Gunfire Reborn: the Game Pass roguelite shooter we can't stop playing

Opinion by Tom West,

Gunfire Reborn launches on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Game Pass today, offering up compelling roguelite action for up to four players. Here's what Tom thought about this action-packed looter-shooter...

I'm far from a roguelite connoisseur; in fact, prior to this year, I might have been put off by the mere mention of the word. There is something about dying and having to start over that didn't sit right with me, but I've begun to toy with the genre this year and have found that I'm beginning to come around to the idea.

Gunfire Reborn comes to Game Pass

The latest roguelite I've hopped into is Gunfire Reborn, which we've been blasting our way through on advance copies ahead of the shooter coming to Game Pass today for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. One of its most endearing qualities is the sheer volume of available gear there is to mess around with, which is thanks to it having a year of baking time on PC before making its way to console, resulting in developer Duoyi Network having released numerous content updates for it, which have added tons of weapons, upgrades, skills, characters, and more. Due to that, each run I've had so far has felt varied, both in the way that I handle situations and how long I can actually survive — I'm ten hours in and yet to clear Act Three!

As is the way of the genre, Gunfire Reborn tasks you with fighting your way through levels filled with opponents in a bid to make it to the end of the game before being cut down to size. Here, an 'Adventure' consists of thematic Acts containing a handful of levels and a final boss encounter at the end of each Act. I'm yet to clear Act Three, but so far, I've found the randomly generated nature of each level keeps it feeling somewhat fresh, thanks to the inclusion of challenge rooms called Vaults, and the sheer number of enemy types you can encounter.

Gunfire Reborn is a first-person shooter, and its bread and butter are the weapons you can find on your adventure. In fact, there are more than 40 weapons in the game at the moment, with each weapon also offering randomised upgrades called Inscriptions, which again, aids the game's ability to keep you wanting to have "just one more run." I've found some pretty cool weaponry so far, with one of my favourite weapons being a rapid-fire crossbow that releases an orb of poison on critical hits, splattering other enemies with acidic gunk!

While I'm very fond of Crown Prince, the first Hero you can use — a cat that specialises in hitting enemies with magical chains to lock them into place and acidic smoke grenades to poison them for good measure — there are six Heroes to unlock as you level up, ranging from a dual-wielding dog to a sword-slinging rabbit. Levelling up is performed via unlocking character upgrades called Talents. In my ten hours, I've managed to get to level 60, and I'm just under halfway through the list of available unlocks, which are growing ever more expensive — something tells me that I won't unlock the other half in the next ten hours. Unlocking talents uses the same currency as the single revive attempt you can use each run, so you need to decide if it's better to upgrade or continue your journey. The currency, Soul Essence, is slow to amass, with the biggest payouts coming from bosses who spew it forth along with weapons and scrolls when they die, much like you see in Borderlands. That's not the only thing Gunfire shares with 2K's looter-shooter, and to explain it — due to my embarrassingly limited knowledge of the series — I'll hand you over to my fellow co-op adventurer, Luke.

There's a lot of Borderlands DNA in Gunfire Reborn, or to be more specific, Borderlands 2 DNA. Sure, a lot of system-level stuff reminds of 2K's entire series, from elemental match-ups — corrosive damage is effective on yellow armour bars, lightning damage rips through energy shields, while fire melts unshielded red bars... so far, so familiar, right? — to the lootsplosions that spew forth from slain bosses, but many of the smaller character-specific details seem to suggest that someone on the Gunfire team really likes Borderlands 2. Starting character Crown Prince has a unique enemy-snaring ability that is functionally identical to Maya's Phaselock; Ao Bai, another early character, can dual-wield for a short time as his special ability, just like Salvador's Gunzerking; Tao relies heavily on stack management for optimal play, much like Gaige's Anarchy build. Going back to the broader Borderlands influence, each of the characters has three talent trees loaded with multi-tier perks here as well, although rather than slowly filling them up over 30 hours or so, here you quickly piece together a new build each time from looted Golden Goblets in closer to 30 minutes. As with a lot of similar games, this means you won't always be able to get the exact build you might be hoping for, but good adaptation goes a long way. While messing with skill trees in Borderlands to try out different builds can be expensive and time-consuming, here it's at the core of the experience, and discovering that upgrades you'd been sleeping on can turn out to be really strong is always a joy.

Mechanics and mayhem might be close to Borderlands, but that quick-fire structure actually lands it closer to other similar titles in the genre like Risk of Rain 2 and Mothergunship. Like Tom, I've found Gunfire Reborn to be very difficult to put down — 'dead' runs are rare but 'almost' runs happen all the time, and rather than wonder what could have been if you'd just had that crazy weapon drop one level earlier, you'll likely want to sling yourself back in and try to find out first-hand. It helps that runs are relatively short, with just three multi-stage areas (and eventually an optional fourth one), but it's not uncommon for runs to end early should you get sloppy or greedy... or, like me, insist on playing the squishiest character. Get on a good run and it's not too much of an ask to blast through the three zones and 'win,' but as in the likes of Monster Train and Dead Cells, victory is just the beginning — working your way up through the unlockable difficulty tiers leads to loads of new content, challenges, and builds, although it'll take considerable investment in persistent perks and bonuses on the global talent tree before you'll feel comfortable in these harsher modes. There's also that seemingly huge Gunfire Reborn achievement list to chip away at, and it's wild. I think I've had pops of every Gamerscore value from 1G through 17G so far, and quite a lot of them, so a few of you reading this have likely just had your excitement for Gunfire shattered, and it's not even like it'll be as easy as rounding things off by getting the completion because I get the feeling this one is going to be savage. Still, I'm overdue another Elite run attempt, so I'll hand you back to Tom to wrap things up...

Gunfire Reborn's time on PC has led to a pretty polished experience throughout, aside from some strange language changes on random dialogue points. The combat is fast, fluid, and performs exceptionally well — it's really satisfying to see the framerate counter at the top left of the screen never dipping below 150fps! One thing I will say about its time on PC, though, is that the additional content came with extra achievements. At the time of writing, the Xbox achievements list isn't live so I've been using our sister site TrueSteamAchievements for reference. The 112 achievements that make up the game's list on Steam (with seven DLC packs) have almost certainly been crammed into the base Xbox list for 1,000G. So far, I've unlocked 29 achievements worth a whopping 183 Gamerscore. It's so worth it, though, as I'm completely hooked on Gunfire, and will look forward to going for the completion!

Planning on jumping into Gunfire Reborn for yourself? How will it rank among the best Game Pass games? Let us know below!

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Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.