Ring the Damn Bell in Guns ‘n Goblins

You know what they say about opinions. To me, when I played Guns ‘n Goblins, it felt like a mashup of Minecraft and Call of Duty: Zombies. That’s the easiest way I can wrap my head around Guns ‘n Goblins at this hour of the day.

It’s a game that borrows the colorful, blocky aesthetics of Minecraft while delivering the first-person horde survival gameplay of CoD: Zombies. Like any good horde survival game, in between rounds you’re upgrading your weapons, leveling your character, and building up your base, known as the Bastion, as you work your way from an apprentice bell ringer to a master dragon hunter.

The game starts you off with a dagger, and then you set off to ring the damn bell.

The bell is central to the gameplay in Guns ‘n Goblins. Shooting it summons additional waves of monsters, allowing you to increase the difficulty and potentially earn greater rewards. Between waves, a character standing beside the bell offers an upgrade that increases its maximum call capacity and health. You’ll want to be careful, though, because summoning too many enemies could leave you overwhelmed, and if the monsters destroy your bell tower, your session is over.

As you unlock more weapons, the game definitely feels better to play, and the enjoyment level increases along with it. I wasn’t feeling it so much when all I had was a dagger and pistol, but not everything in life is handed to you. Sometimes you have to earn it.

So that’s what I did. Put my head down, survived those initial waves, rinsed and repeated until I had enough coin to unlock the forge, improve my character’s attributes, level up existing weapons, and eventually purchase a high-powered automatic weapon.

Game on!

Within an hour of playing the demo, I think I had maxed out a good portion of what was available to unlock. There seems to be plenty more content planned for the full game when it releases in Q2 2027.

According to an October 19 announcement on the game’s Steam Community page, Guns ‘n Goblins has surpassed 200,000 wishlists and cracked the top 250 most anticipated games on Steam. Quite the feat for a small development team working on the game in their spare time. Then again, publisher SoulGame has already enjoyed some success with games like Minishoot’ Adventures.

In closing, I’ve enjoyed my time with Guns ‘n Goblins more on my PC than I did on my Steam Deck. Since this isn’t an auto-shooter, constantly pulling the right trigger to fire didn’t feel nearly as satisfying on the Deck. Playing on my PC with a Steam Controller just felt more natural, and overall, I think the game is better suited for a desktop gaming experience than a handheld.

I’ll be keeping an eye on Guns ‘n Goblins to see where future updates take it. As of now, no co-op play has been announced, as the development team’s focus remains on delivering a single-player experience.

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