Boomstock 2026 is basically Steam saying, “What if every hallway had a shotgun in it?”
Fulqrum Publishing’s annual celebration of retro-inspired first-person shooters is running through September 24 with new reveals, fresh gameplay, demos and discounts across the genre. The useful problem is that “boomer shooter” now covers everything from pure arena-speed carnage to immersive sims, survival horror and first-person melee.
So instead of dumping a giant event list on you, we researched five games that give you genuinely different reasons to click.
How We Ranked Them
This is not a popularity ranking. We scored each pick using the following criteria:
- Gameplay distinctiveness: 30% – does it have a real mechanical identity beyond “retro FPS”?
- Current playability and value: 25% – can you play it now, try a demo or make a confident buying decision?
- Player/community signal: 20% – where public player feedback exists, is it actually positive?
- Boomstock freshness: 15% – did the event bring a meaningful new reason to pay attention?
- Release confidence: 10% – how much concrete evidence do we have that the pitch works?
That weighting gives released games and substantial demos an advantage over beautiful trailers. A trailer can promise the moon. A demo has to let you touch it.
#5 Nailcrown
Best for: players who want medieval dark fantasy to collide with a nailgun and absolutely refuse to apologize for it.
Destructive Creations brought an extended Nailcrown trailer to Boomstock, and the pitch is wonderfully unsubtle. It is a dark-fantasy boomer shooter built around high-speed gunplay, melee weapons and a dynamic gore system.
The arsenal includes genre staples like shotguns and nailguns alongside a lightning-infused Impaler, swords and warhammers. The campaign sends you through dungeons, castles and haunted villages while working for a necromancer whose motives are, unsurprisingly, not especially wholesome.
The unusual part is breadth. Steam lists single-player, online and LAN co-op, plus online and LAN PvP with Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. Weapon upgrades and character improvements are also part of the loop.
Why it is #5: the concept has personality and the multiplayer feature list is ambitious, but Nailcrown is still listed as “coming soon” and has no player reviews. The Boomstock trailer gives us more to inspect, not enough to pretend the final game is proven.
What to do now: wishlist it if Hexen-style darkness plus modern gore sounds like your exact kind of nonsense.
#4 ELDERBORN: VENGEANCE
Best for: players who hear “first-person shooter festival” and immediately ask whether they can solve the problem with a sword.
ELDERBORN: VENGEANCE is the oddball in this ranking because its identity is built around first-person melee rather than a wall of firearms.
Hyperstrange’s sequel adds a hook for closing distance or dragging enemies toward hazards, kicks, counters, aerial attacks and weapon categories with mechanical differences. Two-handed attacks are designed to be uninterruptible, one-handed weapons favor accuracy and fist weapons hit harder as your movement speed rises.
That is the kind of rule set that can create a combat system rather than a collection of animations. Positioning, momentum and environmental hazards are part of the pitch, and each weapon family has its own mastery path and skill tree.
Why it is #4: the combat design sounds unusually deliberate and Boomstock gave the game a strong moment to show it. But there is no release date and no public player-review signal yet. We are ranking the promise, not pretending we have played the finished thing.
What to do now: wishlist if you liked the idea of the original ELDERBORN or want a brutal first-person melee game that treats movement as part of damage.
View ELDERBORN: VENGEANCE on Steam
#3 SYSTEM INTRUDER
Best for: players who want System Shock energy, scarce ammunition and the uncomfortable feeling that every door is making a personal threat.
SYSTEM INTRUDER is one of the more interesting fresh reveals around Boomstock because it uses old-school FPS language for survival horror rather than pure speed.
You play Anna inside the ASGARD-04 research complex, where automated systems have turned the staff into cybernetic monsters. The design mixes first-person combat with terminals, logs, puzzles and resource management. Ammo, medical supplies and hacking chips are scarce, inventory space is limited, and the game explicitly warns that some enemies cannot simply be solved with bullets.
Steam also lists multiple endings shaped by player choices.
That is a much more deliberate pitch than “retro graphics plus shotgun.” It sounds like a game interested in making you decide whether firing the shotgun is even the correct idea.
Why it is #3: SYSTEM INTRUDER gets a big distinctiveness score and the reveal gives Boomstock a genuinely fresh game to watch. The obvious limitation is evidence. It targets 2027, has no player reviews and is not yet something we can independently judge with a demo.
What to do now: wishlist it. If you enjoy survival horror and immersive-sim decision making, this is one of the event’s easiest “remember that name” picks.
#2 HARK THE GHOUL
Best for: players who want the density of a first-person dungeon crawler with weapons that range from swords and whips to pistols, cannons and magic.
HARK THE GHOUL earns second place because you do not have to trust the trailer.
Its free Steam demo is roughly two hours long and currently sits at 98% positive from around 450 user reviews. That does not guarantee the full game will maintain the same quality, but it is dramatically stronger evidence than a reveal trailer.
The demo focuses on tight, interconnected zones packed with secrets, gear and enemies. Deep Denizens gives players a broad tool set: swords, whips, firearms, cannons and magic all live inside a retro-modern low-poly world with a damp Victorian-horror flavor.
The strongest thing about that pitch is not nostalgia. It is density. The game is selling the pleasure of getting lost, learning how spaces connect and discovering gear with different utility.
Why it is #2: a substantial free demo plus unusually strong user sentiment makes HARK one of the safest recommendations in this ranking. It loses the top spot only because our #1 pick is already a complete released game with a similarly distinctive combat identity.
What to do now: download the demo. This one costs you nothing except two hours and the possibility that your wishlist grows again.
Play the HARK THE GHOUL demo on Steam
#1 SPRAWL zero
Best for: players who miss the early-2000s moment when FPS campaigns started mixing aggressive gunplay with physics, smart enemy squads and weird toys.
SPRAWL zero wins because it is the least hypothetical recommendation here.
MAETH released the game on September 8, and its Steam rating is currently 94% positive from hundreds of player reviews. There is also a free demo, while the full game is 20% off at $19.99 USD through September 22.
The game’s mechanical hook is stronger than its retro aesthetic. Enemy squads communicate, flank and use grenades. FIVE, your cybernetically enhanced protagonist, can catch enemy bullets with a Gravity Shield and throw them back, manipulate weapons and objects with Gravity Gloves, slow time for precision shots and use Rushdown for aggressive movement.
There are more than 40 weapons, handcrafted levels with alternate routes and verticality, and multiple ways to turn physics into part of the firefight.
That combination matters. Plenty of retro shooters are fast. SPRAWL zero is trying to make each fight a little sandbox where momentum, enemy behavior and physical interactions give you different answers.
Why it is #1: it has the strongest combination of distinct mechanics, current player sentiment, immediate playability and a time-limited sale. You can try the demo, inspect the reviews and buy the complete game today instead of investing in a promise.
What to do now: play the demo if you are unsure. If F.E.A.R.-style enemy pressure, Halo-era sandbox instincts and cyberpunk physics sound appealing, the current $19.99 price is easy to investigate before the September 22 discount ends.
Try or buy SPRAWL zero on Steam
What About the Rest of Boomstock?
There is plenty beyond these five. Boomstock is a genre event rather than a single-publisher showcase in disguise, and the Steam celebration runs through September 24.
If none of our five fits your taste, the event is still worth browsing for demos and discounts. The genre has become broad enough that “boomer shooter” can now mean twitch arena combat, immersive-sim systems, dark fantasy, survival horror or a melee game where the gun is optional.
That variety is exactly why we ranked by decision value instead of trying to crown the game with the loudest trailer.
ZerotoBeast Take
If you want one purchase to investigate today, start with SPRAWL zero.
If you want one free download, start with HARK THE GHOUL.
If you want one 2027 game to put on the radar, SYSTEM INTRUDER has the most interesting “what if this works?” pitch of the fresh reveals.
Then keep ELDERBORN: VENGEANCE and Nailcrown on the wishlist if first-person melee or dark-fantasy carnage is your particular flavor of bad decision.
Boomstock ends September 24, but wishlists are forever. Unfortunately.
