How to Play Buckshot Roulette

Buckshot Roulette: Key Takeaways

• Buckshot Roulette is a fast, high-tension game of deduction, not a casino game. Each match runs about 15–20 minutes and revolves around managing risk, memory, and timing against the Dealer (or other players).
• The core loop is simple but brutal. The Dealer loads a randomized mix of live and blank shells, and on each turn you choose to shoot yourself or your opponent, trying to deplete their defibrillator charges before yours hit zero.
• Shooting yourself can be strategically correct. A blank aimed at yourself does no damage and gives you another turn, while a live round costs you charges, so smart play often involves using information to “take” safe extra turns.
• Rounds escalate complexity through charges and items. The game runs across three rounds with increasing charges (2 → 4 → 5) and introduces items after Round 1, shifting it from pure guessing into a strategy game where you reduce uncertainty and control turns.
• Items and modes define the meta. Tools like the Magnifying Glass (information), Beer (remove a shell), Handcuffs (deny a turn), and Hand Saw (double damage) are central, while Double or Nothing adds an endless “cash out or continue” risk loop and Multiplayer adds social reads, turn manipulation, and betrayal dynamics.

Buckshot Roulette is not a game you’ll experience inside a casino or betting on your phone. It’s a popular video game released in December 2023, and had sold 4+ million copies by the end of 2024. It has stellar reviews and rankings, and is currently available on Steam, Windows/Linux on itch.io, and Xbox.

So. what is Buckshot Roulette?

Buckshot Roulette is a high-stakes survival game of chance and strategy loosely based on the concept of Russian Roulette, which instead of a revolver it uses a shotgun loaded with both live and blank shells. Each player has a number of charges (lives) and if you run out, you lose.

The objective is simple: stay alive longer than your opponent by managing risk, memory and timing.

Buckshot Roulette combines strategy and luck and has become popular for several reasons:

• Gameplay is quick (15-20 minutes) with each game broken into three rounds
• There are strategies you can use to help survive the rounds
• You are given items to help make strategic decisions in whether you shoot yourself (knowing it’s a blank) or the Dealer
• There is suspense with almost every turn

This guide is about how to play Buckshot Roulette and not associated with Russian Roulette, which should not be played under any circumstances.

Quick Glance at Buckshot Roulette

The goal of Buckshot Roulette is to have the opponent deplete their lives before yours are gone. The number of “lives” you start with changes based on the round and are tracked as defibrillator charges, which look like lightning bolts.

At the start of the round, the Dealer loads a random mix of live and blank shells. As the player, you choose a target on your turn, either the Dealer, yourself or another player in the multiplayer version.

For the first round, there are no items to help you win – it’s guessing and strategizing. In the second and third rounds, you will have items provided to you that you can use to help figure out what type of shell is loaded or to get an edge when it comes to shooting.

Once you choose your item(s) to use, you then decide whether to aim and fire at the Dealer or yourself. If it’s blank, there are no lives taken. If it’s live, the player loses 1-2 lives, depending on the item.

The round ends when all of a player’s lives are depleted.

Image Credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Buckshot Roulette Rules Explained

Rounds and Charges

Buckshot Roulette is divided into three rounds, each defined by a specific number of charges.

• The first round starts with 2 charges, making mistakes immediately dangerous
• The second round increases the number of charges to 4 and begins to include items,allowing more room for strategy and recovery
• The final round increases to 5 charges, extending the tension and encouraging longer-term planning. It also means that you can recover from mistakes or turns that don’t go in your favor.

If a player’s charges drop to zero, they lose the game. Charges reset or increase when advancing to a new round, raising the stakes as the game progresses.

Live Shells vs Blank Shells

At the start of each round, the total number of live and blank shells is revealed before the Dealer loads the shotgun shells in a random order.

• Live shell: Causes damage when fired at a player, reducing their charges
• Blank shell: No damage

Because the sequence is unknown, players can use deduction, probability and memory to estimate whether the next shell fired is likely live or blank.

What Happens on Your Turn

When it’s your turn, you choose who to shoot: yourself or your opponent.

• Shoot your opponent

• If you fire a live shell, it damages them
• If you fire a blank shell, it does nothing

In both instances, your turn is over.

• Shoot toward Yourself
  • If you fire a live shell, you lose a charge
  • If you fire a blank shell, it does nothing, plus you get another turn

Buckshot Roulette Items Guide

Once you advance past the first round, you get to use a series of items to help get a competitive edge and use strategy to win the game.

Here are the items in Buckshot Roulette and what they mean:

Buckshot Roulette Double or Nothing Mode Items

The following Buckshot Roulette items only appear in the Buckshot Roulette Double or Nothing mode, which is activated by taking pills at the start of the game, which begins with you in the bathroom of the seedy club.

Modes: Regular vs Double or Nothing vs Multiplayer

Let’s break down the different modes in Buckshot Roulette and the varying ways you can experience the tension and excitement of the game.

Regular Mode

In the standard game, it’s you versus The Dealer. You go back-and-forth using a 12-gauge shotgun that has been filled with a random combination of live and blank shells.

The competition unfolds over three rounds where you and the Dealer take turns firing blanks or live shells. Each turn involves either shooting yourself for a chance to keep your turn or shooting the Dealer. The random collection of items influences your strategy.

Lives are tracked as defibrillator charges. If you survive all three rounds, you win.

For the most part, this guide has explained the concepts of the Regular Mode.

Image Credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Double or Nothing

Once you’ve beaten the Dealer in the regular three-round run, you can unlock Double or Nothing as long as you take the optional pills at the beginning of the game.

The Double of Nothing mode keeps the core Buckshot Roulette rules of the Regular Mode game but reframes progression into an endless gamble:

• You still play rounds against the Dealer with items and shotgun turns.
• Once you defeat the Dealer in a three-round game, the game actually doesn’t end. Instead, you have the option of either cashing out (ending the game) or continuing with the chance to double your winnings.
• This loop repeats indefinitely until you lose or choose to quit and keep your earnings. Each loop allows you to double your winnings, but lose and you get nothing.

This type of gameplay mimics casino games in that the more you win, the more money you walk away with; but a loss removes that progression.

Multiplayer

The Buckshot Roulette Multiplayer game, released in October 2024 via Steam, expands the original concept to include four human players. No longer is it you against a Dealer, but now there is a social dynamic involved. This means you have to change your Buckshot Roulette strategy. Here’s how Multiplayer differs from the other versions of the game.

• Players take turns in a cycle. When a player dies, they’re out for that match.
• Multiplayer introduces items tailored for social play.
  • Jammer: This item forces a player to skip a turn.
  • Remote: This item changes the turn order giving you the opportunity to decide who acts next. It’s often used to redirect danger, betray a player or force someone into an action.

Buckshot Roulette Multiplayer mode turns a tense one-on-one duel into more of a Poker-like environment where players must read opponents’ intentions and use strategy to come out ahead.

Strategies to Win at Buckshot Roulette

When you’re sitting at a Roulette table at a casino, you have information but never can guess a certain outcome. For instance, betting on Red or Black is more likely to result in a win versus betting on 1 individual number – you have that info ahead of time, but not the result.

While Buckshot Roulette looks like a game of guts, it’s really about minimizing pure 50/50 outcomes whenever possible. Remember, just like in Roulette, you may have lots of information and a strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a win.

What a good strategy does is provide you with better ways to make decisions amid uncertainty, just like at a Roulette table, and increase your chances of winning at a randomized game.

Manage Information

Just like a card counter at the Blackjack table, counting shotgun shells can help you gain an edge in the battle of survival. Keeping track of the number of blank and live shots remaining and which ones have been used can increase the odds that you’ll make the right choice and keep your charges (similar to tracking the number of 10-value cards used at Blackjack).

When items become available in the later rounds, one strategy is to use ones that provide information early on. The Magnifying Glass, for example, will give you information on the next shot, which can then be used to send a live shot to the Dealer or an opponent, or know if you can safely turn the shotgun on yourself without worry.

Avoid Coin-Flips

Is the next shot live or blank? It sounds like a 50/50 shot, but the truth is it’s not. Avoid thinking it’s a coin flip and use information, control or delay to improve your ability to hold onto charges. If you treat each turn like a coin flip, what you’re doing is converting the game into a pure probability contest.

Buckshot Roulette rewards knowledge, not bravery.

Use Items to Reduce Variance

Remember, items reduce variance and not mandatory actions a player must take – so don’t use them unless you need to. Using an item should provide two results:

1. Converts uncertainty into certainty
2. Shifts the risk to the opponent

One strategy for using items is to gather information first, such as revealing a shell with a Magnifying Glass, or changing bullet order, which can guarantee a safe or lethal move (depending on which result you want).

Then, with that information, use items for control. This means forcing another player’s turn or denying action. Using a damage item blindly is often worse than holding it.

Player-Type Adjustments

It’s critical to alternate your strategy depending on whether you play against the Dealer or in Multiplayer against other humans.

Against the Dealer (Single-Player)

Two things to know about the Dealer: they don’t bluff and won’t play with emotions. Therefore, the optimal strategy is to play conservatively, maximize information before acting and avoid reading into any psychological moves by the Dealer – there aren’t any.

Against Humans (Multiplayer)

Humans will bluff, hesitate and react emotionally.  Humans will also tend to prove how brave they are by shooting themselves, act with emotions after items are revealed and make poor decisions when other players have low health, which is how casino gamblers might act when they’re losing or winning a lot (make big, costly decisions).

Remember, Buckshot Roulette punishes impatience more than ignorance so the strongest players win not by shooting more, but by shooting smarter.        

Now that you know how to play Buckshot Roulette, dare you battle for survival against the wicked Dealer?

Buckshot Roulette FAQ

Title Image Credit: Rock Paper Shotgun