Strafing in video games is a maneuver which involves moving a controlled character or entity sideways relative to the direction it is facing. This may be done for a variety of reasons, depending on the type of game; for example, in a first-person shooter, strafing would allow one to continue tracking and firing at an opponent while moving in another direction.

Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons.

The word is an adaptation of German strafen (pronounced [ˈʃtʁaːfn̩] ^ⓘ), to punish, specifically from the humorous adaptation of the German anti-British slogan Gott strafe England (May God punish England), dating back to World War I.

Circle strafing is the technique of moving around an opponent in a circle while facing them. Circle strafing allows a player to fire continuously at an opponent while evading their attacks. Circle strafing is most useful in close-quarters combat where the apparent motion of the circle strafing player is much greater than that of their stationary enemy, and thus the chance of making the enemy lose track of their target is higher and/or the enemy is required to lead the target when firing. The effectiveness of circle strafing is mitigated when the opponent's weapon fires projectiles that travel instantaneously (also referred to as a hitscan weapon), or fires at a high rate, e.g. with a machine gun.

Circle strafing is especially effective when lag negatively affects the players' ability to hit their target. When latency is high and the game does not have client-side hit detection, this can lead to two players circling each other, both missing all their attacks.

Many shooters will allow players to aim down the sights of a gun or use a scope, usually exchanging movement speed and field of vision for greater accuracy. This can make a player more vulnerable to circle strafing, as targets will pass through their field of vision more quickly, they are less capable of keeping up with a target, and their slow movement makes dodging more difficult.

Circle strafing has also spread to some 3D action and adventure video games that involve melee combat. Circle strafing in melee combat can be made easier with a lock-on system that snaps the camera's (and the player character's) focus on one particular target, guaranteeing that most of the player character's attacks will land a direct hit on the target. It enables the player character to concentrate on moving around the enemy to dodge their attacks while staying automatically focused on the enemy. This can be a crucial strategy against bosses and powerful enemies, and is notably employed in many The Legend of Zelda titles, starting with Ocarina of Time.

Particularly in early first-person shooters, strafe-running (known as speed-strafing among players of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, and as trichording among players of the Descent series) is a technique that allows a player to run or fly faster through levels by zig-zagging (moving forwards and sideways at the same time). The game combines these actions and the player achieves roughly 1.4 (square root of 2) times the speed they would moving in a single direction. The method used by the game can be demonstrated using vector addition. Pathways into Darkness was one of the first games to allow strafe-running. However, strafing was available as early as 1991 in Catacomb 3D and became even more popular in 1992 in Wolfenstein 3D.