Enter the Gungeon is a bullet hell dungeon crawler game that takes inspiration from games such as The Binding of Isaac, Nuclear Throne, Spelunky, Dark Souls, and Metal Gear Solid. As a homage to their heroes, the devs have cleverly integrated some key modern media and game references scattered around the game itself.
Enter the Gungeon is a difficult game to play, let alone master – loot is very random, and the game does very little in terms of letting players know exactly what to expect from the game, forcing players to invest a ton of time engaging in trial and error.
Without any help from the internet, experience and playtime will be your best teacher in Enter the Gungeon. Many veteran ETG players will argue that this is the best way to experience the game the way the devs intended it to be played.
Nevertheless, knowing what to avoid and what to take advantage of in the Gungeon can help make your Enter the Gungeon experience more enjoyable and will save you time figuring out how key gameplay mechanics work.
Enter the Gungeon Tips and Tricks
Here is a compiled list of valuable tips and tricks below to kickstart your Enter the Gungeon journey. Some of these might not make a ton of sense until you encounter the situations yourself in-game, but experience will always be the best way to learn the Gungeon’s secrets.
Nevertheless, here are some tips and tricks you need to know to take advantage of everything the game has to offer gameplay-wise.
- Every floor will contain two chests – one contains a weapon and the other contains an item.
- Don’t skip the brown chests! These can contain valuable weapons and items such as the Casey.
- If you haven’t opened any chests on the current floor, beating the boss will always drop a weapon.
- Manage your Curse; you want less than 7 Curse to avoid spawning more powerful enemies and less than 10 Curse to avoid spawning the Lord of the Jammed.
- On the subject of Curse, having more than 7 Curse will spawn more powerful enemies and make room clearing considerably more difficult. However, you do get more money from beating the stronger enemies.
- Prioritize killing lesser enemies first to reduce the number of incoming bullets in the room.
- Only dodge roll when necessary – learning bullet patterns and how to avoid them through simple movement will help improve your in-game movement drastically.
- Use Blanks on Boss fights, otherwise, you won’t get any rewards.
- Some weapons will fire faster than the indicated fire rate when tapping the ‘Fire’ button repeatedly as opposed to holding down the button.
- Rainbow Chests do not require a key.
- The Bullet can instantly kill most enemies in the early floors through dodge rolling.
- Shoot walls with a weapon that is not your starter weapon. If you’re lucky, these walls will develop a crack. Use a blank to reveal the entryway leading to the floor’s secret room. Secret rooms most often spawn next to the shop or chest rooms.
- Hold down the ‘Fire’ button to throw a gun. (only works when the gun has no more ammo)
- If you couldn’t find a key on the current floor, the floor’s shop will almost always have a key waiting for you. Head to the shop to claim the key.
- Focus on your character and evading bullets when fighting through floors.
- Learn common enemy movement and bullet patterns every run. Your next runs will become much easier since you know what to expect from specific enemies.
- Have fun! Enter the Gungeon can become very frustrating very quickly due to its innate difficulty. However, like all games of skill, you will eventually gain a better understanding of how the game mechanics work as you spend more time in-game.
Conclusion
Enter the Gungeon is a far cry from current-gen titles that basically spoon-feed players with what to do and how to win in-game.
Enter the Gungeon is pretty brutal and hardcore considering you won’t get any tips or tricks in-game about how weapons, items, and game objects work – you’re left to discover things on your own and fail time and time again to become stronger. Add that to the fact that no Gungeon run will be the same as others due to the randomness of every run, which makes Enter the Gungeon a challenging yet very rewarding game.