Nailing down Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun's mix of modern and retro

gamesindustry.biz:

According to developer Auroch Digital, the just-released Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is "the game that should have been made in the '90s."

Boltgun is a first-person shooter set in the grim darkness of the tabletop strategy game's futuristic universe. It is also what many would call a "boomer shooter," a retro-tinged treatment of the genre that proudly wears its inspirations on its comically oversized epaulettes.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Boltgun lead designer Grant Stewart spells out those influences for people who couldn't discern them from the game's screenshots.

"With gameplay, obviously we were influenced by Doom and mods for that like Brutal Doom," Stewart says. "But we were also very heavily influenced from the more modern era of things harkening back to those shooters. I know I'm just mentioning various forms of Doom, but Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal were a big deal for us.

"We tried to pull the best bits out of the modern stuff while also staying true to the classic retro things."

It's not just Doom of course. From Quake to Unreal Tournament to other recent retro-inspired shooters like Ultrakill and Blood: Fresh Supply, there's a mix of modern and classic influences cited by the developers. They manifest most clearly in the game's visuals, which combine some Doom-esuqe chunky pixel art on the enemies and the player character's hands and weapons, while the environments are a higher-fidelity level of 3D graphics than you would have seen in the days when sprite-based enemies were state of the art.

Settling on the proper balance of old and new for the game's visuals was a lengthy process for the team, with a significant amount of back and forth to get the overall look to the point they were happy with it.