The Bullet Hell and Bullet Heaven Deals Worth Grabbing
For years, the genre that Vampire Survivors kicked off didn’t even have an agreed-upon name — bullet heaven, survivors-like, auto-shooter, reverse bullet hell, take your pick. This week, Valve finally gave the whole messy, glorious family its own party. Steam Bullet Fest 2026 is the platform’s first official event built around both classic bullet hells and the modern survivors-like wave, and it’s the direct result of a developer-and-player campaign that pushed Valve for proper genre recognition.
The Fest runs June 8 through June 15, 2026, wrapping up at 10 AM Pacific on the 15th. There are well over 2,000 games tagged into the event, ranging from $1 impulse buys to discounted AAA roguelites. Below are the standouts, what they cost right now, how players rate them, and — because this genre lives and dies on post-launch support — how often the developers actually update them.
The headliner: Returnal
Returnal is the big-budget anchor of the sale. Housemarque’s third-person bullet-hell roguelite, originally a PlayStation showpiece, is down to $19.79 (67% off its $59.99 list price). On Steam it sits at a “Very Positive” rating, with roughly 81% of its 10,000-plus reviews recommending it. It’s the most cinematic, most demanding thing in the Fest — a moody sci-fi nightmare of looping time and screen-filling projectile storms. It’s not a casual one-more-run game like most of this list, but if you want the genre at its most polished and atmospheric, this is the lowest the PC version has ever gone.
Megabonk — the breakout that ate everyone’s autumn
If you missed the headlines last year: Megabonk is the solo-developed 3D Vampire Survivors-like that exploded out of nowhere in September 2025, sold an estimated 1.3 million copies, and briefly peaked at over 117,000 concurrent players — higher than Hades II‘s all-time record. During the Fest it’s $6.99 (30% off $9.99**)**, a historical low.
It earns the hype. Taking the genre into 3D adds real verticality — you’re kiting hordes around ramps, ledges, and rooftops instead of an open plane, and the build-crafting hits that perfect slot-machine rhythm where every level-up tempts you into one more run. It carries a “Very Positive” rating (around 92% of 100,000-plus reviews), and crucially, solo dev vedinad has kept it on a steady drip of weekly-to-biweekly patches since launch, tuning balance and adding characters. For seven bucks, it’s the easiest recommendation in the whole sale.
Vampire Survivors — still the king, still absurdly cheap
The game that started it all is, somehow, an even better deal than ever: $3.74 (25% off) for the base game, with most of its DLC discounted too. Vampire Survivors remains “Overwhelmingly Positive,” with a staggering 98% of more than 235,000 reviews positive — one of the best-reviewed games on the entire platform.
What makes it the gold standard isn’t just the hypnotic gameplay loop; it’s how relentlessly developer Poncle has supported it. The game has received a steady stream of content updates and, remarkably, has handed out several pieces of free DLC over its life, plus crossover content and a fresh deckbuilding spin-off (Vampire Crawlers) earlier this year. Four dollars for a game that has paid players back this many times over is borderline criminal. If you’re new to the genre, start here.
Gunfire Reborn — the co-op pick
Gunfire Reborn is the one to grab if you want to play with friends. This first-person roguelite looter-shooter from Duoyi Games — all cel-shaded visuals and anthropomorphic heroes, from a cat ninja to a bird mage — is roughly 35% off its $19.99 price during the Fest. It holds a “Very Positive” rating at about 93% positive across well over 85,000 reviews.
Where the survivors-likes are about surviving the swarm, Gunfire Reborn is about tight gunplay and synergy: stack the right scrolls and weapons and a run snowballs from “barely hanging on” to “unkillable.” It’s genuinely great solo, but four-player co-op is where it shines, and years of post-launch hero and weapon drops mean there’s a mountain of content to dig through.
Arms of God — the brand-new wildcard
Timed perfectly to the Fest, Arms of God launched into Early Access on June 8 with a 15% launch-week discount. It’s a Doom-inspired bullet heaven with gore, a metal soundtrack, and a clever twist: you wield up to five weapons at once and merge them into monstrous combined builds. Early reviews are “Very Positive” (about 90% of its first 130-plus reviews), and the well-received free demo built a loyal following ahead of release.
The reason I’d bet on it: it’s a solo project whose developer shipped major demo updates roughly every two to three weeks throughout development — exactly the kind of cadence that turns a promising Early Access game into a long-term favorite. Worth a wishlist at minimum, and an easy buy if you want to get in early.
Two smaller indies worth your time
The Fest is also a great excuse to take a flyer on lesser-known gems for the price of a coffee:
- Minishoot’ Adventures — $7.49 (50% off, an all-time low). Less a survivors-like and more a twin-stick shoot-’em-up wrapped in a Zelda-style exploration adventure. It’s charming, tightly designed, and beloved by the people who’ve found it — one of those quietly excellent indies that over-delivers for the asking price.
- Bounty of One — $2.79 (60% off). A wild-west survivors-like where you’re a wanted outlaw fending off waves of bounty hunters. At under three dollars, it’s the perfect low-stakes way to test whether the “dodge the swarm, build a broken character” loop hooks you.
And plenty more
If none of the above lands, the lineup runs deep. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor ($8.44, 35% off) spins the beloved co-op miner into a solo horde-survival game; Brotato ($2.99) and Halls of Torment ($4.99) are two of the most loved budget survivors-likes around; and genre classics like Enter the Gungeon ($2.99), Cuphead ($11.99), and the co-op roguelite Rabbit and Steel ($7.49) round out the bullet-hell side of the aisle.
Best part about the sale
Beyond the discounts, the real story is the genre finally getting a spotlight on Steam’s front page. These games tend to come from tiny teams or a single person and their best feature is often how generously they’re supported after launch, whether that’s Vampire Survivors’ free content drops, Megabonk’s near-weekly patches, or Arms of God’s rapid Early Access iteration. That ongoing support is exactly what turns a $7 impulse buy into 100 hours of playtime.
Prices listed here are accurate as of the Fest’s June 8 opening; everything reverts to normal when the event closes on June 15. If your backlog can handle it, this is the best week of the year to dive into bullet heaven.
Prices and review ratings reflect the U.S. Steam store at the start of the event and may shift slightly during the sale.
