The Gunners

Lore & Background

The Gungeon does not invite its visitors. It takes them. For the Gunners, that taking was personal: their parents walked into the dungeon's maw and never walked out. What remains is a wound no amount of time heals, and the only answer the Gunners have is to follow the trail deeper. The Gungeon's floors stretch downward in a seemingly endless descent, each one a new trial of bullets, blades, and traps that test whether the Gunner's resolve is as durable as their armor.

What makes the Gunners remarkable is not any single hero among them but the sheer variety of their approach. A Gunner might blast through a wall of slimes with a shotgun burst, while a Knight beside them raises a shield and charges through the gap. A Rogue flickers between enemies with twin daggers; a Wizard hurls bolts of light from a safe distance. Together they form a small, mismatched party that the Gungeon's geometry and enemy waves are never quite designed to handle. Their co-op dynamic—two Gunners covering each other's blind spots—turns every floor into a dance of coordination and improvisation.

Beneath the action, the Gungeon itself feels less like a static dungeon and more like a living, indifferent system. Rooms rearrange, traps trigger with mechanical precision, and the enemies that populate each floor seem almost purpose-built to test a particular Gunner's weaknesses. The Gunners are not fighting a villain so much as they are fighting a place, and the place does not care that they are looking for someone. That indifference is what makes their persistence feel so defiant, so stubbornly human, in a world of pixelated chaos.

In Their Own Story

The entrance hall smelled of rust and old gunpowder. Two Gunners stood at the threshold, their boots scuffing the same cracked tile they'd scuffed a hundred times before. The Knight adjusted her shield strap. The Gunner racked her shotgun one more time, a nervous habit she'd never shaken.

"You sure about this?" the Knight asked, though she'd asked it every single time.

The Gunner didn't answer. She didn't need to. The Gungeon's maw gaped before them, a staircase spiraling down into a darkness that pulsed faintly, like something breathing. Somewhere far below, in a room they hadn't reached yet, their parents were still waiting. Or they weren't. The Gunner didn't know which possibility was worse.

She stepped forward. The Knight followed. The floor tiles shifted beneath their feet, rearranging themselves into a new configuration, and the first wave of enemies rounded the corner with the patient certainty of a mechanism that had been winding down for years.

The Gunner raised her shotgun. The Knight raised her sword.

They walked in.

Reader's Guide

The Gunners' stated goal is simple and singular: descend through the Gungeon's floors to find the parents who were taken from them. There is no secondary agenda, no political ambition, no hidden quest. Every bullet fired and every trap dodged serves that one purpose. This makes them a faction of pure, undiluted motivation, which is both their strength and their vulnerability—the Gungeon has no reason to show them mercy because they have no leverage to negotiate with.

Known members and constituent types include the Gunner (shotgun-centric), the Knight (sword and shield), the Rogue (twin daggers), the Wizard (ranged magic), the Bouncer (heavy melee), the Plaguebringer (poison and decay), the Vampire (life-drain mechanics), and others unlocked through progression. Each class represents a different combat philosophy but all operate under the same survival constraint: one hit from most enemies is fatal.

Internal hierarchy is minimal. In solo play the Gunner is the sole decision-maker. In co-op, two Gunners operate as equals, covering each other's weaknesses. There is no commander, no council, no chain of command—just two people who trust each other enough to let the other take the shot.

Alliances and conflicts: The Gunners are in direct conflict with every enemy type in the Gungeon—slimes, skeletons, robots, and the various bosses that guard each floor. There is no enemy faction that sides with the Gunners, though certain NPCs in the hub area provide items and information. The Gungeon itself is the primary antagonist, an environment that actively resists the Gunners' descent. No other player faction or rival group is canonically established as a competing force within the Gungeon's walls.

Did You Know?

• The Gunners' entire motivation is rooted in a personal loss—finding their parents—rather than a grand heroic quest, which makes their repeated deaths and respawns feel like stubborn grief rather than failure.
• In cooperative play, two Gunners of different classes create a natural tactical partnership: a melee-focused Knight pairs intuitively with a ranged Wizard, and the game's room layouts reward that complementary positionin
• The Gungeon's rooms are procedurally arranged each run, meaning the Gunners never fight the same sequence of enemies twice, turning every descent into a new improvisation of their class-specific toolkit.
• Despite the Gungeon's overwhelming odds, the Gunners' one-hit-kill vulnerability is balanced by the fact that they can pick up and swap weapons mid-run, letting a Gunner adapt her loadout to whatever the next room throws