Best Arcade Games Like Duck Hunt

The best arcade games like Duck Hunt are Time Crisis 3, House of the Dead: Remake and Wii Play. Below are 8, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to arcade costs you.

Why Arcade Is a Good Answer for Duck Hunt

Filtering to arcade means you want short runs and a score, not a campaign. It is the right filter when what you liked was the one-more-go feeling.

What you get: A complete experience in twenty minutes, and a skill you keep. Arcade design is measured in the moment after you lose.

What made Duck Hunt worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the arcade part of that answer, and only the arcade part.

8 Arcade Games Like Duck Hunt

  1. 1. Time Crisis 3

    The best of the arcade rail shooters, and the pedal is a real mechanic.

  2. 2. House of the Dead: Remake

    The classic light gun game rebuilt for modern hardware.

  3. 3. Wii Play

    The shooting gallery mode is the closest thing to Duck Hunt made this century.

  4. 4. Link's Crossbow Training

    Nintendo's own target shooting, and much deeper than it looks.

  5. 5. Big Buck Hunter Arcade

    The direct descendant of the whole hunting-gallery idea.

  6. 6. Blue Estate

    A modern rail shooter designed for a controller rather than a gun.

  7. 7. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood

    If you have VR, this is where the rail shooter went.

  8. 8. Pistol Whip

    VR shooting as rhythm, and the best-feeling gun in any game.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Story and progression. Arcade games repeat on purpose, and if you want to be pulled somewhere they will not do it.

Specifically, these are strong answers for Duck Hunt that are not arcade games, so they are not on this page:

  • Duck Season — A VR game built specifically as a Duck Hunt homage.

The full list is on games like Duck Hunt — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best arcade game like Duck Hunt?

Time Crisis 3. The best of the arcade rail shooters, and the pedal is a real mechanic.

Are all of these on the Nintendo Entertainment System?

No. Duck Hunt released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

Why are arcade games so hard?

They were designed to end. A machine that let you play for an hour on one coin did not earn its floor space, so difficulty was the business model.

Do arcade games still get made?

Constantly, mostly by small teams. Several of the best beat-em-ups and run-and-guns of the last decade are new games built on forty-year-old design rules.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Duck Hunt list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is arcade — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Duck Hunt

More Arcade Games Recommendations

Or read the arcade guide for where to start in the genre generally.