This time last year, I knew nothing of becoming a Gunboat God. I didn’t know it was something I could be, let alone want…crave…NEEED!!! Flash forward a few days in 2025, and I would be going hands on with Gunboat God for the first time at New Game Plus. It immediately became one of the highlights of the show for me, and I couldn’t wait to see more of it. Now, nearly a year since I first played it, and I get to tell you all about a fast growing, new religion…that of the Gunboat God.

To become a Gunboat God, one must embrace the gunboat. Live the gunboat, love the gunboat, harness the gunboat. By doing so you will exact an almighty justice on those supposedly powerful deities that sought to discard you, cast you off as ‘weak’. But, we will show them, we will demonstrate the power of the gunboat!!!!!

*coughs. Ok, so it’s safe to say I’m a bit of a convert! It’s safe to say that Janson RAD and Fireshrine Games have something special on their hands here.

Look Out Below

Gunboat God casts you as a standard, run of the mill human bean. At the beginning of the game, the almighty gods, to whom you are subservient, deem you weak and cast you from the “last fragment of civilisation” to your doom below. It’s never explained why ‘The Ascended Citadel’ is the last area of civilisation, but we’re not really here for the backstory, or lore.

The cut and thrust of it is, we’ve been wronged by those who claim to be all powerful and now we must take our revenge. Thankfully, on our descent from the holiest heights, we softened our blow by landing in a conveniently placed gunboat below us.

Croc On!

Alas, that gunboat you landed in isn’t yours to just claim, it belongs to your friendly neighbourhood crocodile, Yeti. Yeti is something of a mechanical genius and has created the gunboat you find yourself in. You prove yourself to be something of a natural in the gunboat (naturally) and Yeti is keen to take advantage of your skills. This is not in a malicious way of course, Yeti wants to repair and tinker with the gunboat, making it godly, and to do that he’ll help you seek you revenge. Yeti is a fun companion who does all the talking, he’s a bit of a goof who regularly provides you with tips and a bit of comic relief.

You’ll need that as what lays ahead of you are 212 levels of frantic shoot ’em up fun. Taking you through five zones with a wide range of objectives to challenge you. As you progress, you’ll unlock new weapons, abilities, and skills to help you become stronger and make your ascent to being the titular, Gunboat God!

212 sounds like a lot of levels, but they are all almost exclusively super quick, like less than a minute. In fact, the faster you complete them the better you rank! Each level is designed as a mini challenge with one objective (mainly) per mission. These vary between getting across the level; jumping, dodging and dashing over, and under obstacles to destroying all the enemies in a zone. Other times, Yeti gets involved and he might want a race across the level, or he’s searching for a new item for the gunboat and needs protecting as he searches. There’s even a couple of levels that have you ‘juggling’ an enemy across the map, and he can’t touch the water.

The Only Rank that Matters to Me Now…is Godly

There’s plenty of variety in the objectives of each level and it keeps you on your toes so you’re not just blasting things, but that’s a huge part of it, of course. How well you do in each level determines your rank. There are several factors that define your rank; your time, how much health you have left, your combo. There are six ranks you could achieve going from Adept through the coveted Godly! I like how one star is classed as Adept, rather than ‘you suck’. You still did the level and that’s something, games that have rankings can sometimes be a bit punishing in its mentality and it’s good to see Gunboat God not lean into that.

And my (Gunboat) God, how satisfying is getting a Godly rank. You feel like a…God! You certainly won’t be getting them early on, you’ll need to harness the later upgrades and skills to give you the edge in mastering it, but I’m fairly convinced you’ll want to go back and try and get all those delicious Godly ranks across every mission.

It’s Designed Like a Frigate, But It Handles Like a Jetski

Each level moves at a fairly fast pace, not in an overwhelming way, but they are designed to be snappy. So, it is of utmost importance that the handling is smooth, responsive and fun. And thankfully, that is very much the case. Gunboat God plays like a dream, it is so quick and responsive. The aiming, driving and manoeuvring is all super accurate; if you ever die or take a hit it nevers feels like it was an issue with slowdown, or “f****** bull****”. It was you, you weren’t godly enough.

In fact, when you find your flow with the controls and the abilities you have, it feels pretty amazing. This clicked with me during the first boss and I was dancing around it in the sky, under the water. Dodging its attacks, riposting with my own, it’s very like a bullet-filled ballet and it was glorious. In fact, I immediately messaged some GSC colleagues to tell them how fun it was.

Keep your combo going and on target and your special and combo metre go up. Raising your special metre improves the fire rate of your weapons, and your boat’s speed and dash abilities. There’s a great balance of keeping up your speed and fire rate whilst using your abilities (which of course drain your special metre).

Like a Boss

Each of the worlds has its own multi-stage boss at the end. There’s some great variety in the bosses designs and will keep you on your toes. Especially as they change it up every tier of the fight, adding in new attacks or environmental hazards for you to be wary of.

They’re a challenge, but if you’re upgrading, tweaking and souping up your gunboat (as Yeti hopes you will), they shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.

Lock & Load

There are seven weapons to unlock in the game. You’ll start off with a standard blaster but you’ll soon get a bomb launcher, a shorter range, but higher damage blaster (my weapon of choice) as well as a beam blades and railguns. You’ll likely settle on a weapon you favour, especially after upgrading them, but playing around with the different types really gives you a feel for what could work in different scenarios. Got a challenge where you need higher accuracy? Try the railgun for lower fire rate but high damage that isn’t going to blow your accuracy. You can switch your weapons on the fly and it’s fun to play with them and see what works, or doesn’t in some cases.

All your weapons and abilities can be upgraded. Throughout the game you’ll acquire various upgrades items. You’ll use sparks to upgrade your general damage (it can go to Level 80) and your super ability. You’ll also acquire new abilities that can be upgraded too. These can give you an edge in going for that godly rank. Jet lets you fly in the air, Submarine, swim underwater. You can also get a shield or the ability to pass through enemies or damaging obstacles.

There are also some levels where you can earn uranium rods by completing certain challenges. You can use these to purchase skills that add additional effects or abilities. You will likely not be able to get a godly rank and complete a challenge in the same go for every level as some of these challenges can be tricksy. Some require you to not move, or only shoot to the left. Others may require you to not take any damage, or achieve 100% accuracy!

Dread Locks

And even if you finish the game and want more punishment, and to dole out more godly justice, then Dread Mode is for you. All 212 levels, turned up to 11! Higher damage, less energy for your special abilities, stronger enemies. But, you do get access to special augments that give you an advantage in battle.

These are a fun extra challenge, could you get godly on every level in Dread Mode?! Surely you’d be the Gunboat God of all Gunboat Gods!!!

Between 424 levels (if you include Dread Mode variations) a range of challenges and the tantalising thrill of getting godly rank, there’s certainly plenty to keep you playing.

And All the Lights and Sounds

I love, love, love the art design of Gunboat God. All the characters and foreground stuff are black and white. If it’s above the ocean, it’s black, if it’s below the water, white. All the colour comes from the vibrant backgrounds that change between each world and it works so well. As you can see from the screenshots in this review, it just pops!

I love the attention to detail, the special bar changes colour to match the colour palette of the level you’re on, for example. Every enemy has its own unique design and personality. Yeti, his tiny croc friend and yourself, the human bean, all have character, Yeti’s being the most expressive.

Each enemy has it’s own sound, and it works super well when a large horde attacks you in a level. It really does feel like you’re being swarmed. The sound shifts as you dive underwater, creating a muffled, submerged effect. It feels so well executed. The sound of the guns rattling off as enemies die, the backdrop of the music can occasionally be lost, but that’s being incredibly nitpicky at this point. Hell it makes sense, gunfire and the death howls of hundreds of enemies is certainly going to drown out my tunes.

Just a Sec

If all of the above sounds a bit overwhelming / sensory overload inducing, don’t fret. Gunboat God never feels like too much. In fact, it feels like so much care has gone in to making that not the case. Earlier missions introduce you to the game at a good pace. New abilities are introduced gradually and you get to grips with their workings before expecting you to be Godly.

Similarly, given the nature of ‘just one more go’, or going for the perfect run to become godly, means a lot of reloading. The game would die on it’s ass if it had long loading times, but aside from the initial load into the game, they are next to non-existent. Restarting a level takes a second, if that, it’s basically instantaneous. I feel that’s super important for this type of game.

I must also commend the devs for creating such a well-polished title. There have been no bugs, no performance issues or qualms while playing.

Gunboatliness is Next to Godly-ness

Gunboat God is slick, chaotic and fun, much like Yeti’s titular vessel. The tight controls, striking visuals, and fun tone make it worth your time alone, but that itch in becoming truly godly is incredibly to satisfying scratch. I cannot recommend Gunboat God enough.

Gunboat God releases on 13 April 2026 and is available on PC. The PS5 and Xbox Series will release at a later date. The game was reviewed on PC.

Gamer Social Club would like to thank Fireshrine Games for the review code.