Best Top-Down Shooters

Despite being one of the oldest genres in gaming, top-down shooters don’t always get the attention, praise, or recognition they generally deserve.

This can be due to their relatively small scope, restricted indie game audience, and rise of other more popular types of shooters such as FPS and third-person shooters.

Fortunately, individuals seeking fresh top-down shooters in 2025 are in excellent fortune, since we have gathered a compilation of the best top-down shooters on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

If you relish these suggestions, make sure to share them with your friends and check out our expanding library of curated gaming lists covering every genre!

Related:Best Looter Shooter Games 2025Best Tactical Shooters 2025Best Twin-Stick Shooters 2025

One of this year’s largest new top-down shooter surprises has been Slaycation Paradise, a satirical vacation-themed action roguelike that sees you escaping to beautifully chaotic destinations.

In it, players are tasked with surviving post-apocalyptic scenarios where they’ll have to ward off waves of zombie hordes using a suite of unconventional weaponry and tower defense mechanisms.

This encompasses everything from standard shotguns, machine guns, rifles, and flamethrowers to the more peculiar cat-launcher and enchanted wand.

As you progress, you’ll earn Slaycation Club rewards that can be used to unlock fresh destinations, even more bizarre new weapons, and potent upgrades.

Reminiscent of games like Vampire Survivors, Bounty of One is a Wild West-themed top-down shooter that casts you as a dishonored former hero.

With endless hordes of bounty hunters hunting for you, you’ll have to grab your guns and fight for survival long enough to clear your name.

This can be summed up as bullet hell-style, top-down shooter combat with rapid gameplay that emphasizes mobility as you dash, dodge, and shoot your way to victory.

To keep the odds in your favor, the game gives you the option to upgrade abilities over time as well as bring along a few skilled companions via local co-op multiplayer.

Next up on our list of engaging top-down shooters to play in 2025, we have a revival of the 1982 Atari classic title Yars’ Revenge designed for both single-player and local co-op.

In Yars: Recharged, you take on the role of an insect protagonist infiltrating their enemy’s homeworld to carry out an assault on its robotic hives.

This trance-inducing shoot ’em up offers 60 unique enemy encounters against waves of enemies armed with lethal cannons and spinning missiles.

Outside of completing missions, players can take on a challenging boss rush Arcade mode and compete with other players via global leaderboards.

Star Valor is a space-themed action RPG with top-down shooter elements that puts you in command of your own spaceship and fate out in the cosmos.

Set in a procedurally generated galaxy, the game sees you exploring an enormous open world while making a name for yourself by joining factions, mining asteroids, trading, and bounty hunting.

To this point, it features a dynamic and easy-to-learn combat system that centers on head-to-head dogfights and massive fleet battles.

Your ship can be equipped with over 160 diverse parts or swapped out entirely with 80+ distinctive class-based vessels that allow for further customization via a weapon crafting system.

Carrying on, we recommend top-down shooter fans pick up 20 Minutes Till Dawn, a frantic action roguelike that has you mowing down Lovecraftian creatures.

The goal of the game is to make it through a frightening night by keeping your character alive for 20 real-world minutes as hordes of enemies surround you.

It offers a diverse selection of characters and weapons to pick from, each tailored for different playstyles that can be further enhanced using over 50 upgrades.

Requiring only 10-20 minutes for each session and coming in at 2.99 USD, the game is a superb option for gamers on a budget or with limited time to play.

Currently in Steam Early Access, Uragun is a futuristic top-down shooter that has you taking control of a powerful mech and battling against malevolent machines.

To survive, players must master every weapon at their disposal while investigating the disappearance of their missing pilot and friend in a world ravaged by rogue AI.

This entails traveling to both breathtaking and devastated hand-crafted environments based on real-world locations like Barcelona, Hong Kong, and North America.

Combat in Uragun is fast-paced and will test your skills and reflexes by forcing you to wield a variety of deadly weapons with clearly defined strengths and weaknesses.

Considering there isn’t much in the way of top-down battle royale shooters, Super Animal Royale is an excellent alternative for those that enjoy competitive multiplayer.

The game casts you and up to 64 opponents as trigger-happy animals that have decided to bear arms and fight to the death on an exotic island.

After picking your drop location on the map, you’ll have to loot and shoot your way to victory by searching adjacent crates for weapons, armor, and ability pick-ups.

In the spirit of Super Animal Royale’s “adorable but lethal” design, each animal can wield an assortment of rifles, machine guns, grenades, blades, etc.

If you’ve been keeping up on the top-down shooter market, then there’s a good chance you’ve already heard of The Ascent as it was one of the more contemporary prominent releases in the genre.

The game is set in a futuristic metropolis controlled by an oppressive megacorp that ultimately collapses, leaving a power vacuum in its wake.

As gangs and other rival factions all vie for control, your character gets caught in the crossfire, prompting you to run and gun your way through hostile territories.

Along with top-down shooter combat, The Ascent layers on a cover system, robust RPG progression, and local/online co-op with up to three players.

Our next suggestion for indie top-down shooters is Police Stories, a novel take on the genre that blends strategic, simulation-driven gameplay with split-second decision-making.

In it, players follow the story of two police operatives as they set out to infiltrate gang hideouts, rescue hostages, apprehend perps, and handle other critical or fatal scenarios.

Unlike most top-down shooters, players are encouraged to take non-lethal measures when feasible and will face negative consequences for wrongfully killing civilians and non-threatening criminals.

With that said, some circumstances will call for it, so players will have to stay vigilant and look for any signs of peril while responding to calls.

In Voidigo, you take on the role of a colorful bird-like hero tasked with defeating a host of unique bosses in dynamic top-down shootouts.

The gameplay is fast and chaotic with an emphasis on dodging attacks and incorporates roguelite mechanics with many ranged and melee weapons at your disposal.

As mentioned earlier, Voidigo focuses primarily on ever-changing boss fights where enemies can flee to different areas, requiring you to hunt them down or take a moment to rest.

Between battles, you’ll have an opportunity to trade weapons, power-ups, and other items to adjust your playstyle to your liking.

Speaking of roguelite top-down shooters, one of our favorites is Synthetik: Legion Rising for its challenging combat and brutal difficulty.

In it, you’re tasked with bringing down an army of cybernetic-enhanced machines using a wide range of weapons that can be customized using diverse parts and perks.

Gameplay-wise, Synthetik sets itself apart from other top-down shooters by including a distinctive active reload mechanic with significant-risk stakes that can cause your gun to jam or overheat.

Additionally, there are several character classes to pick from, each with special abilities and weapons that impact how battles play out.

Next up is Ruiner, another fast indie top-down shooter that takes place in a distant-future cyberpunk dystopia dripping with neon and brutality.

Players are cast as a wired psychopath on a mission to save his abducted brother and get revenge on the dishonest system that led to his circumstances.

To do so, he’ll have to team up with an enigmatic hacker and uncover the truth across a series of industrialized locales occupied by hostile forces.

The game features brutal and unforgiving combat that revolves around enhanced gadgets and high-tech guns that can make quick work of foes.

Keeping with the cyberpunk theme, we recommend picking up Brigador, a mech-based overhead shooter that tasks you with hunting down and destroying a tyrannical government.

Aiding you in your quest are 50+ formidable mercenary mech units with devastating firepower capable of laying waste to tanks and leveling whole buildings.

Brigador’s main Campaign mode offers 37 missions to tackle and there’s also a Freelance mode with limited restrictions and over 20 maps to explore.

The best way to play the game in 2025 is through the Up-Armored Edition, which modifies the game’s mechanics, balancing, and visuals for a superior experience.

Heavily influenced by sci-fi movies like Starship Troopers and Aliens, Helldivers is a demanding top-down shooter designed for solo and cooperative play with 1-4 players.

The story centers on a team of expert combat soldiers tasked with protecting their home world by traveling across space in a ceaseless interstellar war against aliens.

Players can wield a wide array of weapons to define their playstyle as well as roll the dice with randomized loadouts and spice things up.

We suggest picking up the Dive Harder Edition as it offers a free upgrade to access all previously released expansions, the aforementioned loadout system, and a NG+ mode.

To conclude, we’re suggesting the Hotline Miami Collection, which combines both games in the series in one exciting package.

As far as top-down shooters go, the Hotline Miami games are practically unmatched and have received countless awards and praise for their raw and brutal approach to gunplay.

In the original, you play as a mysterious antihero who goes on a murderous rampage against shady crooks after hearing strange voices on their answering machine.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number escalates things even further by having you follow the paths of various factions with distinct weapons, motivations, and tactics for causing violence.