The Gungeon

Lore & Background

The Gungeon is a firearms-themed dungeon that players must traverse to find a gun that can "kill the past". The name "Gungeon" came to lead designer Dave Crooks after he listened to the soundtrack for the game Gun Godz by Vlambeer. He presented the name to his fellow team members, and they created the game's lore over a lunch meeting. The Gungeon is made up of five main floors, with an additional secret floor called Bullet Hell, each typically having fewer rooms than twenty—for example, 8–12 on the first floor.

The layout and rewards of each level are procedurally generated from a number of pre-created rooms. The Gungeon is inhabited by bullet-shaped enemies called Gundead. As players slay enemies, they obtain in-game currencies called bullet casings and keys. Each of the first four main floors ends with a boss from a fixed set of possible bosses for that floor, while the fifth main floor, the Forge, has the High Dragun as its sole boss.

Reader's Guide

The Gungeon is made up of five different floors, each having roughly twenty rooms inside. To defeat Gundead, the player uses a wide variety of guns and items; they can be obtained by unlocking chests or through shops and boss fights. Bullet casings can be spent at shops in exchange for guns and items, and keys are used to unlock chests. Obtained guns range from conventional pistols and rifles, to more exotic firearms such as a unicorn horn that fires rainbows or a mailbox that shoots envelopes.

Each level ends with a random boss that must be slain to advance to the next floor. As the player progresses through multiple playthroughs, they may encounter non-player characters (NPCs) inside the Gungeon. Once encountered, NPCs either set up shop inside the Gungeon, or travel to the Breach, a hub world. At the Breach, the player can unlock new items that randomly generate inside the Gungeon, or can talk with NPCs to accept services and quests.

Did You Know?

• Dodge Roll designed and playtested each individual room of the Gungeon's levels, then used procedural generation to assemble them into a random configuration.
• The game sold over one million copies by June 2020.
• A direct sequel, Enter the Gungeon 2, is set for release in 2026.