Squirrel with a Gun Might Be This Year’s Cuphead or Untitled Goose Game – IGN Next [IGN]

Squirrel with a Gun has been in the public consciousness for a while, but the unique shooter is peaking at the right time. Its release window has been announced for this Fall (for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation), and the quirky Unreal Engine 5 game has been capturing the hearts and minds of the IGN audience.

Need some context for that? We’ve got you covered:

• With 27 million views across IGN socials and nearly 7 million minutes viewed, Squirrel with a Gun was our most-watched game trailer of 2022 on TIkTok and our biggest video of 2022 on Facebook. That’s right: it wasn’t Call of Duty or Cyberpunk 2077 or any other big-name AAA game, it was the unendingly intriguing Squirrel with a Gun.
• Meanwhile, on IGN’s YouTube channel, Squirrel With a Gun is already proving to be one of the most anticipated indie games of 2024, totaling over 2 million views.

It’s these kinds of numbers on IGN that preceded previous breakout indie games like Cuphead and the similarly animal-inspired Untitled Goose Game before they launched into the stratosphere, and why we think the same is likely to happen for Squirrel with a Gun when it comes out later this year. But in case you need a refresher (or, well, a deeper dive than what the title of the game already spells out pretty clearly), Squirrel with a Gun is being developed by Dan DeEntremont and showcases the titular squirrel running through a town with normal-sized guns chasing unsuspecting people and taking down Agents using various weapons. As the neighborhood’s most obnoxious rodent, you’ll develop a knack (and a love?) for crime and mayhem in pursuit of golden acorns in this nutty sandbox shooter and puzzle platformer.

If it’s anything as innocently unhinged as it sounds, we’re all in for a treat. For more on Squirrel with a Gun, read up on how it’s inspired by Yakuza and Shadow of the Colossus. And if all of this sounds like it’s up your alley, you can wishlist Squirrel with a Gun on Steam.

IGN Next is something new on IGN; we’ll be spotlighting games that light up our charts that we think you’ll be interested in. Stay tuned for more IGN Next posts soon, and if you missed the first in this series, check out our IGN Next look at the time-traveling, Back-to-the-Future-meets-Army-of-Darkness medieval action-strategy game Kingmakers.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.