The last few years have seen some really good fast-paced arena shooters release, and the latest one I’ve got for you is KILLBUG. In Killbug, you are the Killbug, and you have to kill as many other bugs as you can before you die. That’s it, that’s the deets.
Drawing on the lineage of Devil Daggers or Hyper Demon, Killbug has you learning to master fluid movement, wallrun, and double-jumping aerial movement mechanics in order to run and gun down your enemies before they can kill you. It’s set in an endless arena, one infinitely crawling with baddies that want you dead.
You’ve got a sword and you’ve got a submachine gun. You’ve got lots and lots of enemies to kill. Beetles, spiders, larvae monsters, wasps, gross hive things, ladybugs—they just keep coming and you just keep killing. Every time you die you’re back to the start, trying to crack that high score of yours. It’s pure reflexes and grit shooting, all about adapting on the fly to new enemies with new attacks to dodge.
Killbug is made by Samurai Punk and Nicholas McDonnell, and it’s a pretty dang good $7 game about shooting stuff. In the words of one Steam reviewer called mossfan1 it is a “straight-to-the-point, no bullsh!t, and straight-up fun arena shooter.”
Plus, in a first that I’ve seen for the genre, it includes “various accessibility settings for players who experience motion sickness” which rules, in my opinion.
You can find Killbug on Steam for $7. Samurai Punk is an Australia-based game design and general design studio that previously made Screencheat, The American Dream, Roombo: First Blood, Justice Sucks, Feather, Trios, and more.