Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2's lead artist, Mark Chambers, shares the secrets of bringing retro pixel art into the modern era. Crisp, chunky graphics meet advanced rendering in a balance that honours the past while delivering a polished gaming experience. Expect new weapons and locations in a branching campaign that stretches from hive cities to jungle worlds.

Characters begin life as 3D models, captured from eight camera directions, then converted into sprite sheets packed with normal, ambient occlusion and emission data. A custom rendering setup ensures recognisable silhouettes at lower resolutions, with animations exaggerated for strong, readable poses. The result? Crisp pixels that pop, even at speed.

The team uses modern lighting, particles and visual effects to maintain the retro look, with normal and AO maps reflecting surface detail. Edge highlights and a 'hand-painted' technique help with readability, ensuring that even the chunkiest pixels can be blasted across the screen at an accelerated pace. The challenge is to find the right balance of detail, with high-resolution design elements converted into impressions that work well in 2D.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 is out now for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a Nintendo Switch version on its way. Pixel art, it turns out, still works for modern players beyond the nostalgia factor. So, is it the retro revival or just really good design? You decide.