Great New Horror FPS Is Like BioShock, But With More Action And Creepy Clowns

Twisted Tower is a newly released indie horror-themed FPS that seems to be heavily inspired by BioShock, but is more focused on scares and fast-paced gunplay. And thanks to a short runtime, tight combat, and some truly creepy enemies, it’s become one of my favorite indie shooters of 2026.

The setup for Twisted Tower is very simple. You play as Vincent, a young man in the 1950s who has fallen deeply in love with Charlotte, a woman who loves movies. Her favorite film is The Twisted Tower, considered by many to be the greatest movie ever made. The director of the film created a bizarre amusement park dedicated to that movie as well as his other, less successful films. At the start of the game, shortly after getting engaged, Charlotte is taken by the director and his goons to the Twisted Tower park. It’s up to Vincent to fight his way through the decrepit and disturbing tower, killing creepy mascots and dangerous toys using a mix of standard weapons like shotguns, as well as more zany weaponry, including giant hammers, gumballs, and slingshots.

It’s a simple but effective setup. And throughout the four hours or so it took me to reach the top of the tower, I discovered letters and audio recordings that fleshed out Vincent, his family, and his relationship with Charlotte, and made the game’s finale all the more heartbreaking. I won’t spoil it, but the ending is a curveball that I really enjoyed.

But to get to that ending, you’ll need to fight and jump and dodge your way through the titular Twisted Tower. And it’s here that the game really shines. While Twisted Tower‘s colorful, dilapidated Art Deco levels and hallways, including era-appropriate signs and ads, feel directly inspired by BioShock, the game’s combat moves much faster and feels more akin to recent boomer shooters.

This is a good thing in my book, as Twisted Tower doesn’t get bogged down in adding too many systems and mechanics to what is clearly something made on a smaller budget by a tiny team mostly led by one developer. And this tiny team has created a damn fine shooter.

Guns are nicely varied, but all feel punchy. The starter pistol is fine for weak enemies, like evil telephone toys that chase you around (it’s a weird game, folks), but won’t do much against later enemies you encounter. Meanwhile, the hard-hitting shotgun is a great room cleaner, but its long reload time and limited range forced me to switch things up during larger fights. And when all else failed, I could just pull out my big wooden clown mallet and slam enemies in the face a few times.

As you explore the tower, you’ll encounter vending machines where you can spend tickets you collect on weapon upgrades. This is about as complicated as Twisted Tower gets and is also the weakest part of the package. Some of the upgrades, like more ammo capacity and more damage, are simple and work great. But other upgrades that add weird alt-firing modes didn’t seem useful and felt more like a waste of my time and money.

©3D Realms

Thankfully, I mostly ignored those alt modes and got through the game on its default difficulty without dying too much and while having a great time, even when the game was tossing jump scares and waves of disturbing clown enemies my way.

Please understand that there are many, many evil clowns in this game. There’s a whole level dedicated to clowns. If you hate clowns, you might want to avoid Twisted Tower. Then again, getting to shoot them in the face with a marble launcher is pretty cathartic.

Twisted Tower isn’t the most terrifying or revolutionary horror shooter I’ve ever played, but it is a very solid, well-made FPS that’s not too long and that feels like the perfect game to check out during this year’s spooky season. If you don’t mind evil clowns, some janky animations, and a few jump scares, you should check out Twisted Tower, which is out now on Steam.