This is a priority tier list for Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone. It ranks what to unlock and play first, based on the content the developer has actually confirmed. It is not a weapon stat ranking, and the reason for that is explained at the bottom of this page rather than hidden.
Every placement here is an editorial judgment built on confirmed game structure. It is not developer-published data, and we say so up front.
How these tiers were decided
Four signals, in order of weight:
| Signal | What it means |
|---|---|
| Does it gate other content? | Story contracts unlock context and progression. Nothing else does. |
| Does it have a fail state? | Modes with no fail state are the cheapest place to learn. Challenge maps and training stations beat story missions for practice. |
| Does it pay off on a leaderboard? | Contracts, challenges and skill games all have Steam leaderboards. Anything without one is lower priority. |
| What does it cost in time? | A station you can use in five minutes outranks a mode that needs a 20-minute block. |
S tier — start here, no debate
1. The three story contracts, in order. They are explicitly "connected", which means the intended experience is sequential rather than pick-your-own. The three locations build on each other: a safehouse outside the city, then the harbor warehouse district, then the mobster restaurant with something underneath it. Playing them out of order costs you the one thing this game has that the challenge modes do not — narrative escalation.
2. Unlock breadth on the gunwall. There are 18 weapons to unlock plus a compound bow and knives, and no published stats for any of them. That single fact determines the correct strategy: with no numbers to optimize against, the only reliable signal is your own hands. Engage every weapon on the wall once before you start perfecting attachments on one.
A tier — highest return once the campaign is done
| Content | Why it lands here |
|---|---|
| Takedown Mode | You choose the enemy types and the enemy count — up to 30 to clear. That makes it the only mode where you control difficulty precisely, which makes it the best place to learn an unfamiliar weapon under real pressure. |
| Last Stand Mode | Endless waves plus bomb disarming. Repetition is the whole point, so this is where a personal best is actually achievable. |
| Hive gun range skill games | They have their own Steam leaderboards and no fail state. Free practice with a scoreboard attached. |
B tier — worth doing, lower urgency
- Holographic combat training area — useful for learning enemy behaviour, but no leaderboard of its own.
- Speed-shooting obstacle course and pop-up target practice — both sharpen specific skills; neither gates progression.
- Steam achievements (27 total) — completion value, and a few are likely tied to the modes above, so you will collect several just by following this list.
C tier — cosmetics and options
- Gun bench: weapon skins and gun sounds. Purely cosmetic, but the ability to change how a weapon sounds is unusual and worth a look if you care about feel.
- Custom music: your own MP3 files, played in-game through the gunman's smartphone.
- Unlockable cheats and the optional low-violence mode — settings rather than content, but both are launch features.
Why there is no weapon tier list yet
This is the part most tier lists for this game skip. We are not publishing an S-to-D weapon ranking because none of the inputs exist:
- The 18 weapon names have not been published.
- Damage, recoil, fire rate and TTK have not been published.
- Per-weapon attachment lists have not been published — only that attachments exist per weapon.
A weapon tier list built without those numbers is a guess wearing a table. The moment real data exists — in-game testing, official patch notes, or a developer post — this page gets a second table and its revision date changes. Until then, the honest read is that weapon choice in this game is a feel decision, not a spreadsheet decision.
VR and non-VR are ranked separately
Worth knowing before you chase a score: the Steam leaderboards are divided between VR and non-VR players. So "best score" is relative to your setup, and a tier list of modes holds across both platforms while a tier list of scores cannot.
What would move something up or down
- Free content updates. Three more story missions are confirmed as free future updates. When they land, the S tier gets longer.
- Patch notes. Balance changes are the one thing that can invalidate a mode ranking.
- Published weapon data. See above — this is the single change that unlocks the weapon table.
待确认 — this page is current as of the 2026-09-16 Early Access build. Revisions are logged at the top of the page.
Related guides
- Beginner Guide — the play order for your first two hours, before any of this matters
- Challenge Modes — the full breakdown of Takedown and Last Stand, the two A-tier modes
- Weapons & Attachments — the gunwall and gun bench, and why the numbers are missing