Slitherine and Frag Games have officially unveiled Bolt Action, a new turn-based WWII strategy game that adapts Warlord Games’ renowned tabletop miniatures system for PC.
Announced during the Slitherine Next 2025 showcase, the game aims squarely at recreating the feel of pushing painted models across a physical battlefield, with a release planned for 2026 and a Steam page already live for wishlisting.
Bolt Action is built as a digital counterpart to the tabletop wargame of the same name, first published in 2012 and now considered one of the leading World War II miniature systems worldwide.
Slitherine describes this adaptation as a fully 3D battlefield where units behave like miniatures rather than generic soldiers: you swivel a Sherman’s turret to catch a Tiger in your sights, nudge a squad along the edge of bocage, or slide a sniper’s round base into a patch of dense woodland that looks like it was arranged by hand for a club night.
The focus is on preserving that tactile sense of distance, cover, and line of fire that tabletop players rely on when they lean over the table and eyeball a shot.
The videogame leans heavily on Bolt Action’s hallmark mechanics. Squads and vehicles don’t just trade shots; they also face morale checks that decide whether they stand firm or fall back once the pressure mounts.
Suppression and pinning play a central role, with sustained fire and overlapping fields of fire used to lock enemy platoons in place and open up safe avenues of advance. Assaults remain tense affairs thanks to reactive defensive fire, turning every closing charge into a calculated risk.
All of this sits on top of a realistic line-of-sight model that accounts for terrain, elevation, and obstacles, so a hedge, stone wall, or rising ground can be the difference between a devastating ambush and walking into a kill zone.
The battlefields themselves are designed to look like classic wargaming dioramas. Slitherine and Frag Games talk about dense woods, compact villages, fortified positions, and those iconic Normandy hedgerows, all arranged in a way that feels like a carefully built tabletop board brought to life.
That presentation feeds directly into gameplay: every clump of trees or farmhouse adds a potential firing lane, blind spot, or last-ditch strongpoint rather than serving as simple decoration.
Campaign structure stays close to the historical core. Bolt Action features a dynamic single-player campaign set during the D-Day landings and the battles of Normandy, with operations that play out across a shifting frontline in occupied France.
The campaign is complemented by multiplayer modes that aim to mirror competitive tabletop play, where planning, positioning, and timing count more than raw reflexes.
On the order of battle, the initial roster includes forces from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, echoing some of the most popular factions from the physical ruleset.
Infantry, armor, and support units are meant to reflect the structure and capabilities familiar to Bolt Action players, giving veterans of the tabletop a recognizable toolkit while still being readable for newcomers approaching the system for the first time.
One of the more notable features is how the adaptation embraces the hobby side of miniature wargaming. The game includes an Army Painter mode that lets players customize their digital units, effectively turning the screen into a virtual painting desk.
Slitherine positions Bolt Action as the most faithful digital interpretation of Warlord’s rules so far, backed by experience from past tabletop conversions such as Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector and the Field of Glory series.
Publishing director Marco Alessandro Minoli notes that the studio’s history with complex wargames and licensed systems is central to capturing both the authenticity of the miniatures and the advantages of a videogame format, such as dynamic campaigns, immersive 3D environments, and online multiplayer that tabletop alone can’t offer.
Warlord Games, for its part, frames the project as a way to bring its award-winning tabletop game “to screens all over the world,” extending the reach of the Bolt Action brand beyond clubs and kitchen tables.
In play, the focus is firmly on tactical decision-making. Commanders will need to time orders carefully, manage morale and suppression, and use terrain to set up advantageous engagements rather than trading blows in the open.
Bolt Action looks like it will happen in 2026 on PC via Steam, with more details promised in the months ahead. Below is the announcement trailer.
