Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Worth it · Roguelike · 2022
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $5.99, at or past its typical seasonal cut of 35%. The Autumn Sale runs to Oct 8.
- Length
- 1.6h
- Value
- $3.74/hr
- Reviews
- 91% positive
Buy now or wait
The Autumn Sale is on until Oct 8. It is 40% off today.
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales on record.
- Typical seasonal cut
- 35% ($6.49)
- Deepest seasonal cut
- 40% ($5.99)
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: you'll need a screen, 82 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
Chess, but you replace your entire army with a royal shotgun. A unique strategy roguelike based on the timeless checkboard classic.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
The lowest price on record is $4.79, set in November 2022. It has been discounted 28 times in the 4 years tracked here, typically at 30 percent off, with about 7 weeks between sales. Today's $5.99 at 40 percent off still sits 25 percent above the floor, so a deeper cut exists in its history.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 18 percent on value. It is cheaper than 62 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 81 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Balatro ($11.99, scores 95) beats it on value, while it beats Rogue: Genesia ($14.99, scores 74).
17 of the 748 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written May 2022 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 89 percent of the 1,165 reviews written there were positive, against 91 percent overall, and those are 20 percent of everything written about it.
HowLongToBeat players log 1.6 hours as a typical playtime, and completionists log 48, 30 times as much.
Valve rates it Steam Deck Verified, and at 1.6 hours it is short enough to finish on one.
The drop-off
70% start to <1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
76 players online when we last checked, on Sep 26, 19:47 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
The best part of this game, is its simplicity, you can put it in windowed mode and watch something on youtube while playing, I did that a lot and it felt cool. The shotguns are okay, while they all have unique playstyles, they lack balance, Victoria is hands down the best gun in the game, on the second place is the richard III, the other shotguns are just not worth it. Same thing goes for the cards, some of them are...
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate scores 75/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1972440/shotgun-king-the-final-checkmateReviews set the ceiling, and the size of the player base moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 26, price as of Oct 1.
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