Wizard with a Gun

Introduction

Wizard with a Gun sends one or two wizards, armed with elemental firearms rather than traditional spells, into a shattered magical wilderness to gather materials, fend off creatures, and gradually rebuild a fallen tower. Developed by Galvanic Games and published by Devolver Digital, it released 17 October 2023 and sits at a lifetime Very Positive 80.3% across 3,939 reviews, with recent sentiment holding just as strong at 82.1%. This review reads a substantial share of both samples and finds a genuinely stylish, well-conceived game whose most consistent criticism — that it launched feeling unfinished — has since become permanent rather than something a future patch might resolve.

A hook and an aesthetic that land

The central premise draws real, consistent affection across this review's sample. Combining wizardry with firearms — status-effect bullets, elemental ammunition, a magic-infused gunslinger fantasy — is distinctive enough that several reviewers cite the trailer alone as what sold them, and the resulting atmosphere, character customisation and soundtrack draw praise even from reviewers who otherwise land negative. One reviewer, comparing it directly to the genre's reigning survival-crafting template, calls it "a far more rapidly paced Don't Starve Together," and several appreciate that pacing specifically — shorter, more focused runs rather than the sprawling commitment survival games often demand.

The complaint that predicted its own ending

Set against that, this review's clearest and most consistent finding is that Wizard with a Gun launched feeling incomplete, and reviewers said so specifically rather than vaguely. Multiple reviewers use the exact phrase "early access" to describe what they experienced at full price, one noting the story "stops dead with a lot of things unresolved." Inventory management is singled out repeatedly as a persistent source of friction rather than an interesting system to master, and progression draws a specific, recurring complaint: rather than meaningful new tools, upgrades mostly amount to small numeric increments — "you don't get a new rifle, you get a rifle with -.1 reload time and +.3 range," as one reviewer puts it. Boss and encounter design draw similar criticism, with one reviewer noting the game's final boss is functionally a reskinned version of an enemy that spawns normally throughout the world. Several reviewers explicitly compare the situation to Cult of the Lamb, another Devolver-published title some felt was pushed out before it was ready.

A studio that closed its doors

What turns "feels unfinished at launch" into a firmer, final verdict is a fact this review reports directly rather than as speculation: Galvanic Games officially disbanded in June 2024, according to a widely-upvoted review posted the same month, confirming the game "will no longer receive official content updates." That means the systems reviewers found thin at launch — inventory, progression depth, boss variety — are not incomplete groundwork awaiting a future patch, but the finished state of the game as it will exist going forward. This review scores it on that basis: as a complete, final product rather than one still being built toward a fuller vision.

Final Verdict

Wizard with a Gun succeeds at exactly what drew players to it in the first place — a distinctive premise, strong art direction and genuinely fun short-session combat, delivered in a faster, more approachable package than most survival-crafting games attempt. It falls short of a stronger score because the specific, repeated launch-week criticism about thin systems and an unresolved story was never going to be addressed once its developer closed its doors less than a year later. Play it for an atmospheric, stylish weekend with a co-op partner, and treat today's version as the complete picture rather than a foundation for something larger still to come.