Best Shoot Em Up Games on Steam

The shoot em up is the purest thing on Steam: one ship, a screen filling with patterns, and a scoring system that quietly asks you to be greedy about it. Modern shmups have mostly stopped pretending you will one-credit them on your first sitting, so they hand you training modes, rewind features and practice stages instead, which makes the genre far more approachable than its arcade reputation suggests. For completionists they are unusually honest work, because the achievement lists tend to be built out of clear skill gates rather than collectibles, and each one you tick off is a thing you can actually now do. These are the vertical scrollers, horizontal shooters and bullet-hell curtains on Steam most worth learning, weighed on how good the shooting feels and how fair the 100 percent is.

1

Ikaruga

The polarity shooter that everyone else is measured against: absorb bullets of your own colour, and every stage becomes a puzzle about when to flip. 25 achievements, most of them skill gates rather than grinds, which makes it a demanding but very clean completion.

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2

Crimzon Clover World EXplosion

Screen-melting bullet hell with a Break mode that turns your ship into a wall of lasers, plus a Novice mode that is genuinely welcoming. 34 achievements spread across the different modes and rank levels, so progress comes from getting better rather than from repetition.

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3

Mushihimesama

A CAVE classic and one of the best on-ramps into arcade bullet hell, thanks to Novice and Original modes that sit either side of the brutal Ultra. At 50 achievements it is the largest list here, with plenty tied to specific modes and difficulty tiers.

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4

R-Type Final 2

A horizontal shooter with an enormous hangar of unlockable ships, each with its own Force behaviour and weapon set. 82 achievements make it the longest completion on this list by some distance, largely because collecting and levelling the roster is the game.

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5

Raiden IV x MIKADO remix

Classic vertical Raiden with the red, blue and purple weapon pods intact, repackaged with arranged soundtracks and extra modes. 47 achievements, weighted toward score chasing and mode clears rather than one-off tricks.

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6

Nex Machina

Technically a twin-stick arena shooter rather than a scroller, but it belongs here for the same reason: pure pattern reading at very high speed, with humans to rescue for score. 39 achievements that push you into higher difficulties and secret paths.

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7

Jamestown+

A four-player co-op shmup set in a steampunk colonial Mars, which is a much better fit than it sounds. 28 achievements, and the friendliest entry point on this list if you want a shooter you can actually play with friends on the couch.

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8

CYGNI: All Guns Blazing

A modern, visually enormous take on the genre where you juggle shields and weapons from the same energy pool, shooting at ground and air targets at once. 22 achievements, several of which reward playing without leaning on the difficulty options.

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9

DRAINUS

A horizontal shooter built around absorbing enemy fire and firing it back, wrapped in a surprisingly well told story with a proper new game plus. 20 achievements and the most approachable completion here, since it is generous about letting you retry.

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10

Sine Mora EX

A horizontal shooter that replaces the usual life bar with a time limit, so getting hit costs seconds and killing things buys them back. Only 12 achievements, which makes it the quickest 100 percent on this list if you want a shmup you can finish in a weekend.

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Updated 2026-09-01. Every game links to its full SteamVault page with achievement stats, rarity and community completion times.