Info about Pass the Fear:

Official game description:
Join the Community
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About the Game
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Scraped together mid-escape, this motley crew consists of the Iron Bucket Knight, the Explosive Cutie, the One-Eyed Codger, the Money Whiz, and a mysterious nun picked up by the roadside... Every single one of them is deathly afraid of kicking the bucket, yet they have no choice but to grab their guns and face the fight head-on! 
Your mission is to flee the island within 12 hours. But as you reach the coastline,a despair-inducing Storm Wall blocks your path. As the monsters multiply, a dark conspiracy slowly begins to unravel...
Fancy weapons, special Weapon Parts, Relic fusion, Tarot Cards, elemental effects, random events...
Every pickup is another experiment in weapon customization.
Stack up Projectiles and become a "Fireworks Master", or pour everything into a single shot and melt an entire health bar—your weapons, your rules.
\[Shatter\], \[Embarkation\], \[Growth\], \[Final Shot\], \[Disruption\]... There is no single right answer—only increasingly outrageous combinations.
Mix and match them to create Transmutation chains, endless Ultimates, looping triggers, exponential damage scaling, and more.
Every time your build comes together, it turns into a wildly satisfying run you will not want to put down.
As you venture deeper, \[Character Talents\] and \[Team Talents\] will help you grow ever stronger.
Higher difficulties bring tougher enemies—and better drop rates. They also unlock the unique \[Chaos Battle Scar\] mode, where every Battle Scar comes with both a boon and a curse. High risk, high reward.
Harness the boons, master the curses, and forge a one-of-a-kind ultimate build that pushes beyond the limits!
Multiplayer has everything you would expect: clutch saves, item swapping, and fighting through tough encounters together...
But the real fun is farming up quietly in the early game, then surging ahead to overtake everyone in damage later!
Check the DPS rankings—who is the true damage king of your squad, and who is the poor soul stuck doing all the thankless work as the team's "support bot"?
**Join the Community / Discord！**
If you’ve found bugs, want to share suggestions, or just feel like showing off your insanely cool build—our Discord is the best place to do it!

Release date: Jul 22, 2026

Categories: Roguelite, Cooperative Multiplayer, Bullet-hell, Top-Down Shooter, Build Crafting, Twin-stick Shooter, Looter Shooter


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: N/A
  - Story completion: N/A
  - Session length: 2.0h
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: The evidence provides multiple explicit durations for individual runs of Pass the Fear, ranging from 45 minutes to 4 hours. The most typical session length is around 2-3 hours as stated in one review, while faster clears are also common. No reviews specify total playtime to complete the entire game's story or reach endgame, so those metrics are null.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: The game is immediately fun and addictive, but its replay value drops significantly after the first successful run, with the thrill of power and loot wearing off quickly.
  - Stance: Fun then drops
  - Anchor: N/A
  - Time to anchor: N/A
  - Friction: Early game difficulty
  - Unlock drivers: N/A
  - Conditions: Playing with friends; Build synergies coming together; High difficulty mode; Random affixes (mythic); Using specific weapons
- Player Archetypes:
  - Meta-Optimizer Speedrunner (buy)
    - Motivation: Completing runs as quickly and efficiently as possible using optimal meta builds
    - Playstyle: Follows established meta, fine-tuning relics and builds for maximum speed, minimizes experimentation
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: N/A
  - Build-Crafter Synergy Seeker (buy)
    - Motivation: Discovering and crafting powerful synergistic builds through careful relic and card management
    - Playstyle: Experiments with different combinations, values slot optimization and affix synergy, often theorycrafts
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: veteran
    - Reference games: Warm Snow; Lost Castle 2; Gunfire Reborn; Hades
  - Coop Social Player (sale)
    - Motivation: Enjoying the game cooperatively with friends, sharing the grind and fun
    - Playstyle: Plays with friends, focuses on multiplayer content, may not engage deeply with single-player meta
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: N/A


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Co-op multiplies fun (weight 0.63): Players consistently report that co-op with friends significantly enhances enjoyment. Multiple clusters highlight the social dimension as a core strength.
- Rich build variety (weight 0.57): The game offers deep customization through weapons, skills, tarot cards, and treasures, allowing for diverse and satisfying builds. This is a frequently mentioned positive aspect.
- Excellent roguelike shooter gameplay (weight 0.51): The core loop of a bullet hell roguelike shooter is praised for its satisfying shooting feel, visual effects, and addictive nature. Clusters highlight the genre execution as a key draw.
- Beautiful art and effects (weight 0.41): The art style and visual effects are widely appreciated, with mentions of exquisite design, flashy effects, and lovable characters. This aesthetic appeal is a frequent compliment.
- Comparable to similar titles (weight 0.19): Players draw favorable comparisons to games like Warm Snow, Enter the Gungeon, and Hades, suggesting the game successfully blends elements from these popular titles.
- Great value for price (weight 0.15): Players feel the amount and quality of content justify the cost, making it a worthwhile purchase. This is a consistent sentiment across several reviews.
- Solid single-player experience (weight 0.12): While multiplayer is highlighted, the single-player mode is also considered good, with a satisfying build experience and enjoyable gameplay on its own.
- Satisfying controls (weight 0.08): The game provides a satisfying hand feel and responsive controls, which are crucial for an action game and well-received by players.
- Satisfying combat clearing (weight 0.08): The combat, especially stage clearing, is found satisfying, with a good rhythm and enjoyable bullet hell shooting and dodging mechanics.
- Auto-aim accessibility option (weight 0.08): The inclusion of an auto-aim feature for controllers is welcomed by some players, improving accessibility for those who want it.
- Good optimization (weight 0.08): The game runs well with good optimization, ensuring a smooth experience for players without performance issues.
- Weapon part bonuses (weight 0.08): Weapon parts offer passive bonuses and status effects, adding another layer of customization and strategy to builds.

Common complaints:
- Difficulty spikes poorly balanced (weight 0.59): Early game is too hard for some, while late-game difficulty is either too easy or frustratingly unfair. Teleporting enemies and dense bullet patterns create unavoidable deaths, and hard mode feels unbalanced.
- Multiplayer connectivity broken (weight 0.53): Many players report being unable to find or connect to friend rooms, or the multiplayer feature is non-functional. This severely impacts the co-op experience.
- Build depth shallow (weight 0.41): Despite many options, builds lack synergy and feel shallow. The two-gun system has poor synergy between weapons and relics, and non-meta builds are weak. Players feel forced into specific strategies.
- Inventory slots too limited (weight 0.35): Frequent complaints about limited slots for treasures, relics, tarot cards, and equipment, forcing difficult decisions and hindering build variety. Players request more slots or a backpack system.
- Low weapon variety (weight 0.34): Weapon pool is small and lacks interesting types like melee options. Dual weapon system feels unnecessary as resources only support one weapon, leading to a shallow gameplay feel.
- Gameplay feels repetitive (weight 0.31): Enemy patterns are homogenous, stages linear, and content beyond early clears lacks variety. No hidden content or endgame, leading to boredom and reduced replay value.
- Performance and bugs (weight 0.31): Frequent issues like frame drops, game freezes, female knight stuck bug, crosshair twitch with mouse/controller, and save file loss. Overall feel of being underpolished.
- Relic and tarot card limits problematic (weight 0.25): Limited relic and tarot card slots, plus buff cap at 999, make stacking and replacing unsatisfying. Co-op lacks unique tarot cards, reducing team synergy.
- Online co-op issues (weight 0.25): Missing local co-op and split-screen, and online multiplayer has bugs like room code system not working, join button ineffective, and one AFK player blocking progress. Communication limited to emotes.
- Runs too long or too short (weight 0.24): Opinions conflict: some feel runs are too short and want endless mode, while others find 2-hour runs too long for a roguelike. Both sides agree the pacing is off.
- UI and information missing (weight 0.22): Missing in-game damage stats, training dummy, weapon info, and mouse lock in windowed mode. UI adaptation poor, causing confusion.
- Co-op specific features lacking (weight 0.22): No local co-op, no split-screen, missing starting weapon box like similar games, and no cloud save. Online lobby setup is troublesome.
- Enemy AI and level design issues (weight 0.22): Enemies spawn behind obstacles or teleport into melee range, causing unfair deaths. Monsters get stuck behind doors blocking progress, and bosses have cheap attack patterns.
- Bugs causing progression blocks (weight 0.19): Softlocks, stuck in geometry, elevator pushing players out, and save loss bug halt progress completely. Crosshair twitch and bullets-jamming bug impair gameplay.
- Audio-visual polish lacking (weight 0.18): Weapon audio out of sync, boring BGM, muffled shooting sounds, and excessive/cheap visual effects. Art style too flashy for some.
- Out-of-game progression heavy (weight 0.17): Players dislike the need to grind for perks and upgrades outside of runs, feeling it makes early runs too weak and punishes new players. Progression per run is slow.
- Forge and shop placement inconvenient (weight 0.15): Forge and other stations are placed after the shop, causing wasted item slots and breaking the positive feedback loop. Players want them earlier or in the shop area.
- RNG and drop rates frustrating (weight 0.15): Weapon and item drop rates feel low compared to demo, and frequently getting same items only to decompose is disappointing. RNG limits build viability.
- Controls feel sluggish (weight 0.13): Dodge roll backswing, sticky controls, and vibration feedback issues make gameplay feel stiff. Some players blame Bluetooth devices, but overall feel is negative.
- Endgame and replayability lacking (weight 0.13): No endless mode, endgame content, or new game+ after clearing. Content feels insufficient after a few runs, and runs become a chore.

Gameplay feedback:
- Genre defined as roguelite shooter (weight 0.49): Players consistently describe the game as a 2D roguelite top-down shooter with bullet hell elements. The core loop involves clearing rooms with twin-stick controls.
- Deep weapon combination system (weight 0.33): There is a robust system for combining weapons, attachments, and accessories. Players enjoy the variety of gun and relic synergies available.
- Online co-op multiplayer mode (weight 0.2): Multiple reviews mention the availability of online cooperative multiplayer. This feature is valued for shared progression and grinding.
- Relics and tarot card system (weight 0.17): The game features a dual construction system of relics and tarot cards that provide assistance and synergies. This adds strategic depth.
- Character progression with skills (weight 0.13): Early progression involves leveling up and unlocking skills. Characters have unique talent choices that affect builds.
- Bullet hell projectile patterns (weight 0.13): Enemies produce chaotic bullet patterns typical of bullet hell shooters. This creates intense dodging gameplay.
- Roguelike randomness and affixes (weight 0.13): The game has strong randomness typical of roguelikes, including an affix system on items. This affects build variety.
- Treasure merging mechanic (weight 0.11): Treasures of the same name can be combined or synthesized to create stronger effects. This encourages experimentation.
- Out-of-game meta progression (weight 0.08): A progression system outside runs allows players to permanently improve their character. This rewards long-term play.
- Elemental attack system (weight 0.07): An attribute or elemental system affects attacks and synergies. Different elements offer strategic choices.

Performance notes:
- Multiplayer needs optimization (weight 0.15): Multiple clusters highlight poor online performance, including lag, connection instability, and optimization issues. These problems degrade the multiplayer experience.
- Game freezes at Valkyrie boss (weight 0.05): The game freezes during the Valkyrie boss fight, a specific crash point that disrupts player progress.
- Frame drops with enemy groups (weight 0.05): Players report frame drops when facing groups of enemies, likely due to optimization issues. This affects combat smoothness.
- Late game frame drops (weight 0.05): Players experience frame drops in the late game due to optimization problems. This suggests performance degrades over time or with more complex scenarios.
- Runs well on old hardware (weight 0.05): The game performs well on old integrated graphics cards, indicating good optimization for lower-end systems.
- Freeze build optimization poor (weight 0.05): Certain freeze-based builds cause frequent stuttering and poor optimization. This suggests build-specific performance issues.
- Lag with some builds (weight 0.05): Players experience lag with certain builds, indicating that some character or gear combinations are not well optimized.

Recommendations:
- Recommended for co-op (weight 0.29): Multiple players strongly recommend playing this game cooperatively with friends, describing it as more enjoyable and fun in multiplayer mode. It is best played as a co-op experience.
- General recommendation (weight 0.22): Several reviews simply recommend the game without specific reasons, calling it worth buying or a good purchase. This reflects a broad positive sentiment.
- Great for genre fans (weight 0.18): Fans of bullet hell, roguelite, twin-stick shooters, and related genres find this game essential or highly appealing. It is especially recommended for those who enjoy dodge-focused gameplay.
- Better than similar games (weight 0.11): Reviewers compare this game favorably to titles like Warm Snow and Hades clones, stating it is better or a superior purchase. It stands out among roguelites.
- Not for casual or bored (weight 0.05): A reviewer suggests only playing if bored, and another recommends for casual stress relief. This shows the game may not suit all playstyles.
- Co-op more fun than solo (weight 0.05): While single-player is acceptable, players find the co-op mode significantly more fun, especially with better gun effect combinations. Co-op is the preferred way to play.
- Highly addictive (weight 0.04): One reviewer describes the game as highly addictive and worth buying, indicating strong engagement and replay value. This suggests a compelling gameplay loop.
- Co-op noted difficulty (weight 0.04): A review recommends co-op play but mentions that bullet dodging is challenging, implying the game requires skill. This adds nuance to co-op recommendations.
- Refund due to imbalance (weight 0.04): One player refunded the game and advises waiting for extensive balancing, indicating current balancing issues. This is a negative note among positive feedback.
- Online issues critical (weight 0.04): One reviewer does not recommend the game until online functionality is fixed, highlighting a potential technical problem. This is a specific concern.

Other player notes:
No miscpoints

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.22): Players experience frustration due to multiple broken and missing features, such as the inability to play with friends online, frequent bugs like crosshair twitch from mixed input, and poor multiplayer functionality including missing room codes and disconnects. Core gameplay issues like unfair enemy teleporting, stiff dodge roll, limited inventory slots, and unbalanced builds further compound the negative experience, alongside long runtimes and performance problems like frame drops and lag.
- Excitement (weight 0.2): Excitement stems from the deep build variety and satisfying snowballing effects, where players enjoy discovering powerful combinations of weapons, relics, and attachments that lead to massive damage numbers and chaotic bullet hell scenes. Cooperative play with friends, flashy visual effects, and the anticipation of future updates or multiplayer fun also significantly contribute to the positive emotional response, making each run feel fresh and rewarding.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.16): Satisfaction arises from the game's diverse and effective build combinations, smooth handling, and late-game power spikes that provide a sense of progression and achievement. Players appreciate the accessible mechanics, fast build formation, and polished design, which together create a rewarding loop of discovering synergies and overcoming challenges, especially in co-op scenarios.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.1): Enjoyment is driven by the fun and addictive gameplay loop characterized by fluid dodge mechanics, beautiful art style, and engaging combat rhythm. Cooperative play with friends and the freedom to experiment with builds amplify the experience, as does the immediate sense of accomplishment from powerful item combinations and satisfying visual effects.
- Disappointment (weight 0.07): Disappointment results from shallow build depth due to limited inventory and a large balance gap between builds, which restricts strategic variety. Multiplayer issues like poor connectivity, save file loss, and developer neglect of cross-region play sour the experience, while tanky enemies and heavy reliance on out-of-game progression diminish the sense of accomplishment on repeat runs.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Players express hope for the developers to add quality-of-life features like a training dummy to test builds, as well as local co-op mode. There is optimism that ongoing polishing will fix current bugs and enhance the overall game experience.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is elicited by cooperative gameplay with friends, where chaotic bullet hell effects and comfortable gunplay create explosive and nostalgic entertainment. The light-hearted trolling and shared experiences in multiplayer sessions amplify the positive feelings, making the game memorable and enjoyable.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger is triggered by poor balance where enemies are overpowered relative to the player, especially after long grind sessions that end in quick deaths. Frustrating design decisions like an extremely rare Thunder Crossbow compared to the demo, lack of inventory management for useful items, a limited weapon pool, and forced upgrades also fuel this negative emotion.
- Addiction (weight 0.01): Addiction is driven by the strong randomness and satisfying elemental build farming, which keeps players engaged with the promise of discovering powerful combinations. The feeling of getting a perfect run where the build feels great creates a compelling loop that encourages repeated play.
- Desire (weight 0.01): Desire centers on wanting more content depth, such as an endless mode to continue playing beyond standard runs, and additional weapon types like melee weapons and secret treasures. Players also wish for more accessory and relic slots to expand build possibilities and increase variety.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arises from connectivity issues where same-region players using acceleration nodes still cannot connect, making multiplayer feel broken. Unclear mechanics like unexpected behavior after dying to the final boss and a confusing start with messy UI and numbers also disorient players.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Anticipation is fueled by expectations for future updates, including expansions of attachment and elemental synergy mechanics, and the addition of features like a quick reload QTE. The presence of many achievements to complete also generates excitement for continued content.
- Interest (weight 0.01): Interest is piqued by the game's variety, where each run offers new gameplay experiences due to different item combinations. The novelty and unpredictability of builds maintain engagement, making players eager to see what emerges in subsequent runs.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Relief comes from the game's ability to alleviate stress after work, offering a casual and satisfying distraction. Additionally, quick developer fixes for persistent bugs, such as the female knight stuck bug, provide a sense of relief that issues are being addressed.
- Amusement (weight 0): Amusement is derived from humorous in-game suggestions like wordplay on squad names, as well as the immediate patching of bugs after community reports. These lighthearted moments and responsive support create positive surprises and enjoyment.
- Approval (weight 0): Approval is expressed due to the game's high level of completion, suggesting a polished and well-rounded product at launch. Players appreciate that all expected content is present, delivering a satisfying experience without missing features.
- Surprise (weight 0): Surprise is generated by the addition of a new 'Demonization' affix to the weapon reroll system, which adds unexpected depth and replayability. This feature becomes a pleasant discovery that enriches the customization options for players.
- Gratitude (weight 0): Gratitude is felt due to auto-aim on controllers significantly improving the experience for players, and for the developer's prompt fixes to reported issues. These actions demonstrate care for player comfort and game stability.
- Regret (weight 0): Regret is expressed by players who had to refund the game due to inherent balance issues that prevented an enjoyable experience. The inability to overcome poorly balanced mechanics led to dissatisfaction and withdrawal.
- Annoyance (weight 0): Annoyance stems from broken basic multiplayer functions that hinder the core cooperative experience. The inability to reliably connect or play with friends undermines a key selling point of the game.}