Gunbrella is a side-scrolling action adventure with lots of gory gunplay and unique traversal mechanics, and it’s out this month.
By turns gritty and whimsical, 2D action platformer Gunbrella is the latest game from Doinksoft, the developer of the sorely underrated feline metroidvania, Gato Roboto.
Set in a kind of industrial, post-apocalyptic world that we can only describe as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road meets cutesy Japanese coin-op, Gunbrella's unique selling point is its titular weapon. A combination of gun and umbrella (of course), it can be used as a bullet-proof shield, a parachute you can use to glide through the air, or as a hook you can employ to slide along ziplines.
In short, Gunbrella plays like a snappier, more violent twist on Taito’s Parasol Stars – the greatest game ever made.
We know this because we spent a while playing through Gunbrella’s opening section at London’s WASD expo back in the spring, and were thoroughly beguiled by the precise handling of its bearded protagonist, not to mention the variety of its gameplay. There are intense – and surprisingly gory – shoot-outs with assorted villains, sequences where you have to navigate tricky arrangements of platforms and traps, and also towns where you chat to the locals, buy stuff, and solve puzzles.
There are also boss battles (something we didn’t get to sample), a doomy plot that takes in everything from ghouls to a mysterious cult, plus opportunities to beef up your umbrella-gun contraption with new parts mined from scrap.
Gunbrella is out on PC and Nintendo Switch on 13 September, and there’s even a demo you can try right now if you want to sample its unusual delights ahead of time. Pre-order the game, and you’ll also get a copy of Gato Roboto thrown in for the princely sum of £12.79. Given just how charming that 2019 title was, we’d say that’s a pretty sweet deal.
