Gunfire Reborn: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

Introduction — Why I'm Still Playing This Junk After 400 Hours

Look, I'm not gonna lie to you. When I first fired up Gunfire Reborn, I thought it was just another Borderlands ripoff with furries. I was half-right. The animals are weird, the humor is hit-or-miss, and the voice lines get old after your fiftieth run. But here's the thing: I've got over 400 hours in this game, and I'm still finding new ways to break it wide open. That's not something I can say about most $20 games in my library.

What makes this game special isn't the story (there isn't one worth caring about) or the graphics (they're fine, I guess). It's the replayability. Every run feels different because the scrolls, weapons, and occult scrolls combine in ways that can either make you feel like a god or a complete clown. I've had runs where I one-shot the final boss, and runs where I died to the first elite mob because I picked a "synergy" that actually just made my damage negative. That unpredictability is what keeps me coming back.

I love the fact that you can play this game solo or co-op, and both modes feel completely different. Solo? You're a tactical sniper, picking engagements. Co-op? You're a chaotic mess of four people screaming "don't take my scroll!" while the boss eats someone's face. It's beautiful. It's stupid. I love it.

But I also hate parts of it. The RNG can be brutally unfair. You'll have runs where you see three legendary scrolls before the first boss, and runs where you get nothing but "+2% health regen while crouching" for five stages. The economy is stingy early on. The difficulty spike from Normal to Reincarnation 1 is like being thrown into a pool of lava after wading in a kiddie pool. I died like 15 times before I beat my first Reincarnation run. Fifteen. I kept track.

Anyway, enough complaining. If you're here, you want to get good. Let's make sure your first 20 hours aren't as miserable as mine were.

Getting Started / First Steps — What I Wish I Knew When My Aim Was Trash

First off, do not start with Crown Prince. I know he's the default character, and the game pushes you to pick him. But he's actually one of the trickiest heroes to play well because his smoke grenade has a delay, his primary fire has travel time, and his skill ceiling is higher than most. Start with Qing Yan (the bird dude) or Lei Luo (the fox with lightning). Qing Yan is tanky, has a straightforward double jump that makes dodging easy, and his melee hitbox is generous. Lei Luo just deletes things with lightning. Easy mode for beginners.

When you first load into the tutorial, ignore the dummy targets. They don't teach you anything useful. Go into the training room and actually test how scrolls and weapons interact. I wasted my first three runs not knowing that "+100% elemental damage" doesn't stack additively with other elemental damage buffs — it's multiplicative with your base damage. This matters because if you have two "+100% elemental damage" scrolls, you don't get +200%. You get +300% because each one multiplies separately. Yes, I had to learn that by failing math in a shooting game.

Spend your starting Copper Coins (the gold currency) on weapon upgrades, not rerolls. You'll want to buy the Ascension upgrade tree as soon as you can, but focus on the left side first — the one that gives you increased damage against elites and bosses. The early bosses will wreck you if you can't burn them down quick enough.

Your first goal: beat the game on Normal difficulty once. Don't jump into Reincarnation. I did that. I learned nothing. The difficulty curve is real, and the only thing you'll gain from dying repeatedly on Hard is frustration. Play on Normal until you can consistently reach the final boss (it's called the Corrupt Monk of the Lotus, or just "Lotus" for short) without dying more than once or twice.

One more thing: turn off auto-pickup for scrolls in the settings. Yes, I'm serious. The game will auto-grab any scroll you walk over, including the trash ones that actually hurt your build. You want to see what a scroll does before you take it. You'll learn real quick that "+50% fire rate but -30% damage" can actually be a net loss if your weapon already fires fast.

Core Mechanics & Progression — How the Game Actually Works (Not the Tutorial's Version)

Alright, here's the real deal. Gunfire Reborn is a roguelite first-person shooter with RPG elements. You go through stages, kill things, collect scrolls and weapons, upgrade your character between runs, and try to survive long enough to kill the final boss. But the progression system is where things get interesting.

There are three major progression layers:

• In-run power: The scrolls and weapons you find during a run. These are temporary. You lose them when you die or win.
• Character upgrades: Each character has an Ascension tree that you unlock with Copper Coins. These provide permanent bonuses like more health, better dash, increased elemental damage, etc. You keep these forever, even after you die.
• Difficulty modes (Reincarnation levels): After you beat Normal, you unlock Reincarnation 1. Beat that, you get R2, and so on up to R10. Each level adds more elite enemies, harder bosses, and better loot. The jump from Normal to R1 is the biggest hurdle in the entire game. Everything after R1 is just fine-tuning your pain tolerance.

The Occult Scrolls are the heart of the game. There are over 100 of them, and they're divided into categories: damage, survival, elemental, unique, and cursed. Cursed scrolls give you a powerful bonus but also a downside. For example, the Curse of the Corrupted gives you +50% damage but also makes you take +50% damage from enemies. These can make or break a run. I had one run where I stacked three cursed scrolls and hit the boss for 40,000 damage per shot. I also died in one hit. Worth it.

Weapons in this game have rarity tiers: Common, Fine, Rare, Legendary, and Exclusive (unique to each character). Don't sleep on Rare weapons. Sometimes a Rare weapon with the right dual-inscription (the two bonus stats at the bottom) is better than a Legendary with bad inscriptions. Inscriptions matter more than base rarity, and the game doesn't tell you that. I spent my first 50 hours thinking Legendary was always better. It's not. A Rare weapon with "+100% elemental damage" and "+50% crit damage" will shred harder than a Legendary with "+20% mag size" and "+10% reload speed" every time.

The Shop between stages is where you spend your copper coins. Priorities:

• Weapon upgrades: Always upgrade your main weapon to +2 or +3 early. The damage spike from +1 to +3 is about 15% per upgrade.
• Scrolls: Don't buy scrolls unless they directly fit your build. A scroll that gives "+40% melee damage" is useless if you're sniping from across the map.
• Weapon rerolls: Only reroll if you're stuck with a weapon that's actively hurting you. Rerolls cost more each time, and the pool is random.
• Health refills: Only buy if you're below 50% health and you're about to hit a boss fight. Otherwise, try to recover health through scrolls or the healing fountains that spawn randomly.

Your Ascension tree should be built with a specific character in mind. For example, if you're playing Qing Yan, invest in the left tree first for raw damage and survivability. If you're playing Lei Luo, go for the lightning damage nodes early. Don't spread your points evenly. That's how you become a jack of all trades, master of none, and dead all the time.

Expert Tips & Tricks — The Stuff You Only Learn After Getting Wrecked Repeatedly

I'm going to give you the hard-won stuff now. The things I wish I'd known before I died 47 times to the second boss before I figured out his patterns. Here we go.

1. Learn to animation cancel. This isn't a bug; it's a feature. When you reload, you can dash immediately after the ammo counter shows full ammo without waiting for the reload animation to finish. This saves you about 0.8 seconds per reload. Over a run, that's minutes of extra DPS. I tested this. It works on every weapon except the Crossbow.

2. The Flamethrower is a noob trap. Yes, it does 45 base DPS ramping to 120 after 3 seconds of continuous fire. But that ramp-up window is brutal against mobile enemies. The second boss (the Ao Bai boss fight) loves to teleport away just as your damage starts spiking. I've lost count of how many times I've held the trigger, watched the boss vanish, and then stood there holding a flaming hose with nothing to hit. The Flamethrower is good for clearing trash waves. Don't rely on it for bosses.

3. The Corrosive element is way overrated. Everyone online will tell you to stack poison because it "melts bosses." Here's the truth: Corrosive damage does a percentage of health over time, but that percentage is scaled down against bosses. Against the first boss, you'll be lucky to get 3-4% per tick. Against the final boss, it's more like 1% per tick. Meanwhile, Lightning damage gives you raw burst, and Fire damage stacks infinitely if you chain kills. I spent my first 10 runs trying to stack poison and got destroyed by the second boss every time. Switched to a Lightning build with Lei Luo and cleared Normal on my first try. Don't believe the hype.

4. You can dodge through enemy projectiles. Your dash has invincibility frames (i-frames), but they're short — about 0.2 seconds. The window is tight, but once you get the timing down, you can dash through the laser beams of the third boss without taking damage. I practiced this on the training dummies for 20 minutes. It's worth it.

5. The best weapon in the game is the Rainmaker (Legendary). It's a slow-firing rifle with a charge mechanic, but when you land a fully charged headshot, it releases a rain of bullets that home in on enemies. The damage is bonkers — 150 base per shot, plus the homing projectiles do 30 each. I had a run where I stacked "+200% crit damage" scrolls and was hitting 40,000 damage crits on the final boss. He died in four shots. I felt like a cheater.

6. Don't open every chest you see. Chests have a hidden quality rating that's determined by the stage's difficulty and your current run progress. On higher Reincarnation levels, chests can spawn with curses that reduce your damage or health for the rest of the run. If you see a chest that looks "off" (different color, weird glow), shoot it from a distance first. If it explodes into a curse cloud, run away. I lost a perfect run to a cursed chest on stage 5. I still have nightmares.

7. Use the environment to block boss attacks. The third boss (the giant statue) has a sweeping laser attack that covers 60% of the arena. But if you stand behind one of the pillars in the corners, the laser will stop. This is obvious to some, but I see so many new players just sprinting around the arena like headless chickens trying to outrun it. You can't outrun it. Hide behind a pillar. Trust me.

8. The "Risk" mechanic is a trap for beginners. Every stage has a random "Risk" modifier that gives you a debuff in exchange for better loot. Things like "-50% armor" or "enemies explode on death." These are not worth it until you've cleared the game at least once. The extra loot isn't meaningful if you die on the next stage because you have no armor. I took the "-50% armor" risk on my second run ever and got one-shotted by a shielded shotgun elite. Not worth.

Common Mistakes to Avoid — What Got Me Killed and What Will Get You Killed

I made all these mistakes. You don't have to. Learn from my pain.

• Hoard copper coins. I used to save all my gold for the final shop, thinking I'd buy a legendary weapon there. Here's the thing: the final shop only sells weapons you've already found, and the pool is limited. Spend your coins on upgrades in the first two stages. A +3 weapon in stage 2 will carry you further than a +0 weapon in stage 4. I lost at least 20 runs because I was holding 500 gold when I died in stage 3.
• Ignoring shield enemies. Those blue-glowing enemies with the bubble shield? They're immune to all damage until you break the shield. The shield only has 100 HP, but it regenerates after 3 seconds. I used to try to DPS through them and waste all my ammo. The trick is to use elemental damage (especially fire or lightning) because it ignores the shield and hits the enemy directly. Yes, the game doesn't tell you this. I had to figure it out by accident.
• Playing too aggressively. This game rewards speed, but speed doesn't mean reckless. I'd rush into rooms, activate multiple elite spawns at once, and get overwhelmed. The game spawns enemies in waves. Don't push forward until you've cleared the current wave. I've died more times to "I'll just jump into that group and kill them before they react" than I care to admit. Spoiler: they react.
• Ignoring side paths. Every stage has hidden rooms and secret paths. They look like breakable walls, but they're actually marked by slightly different textures. A wall with a crack in it or a floor panel that looks off is a secret. These rooms contain chests with guaranteed rare or legendary scrolls. I missed them for my first 30 hours because I thought the level was linear. It's not.
• Not using your secondary weapon. Your secondary weapon slot exists for a reason. If your main weapon is a slow-firing sniper, your secondary should be a fast-reloading SMG or shotgun for close-range. I used to carry two snipers because "headshots are all you need." Then a horde of shielded dogs would rush me, and I'd panic-fire and miss every shot. Now I always carry a Corrosive SMG in my secondary. The poison applies quickly, and it works wonders on crowd control.
• Underestimating the final boss's second phase. The Corrupt Monk of the Lotus has two phases. In the first phase, he teleports and shoots slow-moving orbs. In the second phase, he becomes a giant statue and fires homing lasers that track you. These lasers do 150 damage per hit and come in groups of three. I died in phase two about 12 times before I realized you can dash through the lasers if you time it right. Forget that. Just run in a wide circle around the arena. The lasers can't turn fast enough to track a good circle strafe. Thank me later.
• Not respeccing your Ascension tree when you change characters. Each character has a different playstyle. If you invest all your points into the "Mortal" tree (which gives raw damage) and then switch to a heavy-armor build, you're wasting points. You can respec your Ascension tree for free at any time in the main menu. I didn't know this for 100 hours. I thought my points were locked in forever. They're not.

FAQ — The Questions I See Newbies Spam in Chat

Q: Should I play solo or co-op?
A: Solo is easier to learn because you control the pacing. Co-op is more fun but also harder because enemies scale with the number of players. If you play co-op, communicate about who takes which scrolls. I've seen friendships end over a legendary scroll argument. Don't be that guy.

Q: Is there a "best" character?
A: No, but there are easier and harder characters. Qing Yan is the easiest for beginners because he's tanky and simple. Crown Prince is the hardest because his abilities require precise timing. Lei Luo is the best for speedruns. Mo (the cat) is fun for melee builds but requires good positioning. Pick what suits your vibe.

Q: How do I unlock more characters?
A: You buy them with Copper Coins and Burning Sun Crowns (the red currency you get from achievements and challenges). Each character costs 200-400 Crowns. Focus on unlocking Qing Yan first because his Ascension tree is the most straightforward. Then get Lei Luo for easy clears.

Q: What's the deal with "Soul Essence"?
A: Soul Essence is used to craft weapons at the Blacksmith. You find it in runs and from dismantling weapons. Save it for crafting Exclusive weapons for your main character. Don't waste it on random gear you'll never use.

Q: Is the game pay-to-win?
A: No. There are no microtransactions that affect gameplay. The only DLC is cosmetic skins and the "Champions" expansion that adds new weapons and characters. You can earn everything with in-game currency, but it takes grinding. I've never spent a dime beyond the base game, and I've unlocked everything. It's fair.

Q: How do I beat the second boss (Ao Bai's shield phase)?
A: The giant shark boss has a shield that reduces your damage by 75%. You have to wait for him to do his charge attack (he telegraphs it with a roar and a red line on the ground). When he charges, dodge to the side, and he'll slam into the wall, stunning himself for 4 seconds. That's your window to damage him. I died to this boss 8 times in a row before I learned the pattern. His bite attacks are also blockable with the environment. Use the walls.

Q: What's the fastest way to earn Copper Coins?
A: Run Normal mode with a speedrun build (Lightning Lei Luo with fast movement scrolls). Skip side rooms, beeline for the boss, and clear each stage in under 5 minutes. You'll get about 500 coins per run. I grinded 2000 coins in about 2 hours this way. It's boring, but it works.

Q: Is the game worth buying now in 2025?
A: Yeah, absolutely. The base game is complete, the "Champions" expansion adds a ton of content, and there's a healthy player base on Steam. The update cycle has slowed down, but the modding community is still active. If you like roguelites and shooters, this is a no-brainer for the price. Just be ready to die a lot.

That's it. That's the guide. Now go kill some corrupted monks, don't pick cursed scrolls on stage 1, and remember: if you're not having fun, just blame the RNG. That's what I do.