Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEWizard With a Gun
Wizard with a Gun is an online sandbox survival game for 1 - 4 players set in a magical wilderness wrought with dangerous creatures and arcane mysteries. Embark on a journey alone or with a friend to collect, craft, and outfit your wizard however you see fit as you explore the unknown.
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Video reviews
Reviews and deep dives from YouTube and Bilibili, in every language. Open the original video to watch.
Other voices, for reference.
Archived third-party reviews and community material may refer to different versions. External opinions and ratings are presented separately; consult the original videos for their full context.
Community discussion
An isometric, Don't Starve-styled survival-roguelite shooter from Galvanic Games (published by Devolver Digital) in which you craft guns, elemental bullets and a wizard-tower base, then drop into procedurally generated worlds that collapse on a five-minute Chaos timer, solo or in 1-4 player co-op.
Players rate it Very Positive on Steam (about 80 percent of roughly 4,000 reviews) and it carries a Mixed Metacritic critic score of 72 from 25 reviews, with Metacritic user score at 5.5 on a tiny sample. Nearly everyone loves the art, music and the gun-plus-bullet-plus-powder crafting system, and co-op is the best way to play. The recurring complaints are a core loop that runs out of surprises, grindy material gathering, clunky controls, weak solo balance and a thin or anticlimactic endgame. It is effectively finished: the Better Together update (May 2024) added four-player co-op and custom difficulty, and Galvanic Games closed in June 2024, so the game is not getting the extra content it hinted at.
What players praise
- Art direction, Don't Starve-like look and soundtrack are praised by both positive and negative reviewers
- The gun, bullet and powder crafting system is the standout: many bullet types, elements and gun classes (rifle, shotgun, Uzi, minigun, mortar, bounty weapons) that combine in fun ways
- Co-op with friends (up to four players after the May 2024 update) is where most people say it shines
- The five-minute end-times timer, extendable by killing Chaos enemies, keeps hub-to-expedition pacing tense
- Base building and gradually unlocking crafting stations and benches gives a satisfying sense of progression
- Engaging lore and a clear cliffhanger-style setup, plus biome and boss variety with distinct mechanics
- Good value on sale; PC Gamer called it a lean roguelite that does not waste your time
What players criticize
- Core loop becomes repetitive after a handful of runs; several reviewers say they had seen everything in 7 to 15 hours
- Controls and aiming feel loose or clunky on both mouse and gamepad; the camera angle makes judging distance awkward
- Combat and difficulty feel balanced for co-op, leaving solo play weaker (no self-revive) and some enemy abilities stun-lock you into losing your whole inventory
- Enemies and bosses are considered bland and unthreatening; the final boss and ending are called anticlimactic (IGN)
- Limited inventory space and having to run between 20+ chests in the base make crafting and resource logistics tedious
- Sparse endgame content; gameplay feels like a mobile or tablet game to some, with Unity-related rough edges and occasional connection or performance problems
- Multiplayer progression is host-centric: some achievements and progress only count for the host, with no cross-progression for guests
Distinctive features
- Reimagines a wizard fantasy as a gunsmith game: customizable guns fed with crafted elemental bullets and powders rather than spell lists
- Mixes Don't Starve-style crafting and base building with extraction-style loot risk: die and you lose what you carry, so you must run home
- Five-minute end-of-the-world timer that progressively destroys the map and can be extended by killing Chaos beings
- Bullet effects interact with the world, for example burning trees for charcoal or filling the ground to build traps
- Open procedural worlds that you enter through a time portal, tied to rebuilding a time machine and assembling a band of wizards
Divided opinions
- Difficulty: some call it easy and chill, others find the early timer and stun-lock deaths punishing
- Crafting depth: lauded as the best part by many, but others say many bullet and spell combos are gimmicky or go unused
- Solo versus co-op: praised as a fun co-op game, but criticized as poorly balanced for solo play
- Genre fit: some call it a survival game, others say it is really a roguelite or extraction shooter and the survival label misleads
Repetition and friction
- Heavy material grinding for building and upgrades, felt most strongly late in the game
- Inventory management and chest-hopping in the hub
- Early game time pressure feels rushed in a game that otherwise wants you to slow down and craft, especially on high difficulty
- Overwhelming crafting systems dumped on the player at the start
- Stun-lock enemy auras and lost-inventory deaths feel unfair, particularly solo
Hoped-for improvements
- Better solo balance and a revive or escape option for solo players
- Clearer teaching of the crafting system and of niche mechanics (the summon-object tree, force bullets, powder combinations) which many players never use
- A better way to organize and pull materials for crafting, such as shared storage, since players resort to mods to avoid chest-running
- More powder and synergy variety plus properly tuned harder difficulties
- Tighter aiming, camera and control feel, including weapon-slot switching when out of ammo
- More endgame content and a stronger final boss and ending; content the devs seemed to have planned (DLC, more zones) never arrived
Launched October 17, 2023 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series (Switch port never dated) to Mixed critic reception (PC Metascore 72 from 25 critics, user score 5.5 from only 22 ratings), with wide critic spread from 95 to 40. Steam players are friendlier than critics. The Better Together update on May 13, 2024 added four-player co-op and customizable difficulty, and Galvanic Games (Seattle) shut down in June 2024 because, per a Steam review, profits were too low to continue; recent positive reviewers stress the game was not abandoned half-done though it clearly points to unbuilt content. Steam price is $24.99 with frequent deep sales; owner estimates are 100k to 200k, and third-party Boxleiter-style estimates put gross revenue near $2.3M and net near $0.68M (order-of-magnitude only). OpenCritic score could not be retrieved (web search budget exhausted; a guessed OpenCritic page fetch returned a different game), so it is left null.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam app data: review summary, Metacritic 72, tags, owners, developer and publisher ↗
- Steam store page, Very Positive, about 4,000 reviews ↗
- Metascore 72 from 25 critics, user score 5.5, per-outlet scores and summaries ↗
- Metacritic user review themes: repetition, grind, inventory, controls ↗
- Reception quotes from PC Gamer, IGN, TechRadar, Shacknews, Hardcore Gamer; Better Together update and studio closure timeline ↗
- Steam forum topics: solo balance requests, FPS issues, translation and feature requests ↗
- Estimated gross and net revenue (Boxleiter method, from steam_data.json) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 2 (2024)
Wizard with a Gun is a top-down exploration and shooter with a hub base and crafting, more of an adventure campaign than a true roguelike. He was excited going in, but found the gameplay repetitive because each new biome's materials mostly just upgrade the same guns with better stats. He enjoys the art, vibe, music and sense of building toward bosses, yet got bored of the core loop. He rates it as single player only and places it in low B, saved from C by its aesthetics.
What the creator praises
- Love the visuals and art style
- Strong vibe and overall theme
- Great music
- Exploration and the adventure structure feel like building toward something, with exciting bosses
- Early game is exciting as you find new guns and modifiers to try
- Believes it is a much better experience in multiplayer
Issues raised by the creator
- Repetitive: new biomes give materials that just upgrade the same guns
- Biomes feel gameplay-wise similar, with similar enemies and goals
- By mid game there is no reason to change loadout; you just upgrade it level after level
- Basic gameplay of move, roll and shoot
- Materials from earlier biomes become mostly disposable scrap
- Not really a roguelike, so it was not what he expected
Design observations
- Hub-based crafting and base building with biome-specific materials, reminiscent of Cult of the Lamb
- Campaign-style progression rather than run-based structure
- Design lesson: new content should change how you play, not only raise stats on the same items
