 30FPS is a very loose target and the Switch struggles to maintain it. The frame rate is spotty at best, and the further you get into the game, the more egregious these issues become. As early as the fourth level we were playing a slide show when things heated up, making the game unplayable for us.
Not only that, but this was all heralded from the moment the game booted up as the developer and publisher intro animations were noticeably laggy. Not a good first impression at all.
Graphical Fidelity
Performance aside, Boltgun is beautiful to behold when not in motion. The game’s chunky pixels are as moreish as a tube of chips covered in your chosen brand of salsa. Sadly, the game once again falls about in motion.
This is due to the blur that coats the screen in conjunction with the aliasing that is so sharp it could cut glass. When playing it was hard to focus on the screen, and innocent bystanders who were passing by commented on how it made them feel motion sick.
Various Nit Picks
There’s more to go over but we are going to lump them into one category otherwise we would be here all day complaining. Firstly, the controls are terrible unalterable amounts of Aim Acceleration being applied at all times. This makes shooting everything far more difficult. It also felt fundamentally broken as it would randomly jolt from zero to max.
The movement controls are also pretty pants. When compared to the PC version, they feel floaty. This combined with the awful aiming mechanics and Boltgun would have felt terrible to play on Switch even if it had decent performance.
Finally, the load times. This is definitely a nitpick, but we are putting it in any way – the game has ludicrously long loading times between missions. These are near-instant on all other platforms, making the Switch version that little bit worse for wear.
We love Boltgun, but the Switch release is dreadful. It is playable only by the vaguest definition of the word.
That’s all we have on Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun for now. Be sure to check out our other guides, lists, and walkthroughs for more content.
