The shotgun was a powerful, heavy, and compact blaster or slugthrower that emitted several bolts or pellets at once when fired. They could often hit multiple targets or eliminate one target with a single blast. However, its damage decreased as range to the target increased, since the pellets scattered if fired from too far away; this made the weapon more suited for close-quarters combat.

A common shotgun weapon was the blast cannon, used by Imperial engineers during the Galactic Civil War. Which was a variant of the standard E-11 with a beam splitter, as opposed to a conventional shotgun. The TriShot could be considered the pistol form of a Shotgun, since it fired multiple laser bolts, but only three instead of the usual five. The elite Rebel SpecForces team Renegade Squadron used both shotguns and tri-shots. Trandoshan slavers sometimes used them, as did some B1-Series battle droids of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and Republic clone troopers during the Clone Wars.

Slugthrower versions include the scatter gun and C-M Frag Storm. A flechette launcher could also be considered similar to a shotgun in functionality, throwing hundreds of razor-sharp flechettes over a small area.