Enter the Gungeon is a fantastic rogue-like dungeon crawler with guns, bullets, firearms and weaponry. In the relatively short time it’s been out, plenty of progress has been made throughout the Gungeon as players have unlocked a dizzying plethora of weapons, charmed extra NPCs and fostered a fantastic and helpful Reddit community.

It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of items on offer, from helpful passives and bonus-offering bullets to on-use items which can be put to equally good effect. The reliquaries that bestow these guns and trinkets are somewhat easier to discern – in order of efficacy they go:

Brown -> Blue -> Green -> Red -> Black -> Rainbow -> Glitched

The brown chests, as you can imagine, drop some of the lower quality weapons and items that are on offer in the Gungeon. As you ascend the ranks the weapons have a higher chance to be of better quality, reaching peak performance if you are lucky enough to discover the red or black chests during your travels. Rainbow chests – though I am yet to discover one myself – are extremely rare, dropping 7/8 high-tier weapons or items. Yes please.

The glitched chest on the other hand ports you to a glitched version of the next floor, with a boss room containing two Beholsters. Should you traverse this mess, you’ll be rewarded with a large amount of items and consumables and, more likely, a malnourished health pool.

Anyway, onto the cream of the crop.

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AU Gun

For those of you that have passed GCSE chemistry, you’ll know that the AU Gun is an ode to the infamous Golden Gun from James Bond’s The Man With the Golden Gun. It is also, despite it’s size, an uncompromising beast against just about anything the Gungeon can throw at you – totaling mobs in a single shot and toppling bosses inside 20 shots. Be warned: the clip is small at only 22 bullets with a reload after every shot, but it’s well worth the endeavour.

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Patriot

My undying love for the Metal Gear Solid series makes it difficult not to rate this gun as one of the best. The gun, an adage to the one wielded by The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, is an epic weapon both in lore and in power. The Gungeon namesake sports impressive damage per shot, as well as an ever-increasing fire rate the longer the trigger is held down. Add piercing shots into that mix and you’ve got the recipe for supreme damage output, just like Big Boss would have wanted. Grab it from Trorc for 12 Hegemony Credits.

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Big Shooty Gun (BSG)

A staple of the DOOM series, the Big Fucking Gun (more colloquially, the BFG) is a mobile nuclear-grade superweapon capable of wiping out anything and everything that stands in your way. It’s entry into the Gungeon is neither surprising nor underwhelming, with a long-time charge shot rewarding you with a devastating, piercing blob that severely harms/injures/annihilates anything in the room. I’m reluctant to label this one a “room clearer”, but if the shoe fits…

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Railgun

Railguns are a frightening example of post-modern warfare, with military scientists around the world postulating the weapon’s inclusion on the battlefield. Using a pair of parallel conductors and a bitchload of electromagnetic currents, whatever you put betwixt the oscillating, thunder-charged thighs of the railgun will be propelled forward with enough force to destroy – nay, disintegrate – whatever it should come into contact with. Fast forward to the Gungeon, where the Railgun fires a fast-moving, bouncing and piercing projectile which will cause an unholy amount of damage. Purchase this from Ox and Cadence for a steep 30 Hegemony Credits.

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Fightsabre

The Fightsabre earns its place on the list not purely because of its Jedi namesake, but because it shares a winning quality with the favored weapon of the Jedi – it can deflect bullets. Anytime you reload your Fightsabre you swing it in front of your character, deflecting any airborne projectiles back in the direction from whence they came and quite literally trivializing certain encounters. Though there are no prerequisites to wielding such a dangerous armament, be warned that your curse level will rise should you choose to wield it. Clearly Sith endorsed.

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Vulcan Cannon

The weapon of choice of both the Gatling Gull and, more prominently, the pumped-as-all-hell Shaman “Vulcan Raven” from the Metal Gear Solid series – notably the only character of the era to be wielding more firepower on his back than Anton Girdeux. Unlocked from your first foray into the Gungeon, this take on the M134 Minigun fires at an absurd rate and makes swiss cheese of anything in the firing line. This literally does what it says on the tin and, to paraphrase the Ammonomicon description – “it is a weapon to be feared.”

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Particulator

I have an innate fear of things chasing me, which led me to really question my parents’ decision to let me watch the Terminator series at the tender age of six. This same fear strikes the Bulletkin too when the Particulator comes to town, with the relatively unassuming sprite firing out a small cluster of bullets with a fair punch. The kicker? The bullets track and seek their targets with alarming accuracy, leaving nowhere to run for those on the receiving end. You heartless bastard.

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Black Hole Gun

The theme of using science to fuck things continues with the eloquently named Black Hole Gun staking its claim as a true S tier weapon. It challenges the BSG for the mantle of “Best Room Clearer” due to its ability to suck any and all matter in the vicinity into its vacuous and uncompromising maw. Couple this utility with a persistent damage component and the ability to switch to another weapon to pile on yet more hurt as the creatures of your ire are inextricably torn apart between the simultaneous birth and death of a star, and you have quite the fearsome weapon. Ox and Cadence will supply you with this slightly immoral technology at the cost of 20 Hegemony Credits.

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Disintegrator

Don’t let the name fool you; this gun is a charming and friendly weapon. Except it isn’t. If there was ever a time to take something at face-value, the aptly named Disintegrator is probably in the top ten. A two second charge-up looses a massive blast ray which melts anything on the other end of it, Bulletkin and bosses alike. If you can couple this with a Potion of Lead Skin or a Ring of Ethereal Form for the invulnerability while firing, I’m 99% sure that the bosses will actually start surrendering. Available from the beginning. Use with caution.

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Makeshift Cannon

I consider it good practice to save the best for last, and let me tell you – this one is it. The Makeshift Cannon doesn’t need a fancy, otherworldly names or lore-drenched allegory to portray its destructive capabilities. No no, the Makeshift Cannon – a homage to Captain James T. Kirk’s own makeshift cannon in the Star Trek episode The Arena – fires a single, lonesome shot. However, it fires a single, lonesome shot in the same way that the Death Star fires a single, lonesome shot – because it only needs one.

With the destructive capabilities of an intergalactic ion-cannon, this DIY monstrosity is a OHKO on any known entity in the Gungeon so far. The single shot drawback is a shame, certainly, but this reddit discussion where they contemplate the involvement of the Duct Tape item and its ability to combine two weapons makes for a good read. Marrying the Makeshift Cannon and the Vulcan Cannon, for example, partnering 800 rounds and a 0.05 firing speed with a room-sized destructive blast… I’ll let you do the maths on that one.

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I hope this mini-guide has been informative and interesting to read. It was great fun to research and write, and hopefully will buoy those of you having a terrible run of RNG (as I am) to look out for some real firepower. All credit for the information goes to the vast array of contributors at the Enter the Gungeon Wiki and the brilliant, kind-hearted community on the Enter the Gungeon subreddit. You are all awesome.

Happy blasting!