Auroch Digital’s upcoming title Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 is the sequel to their explosive retro shooter promising more – more enemies, weapons, and new ways to purge.
Today Matt Bone, lead designer, and Mark Chambers, lead artist, share their favourite new enemies and provide some insight into their creation and role. There are a few exclusive reveals to discover too as you read on.
Matt Bone: One feature of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 we’re really excited about is including all four Chaos god factions for the first time. That means players will be fighting against Nurgle, Tzeentch, Khorne, and Slaanesh enemies, as well as the returning Black Legion forces.
Slaanesh: Daemonette
Bone: For me Daemonettes are the quintessential Slaanesh unit, so it was not only vital we include them as a new enemy, but that we really spent time doing them justice.
With the Slaanesh faction we’re leaning into themes of elusiveness, showing off, and disorienting the player. So, the Daemonettes have a bunch of ambitious abilities we’ve never done before in Boltgun. They perform huge arcing leaps around the battlefield, as if playing with their prey below, before rapidly closing the distance with a zigzagging phase attack. Up close, their beguiling presence causes a special screen effect at the same time they’re trying to claw you to death. They’re quite a handful.
Mark Chambers: We wanted to make Daemonettes a visual spectacle, particularly when they’re performing these phase attacks, in which we’ve developed a freeze frame technique to capture a sprite trail across the screen.
I’m also a fan of how we channeled the unsettling nature of Slaanesh into a horrific facial change when seen up close, and an underwater motion effect that’s been applied to details like hair animations.
Khorne: Bloodcrusher
Bone: The Bloodcrusher was another technical challenge for us. This is the first mounted unit we’ve done in Boltgun and was worth the effort in terms of gameplay.
During combat, the Bloodletter rider can leap off the Juggernaut mount, meaning you now have two bloodthirsty Khorne enemies to deal with. I have a particular soft spot for the Juggernaut’s consume ability, where it gorges itself on any nearby corpses on the battlefield to regain health – sometimes including its former rider.
Chambers: We really pushed the complexity of our animation rigs by combining two separate enemies into one. Not only is this an impressive visual feat, but the effects used on the charge ability in particular really emphasizes the unrelenting force bearing down on targets like a daemonic runaway train.
The sheer height scale involved here also adds to the in-game presence, as these enemies tower above players on the battlefield.
Nurgle: Blightlord Terminator
Bone: It was important to us that if we were going to commit to including all four Chaos factions, we include Chaos Marine units for each. This meant adding Plague Marines and Blightlord Terminators to the Nurgle faction.
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