With the arrival of the “Bullet Heaven” tag on Steam in May, the genre born out of Vampire Survivors appears to have coalesced to a single term. So what better way to celebrate than a Steam Fest themed around both bullet heaven and bullet hell? That’s the somewhat chaotic categorization for this week’s themed sale on Valve’s store, which includes games as varied as Returnal and Megabonk in its collection of discounts. We’ve gone through the (oh blimey) 2,759 games included to select ten particularly strong releases you’ll want to check out.
TerraTech Legion
Payload Studios is best known for TerraTech, an open-world sandbox adventure based on designing your own vehicles and exploring with them. With a direct sequel for that one in Early Access, the release of TerraTech Legion was quite a surprise: A bullet heaven game set in the same universe, and bringing across its vehicle-constructing ways. The result is genuinely great, sporting a Survivors-like format but here each level-up lets you add new weapons, shields and tools to your bespoke vehicle, built to your own design to best take advantage of the drops you select. It adds a whole new dimension to the genre, giving a much greater sense of autonomy to this entry in the automatic shooter realm.
Sektori
Seeing solo developer Kimmo Lahtinen’s bullet hell Geometry Wars-alike Sektori become such a break-out hit toward the end of 2025 was a real joy. The Finnish dev has made games I’ve adored, like 2018’s hack-n-slash looter shooter Barbearian and 2021’s fascinating match-3-based narrative adventure Day Repeat Day, games in two wildly different genres, before arriving at a third with Sektori. It’s a stunningly hard twin-stick shooter, with echoes of Geometry Wars but its own unique direction and a far greater depth.
Minishoot’ Adventures
Thankfully gaining a new round of attention with its Switch 2 release, the best Zelda-like in years is a twin-stick shooter. I’ve completed the game twice now, and both times it was a sheer joy; the second time, played on Hard, proved even more enjoyable than the first. You play as a wee ship in a ruined world, fighting a purple plague to release friendly ships from its influence, and it has all the Metroidvania-ish exploration and puzzle-solving dungeons you want from a 2D Zelda game, but with bullet hell combat.
Enter the Gungeon
I’m not ready to acknowledge that Enter the Gungeon is a decade old, but it’s hard not to consider it a pivotal game in both the bullet hell and rogue-lite genres. Dodge Roll’s bullet hell dungeon crawler brought so much personality to a genre in which games are too often sorely lacking it, and I cannot wait to see what the developers do with the long-awaited Enter the Gungeon 2. But right now you can remind yourself, or discover anew, why the original was such a big deal, not least when it’s discounted by 80 percent.
Boneraiser Minions
Not an adult spin-off from the Despicable Me franchise, but rather one of the earliest post-Survivors games to capture the hearts of many players. This super lo-fi take on a bullet heaven requires a lot more use of reflexes than others, with a really neat unlock system and the ability to construct minions from your bone collection. You could also check out developer caiys’ equally purple games released since, Xenosensory and Voids Vigil.
Glyphica: Typing Survival
One of the best things about planet Earth is that if there’s a gaming genre, someone will have made a version based on typing. That’s even true of bullet heaven, somehow, via Glyphica, a game about surviving the attack of hundreds of encroaching words by typing them to death. It’s been in Early Access since October 2024, but still receives regular, significant updates, the latest as recently as yesterday.
Halls of Torment
I became completely obsessed with Halls of Torment last year playing on mobile, and can certainly recommend it for those looking for a Vampire Survivors-like game that doesn’t make any hugely different moves. There are even bridge levels, although (and I feel like I should whisper this) I think Halls of Torment‘s are better! The galloping ghost horses are a brilliant enemy! The major change here is that you find armor and weapons on your trips and can either risk losing them by using them in the level or teleport them back to your base to keep for later, and it makes for a really interesting dynamic. Plus it’s very colorful!
Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action
Back in 2019, Wiznwar released Demon’s Tilt, a dark, gothic pinball game that was also somehow a hack-n-slash action game. They returned in 2024 with Xenotilt, and its glorious post-colon title, Hostile Pinball Action. This time things got so much more intense, pushing it over into bullet hell territory. There are upgrades to unlock, survivors to rescue and it’s all optimized for Steam Deck.
Arms of God
Arms of God only came out in Early Access yesterday and it’s already racking up a lot of positive attention. Unlike many in the bullet heaven genre, Dark Jay Studio’s debut game has gone for much higher fidelity with its graphics, with the devs stating that its aesthetic, accompanied by a metal soundtrack, is inspired by Doom. Multiple weapons can be merged together to form more powerful weapons, and then these can be merged with upgrades, too, to make your own bespoke build. Plus it has a lot of gore.
Just King
With unique art design, Just King takes the core of Vampire Survivors and moves it into a Slay the Spire-style level progression. It’s all about protecting your king by surrounding him on four sides with characters that each possess their own attack types. As this cluster of heroes with the king at your center, you move through short levels that encourage experimentation, all the while switching out characters and preparing for each run’s final boss fight. And everyone has the very cutest eyes.
