Steredenn
Steredenn is a frenetic and chaotic space shooter, carved in big beautiful pixels, with insane boss battles. Embark in your ship and engage the fight against dreadful space pirates in a never-ending combat for your survival. Steredenn is at the crossroads between a shmup and a rogue-like. Enjoy the infinite replayability of the game with its unforgiving gameplay, intense boss fights, (almost) randomly generated environments, twisted space events and a surprisingly large arsenal of weapons. Enhance your ship during your flight with many upgrades and forge your own path across the universe!
SCREENSHOTS
HISTORY
Steredenn
Steredenn is a roguelike shoot'em up where player takes control of a spaceship that has to fend off space pirates that ambushed and destroyed their carrier ship. Pilot will have to blast through 7 levels of randomly picked enemy waves and face off against the big mean pirate machines that want to ruin your day!
Game was developed by Pixelnest Studio, initially released as early access on Steam in May of 2015, after what it was released on 1st of October 2015. Afterwards game was ported to platforms such as Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and iPhone/iPad. On 10th of April 2018, Pixelnest released free DLC for Steredenn called Binary Stars, which introduced more player ships, more weapons, co-op mode, boss rush mode, secret bosses, various artifacts that drop from those bosses and various rebalances of the game.
Gameplay Overview
The gameplay overview section starts out with the controls of the game, including all of the buttons used and what they're used for. It's recommended to keep the control layout simple and easy to understand. Feel free to note the directions that the player can move as well, if you wish or if it's notable (horizontal only, 4 way, 8 way, analog, etc). Advanced and strategic ways of manipulating the controls can be included in a following Strategy section, or wherever that information might be the most relevant.
Controls
Currently only listing keyboard controls for Steam version of the game, although it does support gamepads too. Do note that controls can be rebinded (True for Steam version, no idea about other platforms)
X: Shoot currently selected weapon
C: Switch weapon
V: (Binary Stars) Use ship's Special Ability
Space: Pick up an upgrade/weapon
Unlockable Modes
(I assume unlocks that are locked behind game progress count for this section too?)
It is possible to unlock various game modes through progressing far enough in the game. Initially, players will only have usual play available.
Arena — Unlocked after defeating bosses at the end of the level. It allows to fight bosses that were defeated during the playtime, with the ability to select any of the weapons that the player did pick up in runs before, but without upgrades that bosses drop or rank. Harder bosses, starting from Cruiser (level 4 boss) will be available to fight in the arena after encountering them once, without a requirement of defeating them.
Superplay — Unlocked after beating Destroyer, boss of the level 3. Allows to start a game with a certain seed to remove the random factor, although scores from these runs do not get uploaded to game's rankings.
Daily Run — (I don't recall what unlocks it, but it isn't available by default iirc) Allows to enter the daily run that launches usual playthrough, except that it may apply some specific modifiers to the playthrough, like starting with certain weapons, upgrades, (Binary Stars) player ship, or modifiers like double cargo ships. Playing through a daily run will put score from it into a separate leaderboard for that day, which will reset once next daily run starts.
Boss Rush (Binary Stars) — Face off against pre-selected line up of bosses which resets every week, it uses a special scoresystem where you have to kill bosses as fast as you can, since in this mode the lower score you have - the better. Killing bosses reduces score, every second adds more score, and the results will be put in a separate boss rush scoreboard for that week.
If a game features unlockable modes, extras, secrets character etc. such as the Mahou characters in Battle Garegga or Strong Style in DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu that are relevant to the basic system of a game, put these codes here. Otherwise, omit this section.
Characters / Ships / Styles
Steredenn only features one ship, called Tempest. However, Binary Stars DLC introduces 4 more playable ships, and adds a "special ability" to the Tempest, described below:
Tempest is the default player ship they start the game with. It features average amount of hit points and speed, and its special ability is a "Razorblade" melee weapon, which can be swapped out for any other melee during the game and it will take the special ability slot.
Fortress is unlocked after defeating Frigate, boss of the level 2. The slowest ship with the special passive damage reduction, so it can reduce damage of the attacks, effectively giving it more hitpoints. Its special ability, "Rocket Circus", launches a volley of homing rockets that deal significant damage.
Fury is unlocked after defeating Cruiser, boss of the level 4. It is the fastest ship in the game (Not counting Red Baron's boost), with quite low amount of hitpoints. Its special ability is the "Blink" jump, which allows to teleport to any location on the screen and deal damage in the area you teleport in, to clear out any small enemies if they get in the way.
Specialist is unlocked after defeating Battleship, boss of the level 6. This ship can only use bot weapons, and has a low amount of hitpoints. However, its special ability "Booster drones" overcharge nearby drones, which allows to deal very high damage in a short burst, given that the bots survive. Specialist also has a passive aura that will turn nearby bots invincible to enemy bullets, which also allows to use those as a shield.
Red Baron is unlocked after defeating Red Baron secret boss that appears after passing level 3 without taking any damage. Red Baron can not pick up any weapons, however it has its own loadout of 3 different powerful weapons and a boost mode that allows it to go faster, and with a special ability upgrade it allows it to get an invincibility for a short while, although this invincibility will be put on a short cooldown after being used.
Weapons
Game features a large number of weapons, describing all of which I won't bother for now. Although they are split into separate categories, like bullets, heavy, energy, melee, bots and shield. Game also features a system of some damage types, where certain weapons may be more or less effective against certain enemy types, which may result in some weapons doing their normal damage (enemy will flash red when being hit), 75% of damage (enemy is resistant to that type, flashes orange on hit) or 125% of damage (enemy is weak to that type, purple flash).
This section describes the weapons that you use in the game and elaborates on them further. Stuff like standard shots, focus shots, bombs, weapon pickups that differ in functionality, options, etc. This can be omitted if not relevant to the game in question.
Items
The game features couple of pick up items — weapons that are dropped through destroyed cargo ships, and the upgrades that drop from the defeated bosses at the end of the level. Binary Stars DLC adds the "medkit" items that may drop from cargo ships if player lacks some health, which will restore some health when being picked up, and the "artifacts" that drop after defeating secret bosses, which can alter the game significantly through powerful boosts, but also significant drawbacks. (Would have to expand on this later)
This section describes any and all collectibles that you acquire in the game. An example being any Power Up items or Medals from Battle Garegga. Include secret items such as extra lives as well.
Rank
Rank system is not seen by the player, but it uses range of 0 to 1. Each loop in the game adds 0.25 to the rank, and the artifacts (artefacts?) from Binary Stars add 0.15. Rank affects speed and the number of bullets that enemies will shoot, and some specific enemy patterns are linked to some rank ranges.
Loops
The game features loop system, which can go on indefinitely in theory, but in practice enemy health and damage increase with each loop, which would make mistakes costly and boss fights go on for quite long. Beating the game and entering loop 1 will cause enemies to spawn suicide bullets and bosses will start spawning barriers around them at certain intervals which will absorb some of player's attacks, if they are not using piercing weapons or anything that can deal with barriers quick.
Scoring
Game features a combo system, adds a multiplier and increases it as player beats waves of enemies in the level while getting more multiplier in case if they have defeated a boss, took no damage, destroyed all enemies in a wave (not counting turrets, hazard environment objects like asteroids or lasers). Taking damage will decrease score multiplier by certain amount, although there are score specific upgrades player can pick up after defeating bosses to reduce the multiplier penalty, or gain more combo per wave, or just straight up gain +100% more score from destroying enemies and objects, which can stack with other +100% score upgrades. If score boost upgrades did happen to get picked up early enough, along with the "Speed of light" artifact, then it is possible to reach combo multiplier of thousands by the 2nd loop. However, the scoreboard on Steam version does cap at about 2.147.483.648 score due to Steam's scoreboard system, and the score beyond that already was achieved.
Strategy
See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.
This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.
(Currently evaluating whether or not this specific section should even include information outside of the separated Strategy pages. Worth thinking about as a community.)
Story
Basic story breakdowns, plot information, and endings are included here.
If there is no story at all, or any information about the setting, then this section can be omitted. Try to include at least small things here when you can.
Development History
If available, you can include information here about the hardware, the development of the game, and its general reception. Try to have as much information in this section cited as possible.
Version Differences
Include information here about differences in a game between various versions. This includes regional differences, patch updates/bugfixes, and the like.
Trivia
There is a chance that a certain blue police box would fly by in the scenery of the level
Gallery
See (Template Page)/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.
Video References
If the game already has an existing entry in the Video Index, please link to the page here. If you want to link to smaller clips perhaps not included in the Index, you can also leave them here.
Other
We have support for wikitables, giving us the potential to add lots of cool info in a small box on the page somewhere, but we are not using them at the moment. I'm just leaving this here so we can have it handy in case we decide to actually use them. Feel free to not use this section.
References & Contributors
Remember to include everyone that you can in your credits if they contributed information! | Having links handy is even better, when available.
If you are a primary source of information for a game, be sure to link to your Shmup Wiki user account by including a link to your profile, such as: [[User:(You)|(Your Name)]]
And while you're at it, make yourself a little profile page (if you want, of course)! As a contributor, you deserve to be recognized for your efforts.
↑ Developer's notes about the rank system on game's Steam forum
↑ Developer's notes about combo system on game's Steam forum
TRAILERS
STORES best right now: GOG −70%
Prices are cached from each storefront and may be out of date. Last checked 23 Sept 2026.
PRICE HISTORY
Every price change we know of, per shop. Flat means the price held; PC shops reach back through IsThereAnyDeal's archive, console shops start when this site started watching.
Fanatical low: $3.89 (24 Oct 2018) , GOG low: $3.89 (17 Aug 2026) , Humble Store low: $3.89 (4 Jun 2026) , PlayStation Store low: $3.89 (27 Aug 2026) , Steam low: $3.89 (8 Jun 2026) , Xbox low: $12.99 (26 Aug 2026)
REVIEWS
Published elsewhere, collected here. Every score is the outlet's own, on the outlet's own scale. Follow the link for the full review.
“If you’re unsure by now, I’m pretty much in love with this game. It’s one of the finest horizontal shooters that I’ve played and carries so much variety and addictiveness that can’t be overstated. I’m usually not a fan of rogue-likes, especially of the kind that make you lose absolutely everything with death. But Steredenn is something special and makes the genre special. The music, the visuals and the gameplay come together so sweetly to form this perfectly rounded shoot ‘em up that took me by complete surprise. I went in with low expectations, I came out with a very high opinion of Steredenn”
“I had a lot of fun playing the game for my Steredenn review, learning the movement and attack patterns of enemies and the deadly bosses, making the most of the new weapons I found and selecting the power-ups that best complemented my playing style. Even once you do manage to defeat all bosses and complete the game, you’ll still have the daily run to test your skills with a new thing to do every day of the week! On top of this, there’s also Arena where you can take on each of the game’s bosses you’ve defeated to try and destroy them as quickly as possible. And then there’s Superplay, but to try”
“By now my Steredenn review has probably shown you that the game is definitively aimed at expert Shoot ’em up players. I would not recommend Steredenn to casual players since it is a very tough game and it will prove to be very frustrating due to its high difficulty level.”
“Steredenn is my contender for the best twinstick shooter of 2016, and I hope it stays this way. While it doesn’t necessarily carve it’s own niche, it does so many things right that it’s rightfully hard to complain. Instead, I’m just having too much fun to worry about specific nitpicks, and let the great gameplay seep back in.”
“It’s rogue-like nature means each time you play the game will be different to the last time you played. Fans of shmups will find a massive amount of hours to sink into the game and curious gamers will find a difficult yet fun game to play that has exhilarating gameplay with responsive controls, great music and awesome old school design.”
“Even though it can be brutally difficult and is a little short on content, Steredenn remains a top-of-the-line shoot 'em up.”
“Steredenn is a great game that tries to innovate in various aspects but is alas impaired by lacklustre graphical design in most of its stages. It creates an adequate atmosphere for its themes, well-thought-out modes and a satisfactory gameplay, but fails in one of the most crucial points.”
“If you’re an old time gamer you’ll enjoy this game because of the challenges it has to offer.”
“This is tough to nail down. The random generation of enemies on screen is frequently too unpredictable to provide a consistently enjoyable experience. The controls are spot on, and the artwork is beautiful. The game does manage to retain value, but the value of the additional modes is something that could vary from person to person. It's a solid shooter that works well in the player's hands, and erratically on screen. It shouldn't be overlooked, but for those seeking a deep, challenging experience, Steredenn isn't the cure for that itch.”
Reviews are the work of the outlets named. Titles, scores and quoted excerpts are reproduced for identification and criticism; each links to the original.