Shoot 'em up

Subgenre of action game Part of a series onAction games Subgenres Beat 'em up Hack and slash Fighting Platform fighter Platform Rhythm Stealth Survival Battle royale Shooter Arena FPS Hero Light gun Looter shooter Shoot 'em up Bullet hell Rail shooter Twin-stick TPS Tactical Extraction Related genres Action-adventure Metroidvania Survival horror Action RPG Soulslike Artillery Role-playing Topics Capture the flag Cover system First-person shooter engine Free look Quick time event WASD keys Lists Battle royale Beat 'em ups Fighting FPS Freeware FPS Light-gun Maze Platformer Survival TPS vte Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or, chiefly in Japan, STGs) are a subgenre 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 character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives. The genre's roots can be traced back to earlier shooting games, including target shooting electro-mechanical games of the mid-20th-century, but did not receive a video game release until Spacewar! (1962). The shoot 'em up genre was es