Like many great roguelikes, Enter the Gungeon is an incredibly deep and complicated game. In fact, it contains a massive list of mechanics and items that both novices and veterans will find hard to understand on their first try. It’s fun, but its complexity makes it undoubtedly difficult.
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This challenging shoot ‘em up requires just as much knowledge and strategy as it does skill and dexterity, so it’s important to go in with some extra knowledge.For those unsure how to progress and improve atEnter the Gungeon, here are 10 key things players should keep in mind.
Updated April 8th, 2021 by Gene Cole:Enter the Gungeon is still as challenging as ever for new players, and many new players have been trying the game in the wake of Hades introducing many players to the roguelike genre. With this new love of the genre and its upcoming free release on PlayStation, we thoughtit would be helpful to provide some extra tips for beginners.
15 Fill Up On Keys
Of all the items you might encounter in your Enter The Gungeon runs, none of them will ever match the broad support that keys give. Each one will offer you the opportunity to unlock doors or treasure chests, expanding your inventory in some random way every time.
Running into one of these without a key is one of the worst feelings, making keys one of the best things to hoard early on. There's no point in the game you won't want to use them, and with many powerful guns and buffs available on the first floor, you should always be filling up on keys as fast as you'll want to run out of them.
14 Take Your Time Early On
There are a few strategies we'll get into about the first section of the game for the newest players, but something good to know at any experience level is that this game doesn't inherently have a time limit. Many roguelikes support players going fast, and you can even turn on a speedrun timer in this one, but it's hardly necessary to blast through everything.
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If you want to improve your Enter The Gungeon run, it involves a lot of caution and preparation. Bullets don't move nearly as fast as you might think, and stopping shooting when you're confused about a pattern can help you dodge and figure out the rhythm of the fight, or understand a floor you're getting lost in.
13 Rush Through The Last Floor
There's one exception to the rule of taking your time, and that would be the final floor in the game. Leading up to the final bosses of the game will involve massive encounters of high-health enemies, and with shops getting more expensive as you progress, it's hard to restock on items once you've hit the fourth floor.
This means it's far more effective to blast through the floor with as few rooms as possible. Taking alternate paths or exploring before the boss is hardly necessary since you'll likely have all you need to face the boss by then, so just clear enough rooms to restock your ammo and finish up fast.
12 Start With The Hunter & The Marine
With four characters that seem mostly identical, it can be easy to assume every Gungeoneer starts with the same weapon and stats, they do have different weapons and perks that are important to read up on in the Ammonomicon. The Marine is great for newcomers, having a shield that acts as an extra heart point.
Alternately, The Hunter is another great start thanks to her astonishingly powerful crossbow. It does have limited ammo, but its power exceeds any other character’s starting weapon and can do tons of damage to bosses if the first guns you findaren’t too helpful.
11 Balance Your Rolling & Dodging
The roll button might not seem like the most helpful, but it’s important to keep in mind that there are tons of situations where you should be prepared to dodge out of trouble. Most bullets fly in a wave that you can jump over, and if you use close-range weapons you need to be ready to roll a lot back and forth.
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At the same time, players don’t have to use the roll as often as you’d think to dodge bullets. If you keep a distance, you can often between bullets and you’ll keep shooting while not needing to dodge as frantically. Getting hit or rolling lots can make things much more hectic, and you want to always feel in control of the situation.
10 Save Your Weapons for Bosses
The best thing you can do early in the game is to make sure you stick to your starter weapon for as long as you can. This is especially true for the first floor, as you’re going to have very few weapons, and your starter weapons generally don’t deal much to bosses. If you get something good early, you need to have it full and ready for the bigger challenge.
This becomes less important in the later floors, where you’ll have more than enough gear that you can usually reserve some guns for bosses while others are meant to clear rooms. Rockets and snipers are typically better for bosses since they’re easier targets to hit, and reload too slowly to clear rooms efficiently.
9 Always Be Firing
When it comes to bosses, time is your enemy more than you’d think. There might not be any timers counting down, but the longer a fight takes the more likely you’ll get tired and play sloppily.As a result, the best way to get through an encounter is to spam your opponent faster than it can spam you.
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Since you should be saving most of your best weapons for bosses anyway, you also don’t have to worry as much about using up your ammo too much. Plus, you’ll likely get a few refills once you come out victorious anyway.
8 Fully Explore the First Floor
A successful run doesn’t need to have every room emptied, but the first floor is the main one that you should always loot and explore to the fullest. Getting new guns and weapons is important early on, and if you get a good weapon for clearing rooms and another for taking down bosses, it can get your run to an amazing start.
While this might seem like a chore, it’s also important to remember the first floor is the smallest in the game. Clearing the whole thing shouldn’t take too long, and with the gear, you’ll get you’ll be glad you took that extra time.
7 Save Your Money for Health
There are tons of interesting weapons and items in the store, but the most important thing that the vendor of each floor sells you is health and armor. These become more expensive with each floor, so making sure you save your money for health refills is key in making sure you don’t take on a boss with one heart.
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Also, keep in mind that you’ll get lots of money from killing a boss and that you can’t return to previous floors. If you take lots of damage in battle, make sure not to rush ahead and go back to refill on health at the vendor if you didn’t need to buy it earlier on that floor.
6 Know When to Take Hits
Unless you’re an expert, you should expect to take some damage during your playthrough. The game throws tons of enemies and hazards at you, and there’s no shame in losing health. That said, you should also make sure that if you’ll lose health, you don’t lose a lot.
Sometimes it can make more sense to just let an attack hit you so you can keep firing at a boss or enemy, rather than flailing or wasting a blank for something that’s going to damage you in a moment anyway. You’ll also be invulnerable briefly after getting hit, so use that moment to get back on your feet.
5 Use Blanks Whenever You Need
It can make sense to take damage when you need a little damage boost to get through a tricky section, but you also can't ignore your blanks. These will eliminate all bullets from your enemies that are on your screen, giving you a massive defensive utility that can't be matched.
While you have to be careful of your resources, a great thing to know is that you'll find tons of these on each floor, and there are some in every single shop. Thanks to this, you never have to feel nervous that you're using too many, as you'll usually be fine so long as you have at least one or two for each boss.
4 Don't Be Afraid to Restart Early
If you haven’t played randomized roguelikes like this before, it can seem somewhat cheap or improper to frequently restart a game before you’ve lost. In Enter the Gungeon, though, it’s completely reasonable and normal to restart your run if you don’t like the weapons you find on the first floor, or if you have a sloppy few rooms early on and lose a lot of health.
A good run will take a lot of timeto complete, so if you feel like you’ll be doomed later it’s easier to just start fresh. If you can make it past the first floor smoothly it’s best to keep going until you die, but if you’re having a rough first floor then just open the menu and give it another kick.
3 Do the Side Quests
While it’s important to spend your time and money progressing, the side quests early in the game are important for you to complete whenever you encounter them. Freeing prisoners and rescuing NPCs can be tough, but many of them open up shops in the hub world that you can buy items from.
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Sometimes this can also mean sacrificing a run to focus on the side quest. If all you do is rescue an NPC and you lose too much health to complete a run, you’ve still succeeded enough that it’s no problem to give it up. Having more items to buy means your later runs will be easier.
2 Buy Out Every Overworld Shop
Something the game doesn't tell you is that the items you find vary wildly as you unlock more and more, and completing the selection of a shop will reveal other items to buy with the game's overworld currencies. It might feel bad to buy weapons you don't want, but it's especially important that you buy everything you can from each one.
The more new selections you reveal, the stronger the items are you can eventually buy. This game is absolutely full of unique items that you can only get from buying ones you don't want, so don't feel like you always need to hold onto your money between runs.
1 Be Prepared To Lose
The best advice to give is that you’re not likely going to beat the game for several runs. This game is difficult, and not one that anybody should expect to win easily. Even experienced players will still make mistakes and end up in unexpectedly challenging situations.
Try to define your success by how much further you got than your last run, rather than whether you completed it. So long as you're improving and getting cash to buy items in the hub world, you've had a worthwhile run.
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