Best Shoot 'Em Up Games on Steam
Shooters about dodging waves, firing constantly, and clearing patterned enemy attacks.
Browse all Shoot 'Em Up →
1Cuphead - Cuphead is a classic run and gun action game heavily focused on boss battles. Inspired by cartoons of the 1930s, the visuals and audio are painstakingly created with the same techniques of the era, i.e. traditional hand drawn cel animation, watercolor backgrounds, and original jazz recordings.
Sep 29, 2017
In this game, you can…
- watch a boss go from two battletoads into a slot machine, then keep warping into stranger cartoon forms as you keep landing hits.
- bounce off pink bullets in midair to charge your super meter, then cash it in for weapon specials or a full super.
- run local co-op where one player can parry to revive the other mid-fight, turning near-deaths into sudden comebacks.
- fight bosses that transform mid-battle into new forms, sometimes with no health bar, until the next phase suddenly takes over.
- equip two weapons and swap instantly, changing your plan for a boss—or even a single phase—on the fly.
- thread through tiny safe zones while two or three attacks overlap, with timings that shift enough that you have to react in the moment.
- play brief run-and-gun levels that end fast and restart instantly, turning retries into a rapid-fire loop of experimenting and improving.
2Sven Co-op - Sven Co-op is a co-operative game originally based around Valve Software's Half-Life. In this game players must work together against computer controlled enemies and solve puzzles as a team.
Jan 22, 2016
In this game, you can…
- run Half-Life, Blue Shift, and Opposing Force in lobbies of up to 64 players, where tiny encounters turn into crowd events.
- fight through battles packed with huge swarms of enemy AI alongside big groups of friendly AI.
- watch it literally rain headcrabs while someone blasts music over voice chat and everyone yells along.
- crowd around a single headcrab and erase it with a wall of crowbars.
- play the entire Half-Life campaign in co-op with people using custom character skins and soundboards.
- get grabbed by a barnacle and stay helpless until a teammate shoots it to save you.
- revive a teammate with a medkit after they get blown into chunks.
- pick up an enemy shock gun and use its ammo to give armor to other players.
320 Minutes Till Dawn - 20 Minutes Till Dawn is a survival roguelite where endless hordes of creatures lurk from the dark. Craft an array of overpowering builds and eradicate waves of Lovecraftian nightmares. Will you be able to survive the night?
Jun 8, 2023
In this game, you can…
- stack freeze, burn, and lightning so burn detonations and screen-wide chain reactions start wiping enemies faster than you can track.
- build around emptying your clip, then cut your ammo to one so the on-empty effect triggers every single shot.
- reroll your level-up upgrade options once per level to force a specific build instead of taking whatever appears.
- manually aim and decide exactly when to shoot.
- hold down fire while the gun auto-reloads, forcing a steady loop of firing, repositioning, and surviving the swarm.
- evolve a weapon mid-run until it behaves like a different gun, changing how you play instead of just making numbers go up.
- beat a boss, grab its reward chest, and have that one drop completely reshape your build for the rest of the run.
- lean into summon builds where allies auto-attack while you focus on dodging and positioning, turning the fight into a moving swarm of your own.
4BALL x PIT - BALL x PIT is a brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite. Batter hordes of enemies with ricocheting balls and gather the riches of the pit to expand your homestead, generate resources and recruit unique heroes.
Oct 15, 2025
In this game, you can…
- fuse two level-3 balls and get a completely new ammo type from hundreds of possible outcomes.
- unlock characters that flip the rules, like enabling turn-based mode or making gravity pull balls toward the top of the field.
- turn one ball into more balls into even more balls until the screen is filled with thousands of balls and effects.
- grab balls mid-fight to instantly reset cooldowns, so you keep diving into danger just to fire again.
- build up a town between runs by harvesting materials, constructing upgrades, unlocking characters, and assigning heroes to automated jobs.
- push through a constantly scrolling descent by breaking falling walls while hazards ramp up and bosses wait ahead.
- fight bosses that shift into bullet-hell patterns, dodging dense enemy fire while still keeping your bounce angles working.
- evolve a special ball into something totally different that adds a new power and frees up a slot, rewriting your whole run.
5Nova Drift - Nova Drift distills the mechanical depth and strategy of an ARPG into classic arcade space combat. Control an endlessly evolving bio-mechanical ship, face legions of strange and deadly foes, and ride the wake of a dying star across the void.
Aug 12, 2024
In this game, you can…
- stockpile over 200 missiles and fire them all at once.
- become an ever-growing serpent that shreds enemies with its own body as it expands.
- convert your shield into a huge roving bubble that powers you up while you fight inside it.
- turn all your projectiles into one gigantic merged shot.
- have your shield break and instantly warp-teleport away in a blast.
- build a ship so tanky and fast that ramming is your main way to kill.
- make bombs multiply after exploding, then home into enemies for chained screen-filling blasts.
- push into endless mode after winning and keep scaling into absurd wave counts.
6Furi - The jailer is the key, kill him and you’ll be free. Fight your way free in this ultra-responsive, fast-paced sword-fighting and dual-stick shooting game.
Jul 5, 2016
In this game, you can…
- shoot down incoming projectiles to create health drops and recover mid-fight.
- land a last-second parry that heals you, stuns the boss, and triggers a cinematic flurry of strikes.
- jump into an optional true final boss that turns into a Japanese Gundam-style bullet-hell sequence.
- break out of a cell after being told the jailer is the key to freedom.
- fight bosses that shift from wide-area projectile dodging and shooting into a sudden close-up sword duel.
- die on a boss phase, restart that phase, then win it to restore health and earn a life back.
- stumble into hidden encounters and unlock a secret ending by getting lost between boss fights.
- revisit the opening jailer later and beat him easily by exploiting openings you couldn't even see before.
7DR LIVESEY ROM AND DEATH EDITION - DR LIVESEY: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA, gentlemen, from now on, rom and death means the same thing for you.
Feb 13, 2023
In this game, you can…
- use a Deathclock that stops time so hard that enemies, bullets, and even pickups freeze, letting you sprint through before it resumes.
- have the soundtrack itself trigger powerups mid-fight, sometimes forcing your special mode to happen right now.
- grab Judgement and turn the whole room into falling bombs while everything catches fire.
- sync into a beat-drop power mode that turns your run into a sudden berserk shred.
- pick up a Treasure Map that makes treasure rooms show up more often.
- run with two AI partners who shoot and throw bombs on their own while you focus on moving and firing.
- get Captain Smollett as an ally who homes in on enemies and wipes out fights you weren't even aiming at.
- push through biomes with treasure rooms and shop trades where rare items can be swapped for even rarer ones.
8POSTAL: Brain Damaged - POSTAL: Brain Damaged is a new, action-oriented take on the Running With Scissors’ cult game series with throwback graphics, and fast-paced, modern gameplay. Take a wild roller coaster ride through the twisted wonderland encased in the POSTAL DUDE’S messed-up mind.
Jun 9, 2022
In this game, you can…
- piss-cancel almost any weapon animation by tapping the pee button.
- rocket-jump by firing a rocket, then kicking it mid-air to change its path.
- use a shotgun meat-hook to yank into enemies or slingshot yourself around fights and arenas.
- use your pee to bypass fire-rate limits, solve puzzles, and even set enemies on fire or freeze them.
- strafe-jump, slide-jump, and chain power-slides into jumps to build speed like a dedicated movement playground.
- fight clowns that vomit more clowns, plus aliens in people suits and other nightmare-carnival enemies.
- replay levels for per-level rankings based on time, secrets found, and enemies killed.
- build and upload your own workshop levels with an in-game editor and sandbox mode.
- storm surreal dream locations like Walmart, Trump's Wall, Area 51+18, and a furry gaming convention in one campaign.
9METAL SLUG 3 - “METAL SLUG 3”, the masterpiece in SNK’s emblematic 2D run & gun action shooting game series, still continues to fascinate millions of fans worldwide to this day for its intricate dot-pixel graphics, and simple and intuitive game controls, heads out to the Steam gaming platform!
Feb 14, 2014
In this game, you can…
- get killed, stand back up as a zombie, and trade your normal moves for a slow shuffle and a screen-filling blood-vomit attack.
- fight a giant head alien in a tank while you're literally falling through the atmosphere, dodging attacks as the finale keeps escalating.
- lose your vehicle and keep going anyway, popping out with a jetpack after a rocket gets wrecked or a swim helmet after a submarine breaks.
- pick a different route mid-level and end up in new areas with different enemies, different rescues, and even a different version of the boss fight.
- ride a camel, elephant, ostrich, jet, submarine, and rocket vehicle depending on the stage you take.
- switch from beaches with giant crabs to zombie-infested land, then underwater sections, then air stages, and finish with a space shooter sequence.
- play co-op where you both have to commit to the same branching path choice, or risk splitting up the run when the level diverges.
10Downwell - Downwell is a curious game about a young person venturing down a well in search of untold treasures with only his Gunboots to protect him.
Oct 15, 2015
In this game, you can…
- shoot only downward in mid-air, using recoil to slow your fall, then stomp to reload and keep descending.
- grab enough gems in a burst to trigger a damage-boosting gem high that suddenly speeds the whole run up.
- pick up side-cave weapons that can change the rules, like eating enemy corpses for health or recharging ammo with gems.
- fall nonstop while bouncing off enemies to keep a combo alive.
- make split-second calls on whether each enemy must be stomped or shot, sometimes changing based on its type or color.
- buy weird items in tiny mid-well shops, then stack upgrades until your build changes how you handle every room.
- use wall jumps and last-second stomps to escape swarms while preserving a long combo you never want to drop.
- get rocket-style weapons that let you blast through blocks while killing enemies, turning movement, combat, and survival into one chain.
- choose a Style that changes what spawns, like shifting the odds between side-room weapons and shops so your whole run plan changes.
