''Exit the Gungeon'' is a 2019

bullet hell Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charact ...

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

co-developed by Dodge Roll and Singlecore Games and published by

Devolver Digital Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilso ...

. It was released for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

through

Apple Arcade Apple Arcade is a video game subscription service offered by Apple Inc. It is available through a dedicated tab of the App Store on devices running iOS 13, tvOS 13, iPadOS 13, and macOS Catalina or later. The service launched on September 19 ...

on September 19, 2019, for

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, and

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

on March 17, 2020, and for

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

on November 13, 2020. A sequel to ''

Enter the Gungeon ''Enter the Gungeon'' is a 2016 bullet hell roguelike game developed by Dodge Roll and published by Devolver Digital. Set in the firearms-themed Gungeon, gameplay follows four Player character, player characters called Gungeoneers as they tra ...

'', players take control of one of four playable characters as they attempt to escape the collapsing Gungeon. The game received mixed to generally positive reviews on release.

Gameplay

''Exit The Gungeon'' is a 2D

. Players control one of four characters, called the Gungeoneers, which must escape the crumbling Gungeon. The Gungeoneers each have their own unique set of

levels Level or levels may refer to: Engineering *Level (instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights *Spirit level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical *Canal pound or level *Regr ...

, and travel aboard an elevator, where they are attacked by gun-themed enemies that

spawn Spawn or spawning may refer to: * Spawn (biology), the eggs and sperm of aquatic animals Arts, entertainment, and media * Spawn (character), a fictional character in the comic series of the same name and in the associated franchise ** '' Spawn: Ar ...

around them. Players defeat enemies using a gun that randomly transforms over time due to a "blessing". Each time the player kills an enemy in succession without taking damage, the greater the chance that the next time their gun transforms, it will be into a more powerful shape. More types of gun transformations can be unlocked by defeating

boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a ...

enemies, which give the player an

in-game currency A virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an online game, particularly in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). People enter th ...

called Hegemony Credits that can be spent to unlock the new guns. Once unlocked, the gun may be randomly transformed into the new shape. The player can transverse levels and dodge enemy attacks by dodge rolling or jumping, which allows them to be immune to losing

hit points Health is an attribute in a video game or tabletop game that determines the maximum amount of damage or loss of stamina that a character or object can take before dying or losing consciousness. In role-playing games, this typically takes the for ...

while airborne. As a

roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player characte ...

game, players are sent back to a safe area called the Breach every time they die. There, they can switch between Gungeoneers, talk to

non-player character A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster o ...

s, or use Hegemony Credits to buy guns and items that may be randomly encountered while playing.

Reception

''Exit the Gungeon'' received "mixed or average reviews" for its Nintendo Switch and Windows versions, and "generally favorable reviews" for its Xbox One version, according to

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

''. Nic Vargus of ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

'' disliked the constant swapping of guns, but said that the chaotic nature of each play through made the game fun. Jon Mundy of ''

Nintendo Life Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British mass media company based in Brighton. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and other ...

'' rated the game a 7/10, saying it was a challenging action-platformer but lacked the "freewheeling imagination and tantalising sense of adventure" of ''Enter the Gungeon''.

Shacknews ''Shacknews'' (originally Quakeholio, then ShugaShack) is a website that hosts news, features, editorial content and forums relating to computer games and Video game console, console games. It is currently owned by a company called Gamerhub Cont ...

noted that the game was shorter than its predecessor and had less exploration, but considered it comparable in terms of combat difficulty and praised the

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...

-style gameplay.

References

{{reflist Windows games MacOS games IOS games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Xbox One games Devolver Digital games Bullet hell video games Action video games Platform games Single-player video games