Squirrel with a Gun review: Combat, Platforming & Verdict

Squirrel with a Gun begins with one of gaming’s most immediately recognizable ideas: a small rodent receives firearms and turns a suburban sandbox into a playground for chaos. The setup is intentionally ridiculous, and the opening hours make strong use of that contrast. A tiny, fluffy character handling pistols, rifles, and heavier weapons creates visual comedy before the player even starts experimenting with movement or combat.

The concept works best when the game allows the squirrel to behave like an unpredictable nuisance. Breaking property, startling residents, and causing trouble around compact sandbox areas produces several genuinely funny moments. The tone is closer to a slapstick animal simulator than a serious action adventure, so the most successful encounters are built around surprise, movement, and exaggerated reactions.

However, the central joke has limited range. The initial shock of seeing a squirrel use a gun is powerful, but the game does not always introduce enough new situations to keep that joke developing. The humor is concentrated heavily in the early portion, and the campaign’s later sections can feel like variations on an idea that has already made its point.

Combat is functional but shallow. The squirrel can use several weapon types, including pistols, rifles, and grenade launchers, yet the arsenal does not produce deep tactical differences for long. Weapons can feel distinctive during the first few encounters, but their identities blur quickly when enemies offer limited resistance.

Most standard opponents are human agents who tend to stand in place and absorb only a few shots. Their simple behavior makes encounters easy to understand, but it also reduces tension. There is little need to develop a careful combat plan when enemies provide minimal pressure and the available weapons solve similar problems.

The finishing moves are a brighter spot. Stunning an enemy can open a special execution animation tied to the equipped weapon. These moments reinforce the absurd “furry action hero” tone and create some of the most entertaining combat beats. The limitation is repetition: each weapon has only one such animation, so the novelty can disappear after repeated use.

A useful way to evaluate the combat is to separate spectacle from depth. The spectacle is effective because the protagonist is so visually mismatched with the weapons. The depth is weaker because enemy variety, positioning demands, and weapon specialization are all limited. This explains why combat can be enjoyable in short bursts but struggles to carry the entire adventure.

The boss encounters offer a modest change of pace. There are two major fights involving oversized military vehicles, including a tank-like encounter. These sequences use glowing weak points and health bars, making them straightforward rather than demanding. Even so, their scale and comedic presentation help break up the regular agent fights.

Platforming is the most convincing gameplay system in the adventure. Firing a weapon can propel the squirrel through the air, creating a form of recoil-based movement that turns firearms into traversal tools. This mechanic gives each jump a playful sense of momentum and makes the squirrel’s small body feel surprisingly mobile.

The submachine gun is particularly useful for staying airborne across longer gaps. Its sustained firing can help maintain movement and extend a jump, while the rocket launcher provides the greatest vertical lift. These tools are more interesting when used for navigation than when aimed at ordinary enemies because the player must judge distance, timing, and landing position.

The platforming challenges are generally approachable rather than punishing. They rarely demand advanced precision, but the movement remains enjoyable because the underlying idea is so unusual. Even after the combat starts to feel repetitive, launching the squirrel from one platform to another retains much of its charm.

Exploration benefits from the same combination of scale and absurdity. The squirrel’s size changes the way ordinary spaces feel, turning suburban environments into traversal courses. A fence, rooftop, vehicle, or gap can become a small platforming problem instead of background scenery.

Still, movement is not immune to technical issues. High-speed travel can cause the squirrel to pass through geometry and fall unexpectedly. When that happens during a longer traversal section, the frustration comes less from the intended challenge and more from having to repeat a sequence.

Technical performance is the most serious issue in this Squirrel with a Gun review. The adventure is short, but crashes can interrupt that limited runtime and force the player to repeat completed sections. Frequent freezes reportedly caused the loss of substantial progress, making static save points important rather than optional.

One broken cutscene failed to place the squirrel correctly, stopping progression until the game was reset. There were also cases where rapid movement caused the character to clip through geometry and tumble away from a platforming route. Glitches can sometimes fit the game’s chaotic personality, but repeated interruptions eventually undermine the sections that were enjoyable the first time.

The result is an unusual contrast: the game’s intended chaos can be funny, while its unintended chaos can be exhausting. A harmless visual mistake may produce a laugh, but a crash after completing a long sequence changes the entire mood.

The main story can be completed in approximately four hours, based on the review experience. That short length has two competing effects. On one hand, it prevents the game’s limited systems from becoming a long commitment. On the other, it makes the lack of enemy variety and repeated jokes more noticeable because the adventure ends before the concept receives a broader second act.

The two vehicle boss fights are welcome highlights, but they are brief. More encounters with that kind of scale or invention could have helped the campaign maintain momentum. Instead, the strongest moments are scattered through a compact adventure that often feels like a promising first attempt at a larger formula.

The fairest conclusion is that Squirrel with a Gun succeeds as a novelty-driven sandbox and falls short as a fully developed action game. It has an excellent elevator pitch, amusing early interactions, and a traversal mechanic that deserves more room to grow. Its shortcomings are shallow combat, limited enemy design, technical instability, and a runtime that leaves the player wanting a more ambitious follow-up.

The IGN Squirrel with a Gun review is a useful additional reference for the campaign’s short runtime, platforming strengths, combat limitations, and reported performance problems.