Enter the Gungeon

Enter the Gungeon released on PlayStation 4 in 2016 and quickly became one of the most popular roguelike shooters of its generation thanks to its combination of fast action, humor and randomly generated dungeons. The player controls one of four characters called Gungeoneers, each with their own backstory and starting loadout, who descend into the Gungeon — a bizarre underground fortress full of anthropomorphic bullets and armed chests — seeking a gun capable of killing the past. Each run offers differently laid-out rooms and new combinations of weapons and items, ensuring high replayability, while narrative layers gradually reveal each character's past across many attempts.

Combat is built around a dodge roll system that lets the player pass directly through enemy shots, so the game rewards precise timing and a feel for space in rooms full of bullet-hell fire patterns inspired by classic Japanese shmups. A collection of dozens to hundreds of different, often absurd weapons — from classic pistols to guns that fire other, smaller guns — gives each run its own character and encourages experimentation as well as sharing favorite combinations among players. Pixel-art graphics with a bold color style and light-hearted humor contrast with the game's fairly high difficulty, which is eased by a two-player co-op system and the ability to unlock permanent upgrades between runs, including new rooms and merchants within the Gungeon fortress itself.

Enter the Gungeon was very well received critically and became one of the most frequently cited representatives of the roguelike shooter genre alongside titles like Nuclear Throne. Thanks to its endless replayability and ever-fresh combinations of items, it remains a popular choice for both short and long play sessions to this day, and it's among the titles players kept coming back to on PS4 even years after first finishing it.

Why play it: For fans of roguelike shooting that never gets old thanks to endless item combinations — Enter the Gungeon stands alongside Nuclear Throne among the genre's classics.