Bat

Lore & Background

In the Gungeon's dim upper corridors, the Bats are among the oldest denizens. They do not seem to serve any lord or guard any vault; they simply drift, wing-beat after wing-beat, through the perpetual twilight of the lower halls. Players who have cleared the Gungeon many times sometimes joke that the Bats are the building's original inhabitants, predating whatever force assembled the floors into a gauntlet.

Their movement is almost meditative—a slow, rolling oscillation that never quite reaches the ceiling or the floor. They hover at a mid-range height, keeping a respectful distance from the Gunner, and when they fire, it is a single, unhurried shot. There is no aggression in their posture, no telegraphed charge. They simply exist in the air, and occasionally, a small dark pellet crosses the gap between them and you.

Fans of the game often describe the first Bat encounter as a rite of passage: the moment the tutorial's safety net lifts and you must track a moving target with a gun that may or may not have enough spread to catch it. It is a small, quiet lesson in the Gungeon's central truth—nothing here is truly easy, even the smallest things.

In Their Own Story

The corridor smelled of old iron and something faintly sweet, like dried fruit left too long in a cellar. You rounded the corner and there it was—a single Bat, no bigger than your open palm, riding the air in a lazy S-curve. Its wings were a blur of dark pixels, and its eyes, if they were eyes, held no malice.

It drifted left. Right. Left again. You lined up your shot and fired. The pellet sailed just above its head. It didn't flinch. Didn't accelerate. Just kept its gentle, endless wave, and after a beat, a small dark dot appeared in the air between you, drifting toward your face.

You sidestepped. The dot passed harmlessly past your ear. The Bat resumed its sway, as if nothing had happened. As if you were both simply passing through the same dark hallway, two small shapes in a building that had no sky.

Reader's Guide

Visually, the Bat is a compact, dark silhouette with a pair of spread wings and a small rounded body. Its pixel-art design is intentionally minimal—no intricate detail, just enough shape to read as a bat at a glance. It hovers at roughly mid-screen height, never touching the floor or ceiling.

Its AI is straightforward: it enters from one side of the screen and travels in a smooth sine-wave pattern to the other. While traversing, it periodically fires a single projectile aimed at the player's current position. It does not change speed, dodge, or perform evasive maneuvers. In groups of two or three, their waves are slightly offset, creating a staggered rhythm of shots.

The Bat appears primarily on Floor 1 and can occasionally show up on Floor 2. As a flying enemy, it is unaffected by floor-based hazards like spikes or lava, and it cannot be hit by weapons that only target ground-level enemies. Conversely, it is vulnerable to all standard projectile and melee attacks.

In the Gungeon's ecosystem, the Bat fills the role of a pacing tool. It is slow, low-damage, and predictable, giving new players a chance to build muscle memory for tracking and dodging before the more aggressive enemies on higher floors take over. It is, in a sense, the Gungeon's way of saying: here is how this works. Now go deeper.

Did You Know?

• The Bat's sinusoidal movement makes it one of the few early enemies that rewards timing over raw accuracy—firing at the peak of its wave is easier than chasing its mid-point.
• Because it is a flying entity, the Bat is immune to any floor-level environmental hazards that might otherwise kill ground-based enemies, making it slightly more durable in mixed-hazard rooms.
• The Bat is one of the first enemies most players ever face in a Gungeon run, which is why it has become a small cultural touchstone in the community—many players remember their very first Bat encounter.
• Despite its simplicity, the Bat's single-shot attack pattern means that in a room with multiple Bats, the projectiles arrive in a staggered, almost rhythmic sequence, creating a unique dodge cadence no other early enemy