Our game of the week is Warhammer 40K: Boltgun, a kind of wilful throwback to the glorious days of early shooters. Rick loved it – with caveats – and the whole premise has a gleeful immediacy that makes it hard to resist.
It’s an immediacy that was distinctly lacking from this week’s other biggish release. This was The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which I struggled through, intermittently seeing the beauty in it, but more often being frustrated by a game whose many problems ate away at all the potential. I’ll remember this game – I do believe that. But I’ll remember it with melancholy. A team really tried here, and they had some interesting ideas, but wider problems defeated them.
There may not seem to be a lot in common between the two biggies this week, but look sideways and they share one thing. They’re both licensed games. They’re both licensed games in the modern sense, too. Both Warhammer and Tolkien are licenses we see a lot. Scrolling Tiktok, there are a handful of these forever licenses – mobile games for 40K and for Star Trek and Star Wars always seem to be scrolling past.
