Video game developers have been creating over-the-top guns for about as long as they have been putting guns in games. Which is to say from the very start. Whether it’s a pistol that shoots needles or just a BFG, there’s no shortage of extraordinary guns in games.
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However, there’s one subgenre of weaponry that games love to toy with more than anything, and that’s the concept of guns with secondary firing modes. These alternate firing modes allow you to change your playstyle without having to swap weapons, and sometimes they’ll save you from a sticky situation.
10Killzone: Shadow Fall - LSR44
The developers at Guerrilla love to give their guns alternate firing modes. Ever since the firstKillzonethe studio has given its weapons secondary ways to deal damage. The team has even continued its love forinventive weaponsin the plethora of bows, casters, and tools Aloy can use in the Horizon series. However, in the first few games, most guns' alternate firing modes were pretty standard; under-barrel shotguns, grenade launchers, and lots of switching to burst fire.
A special shout-out has to go to the first game’s mini-gun that allowed you to load a rocket under the Gatling gun’s spinning barrel. Shadow Fall is where the best alternate firing modes can be found. From a rifle with an extremely potent grenade launcher to a hand cannon that can charge its shots, it’s all pretty fun. However, thanks to its ability to quickly change from a carbon rifle and into a deadly gauss rifle, the LSR44 stands above the rest. It also helps it looks and sounds like something from 2370.
9Resistance 3 - The Bullseye
The Resistance games haven’t aged amazingly, but it’s hard to deny what a cool setting it was. An alternate universe 1950s where an overwhelmingalien force invadesand humanity must attempt to drive them back with their much weaker weapons? It’s a great setup. And while the first two games have a mixture of post-world war two era human guns and much wilder Chimera weaponry, it’s the third game where things really get fun.
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By this point in the ongoing war, humanity has started to assimilate some of the Chimera’s technology into their own weaponry, creating some fascinating mash-ups of old weapons and space-age technology. Highlights include; a machine gun that can throw down a force field, a sniper that can also shoot cute little walking landmines, and, best of all, the ironically named Bullseye, which can either spew machine gun fire or shot off volleys of bouncing shotgun rounds.
Dead Spacereally isso much more than just a handful of great horror set-piecesand that’s largely thanks to most weapons having really cool secondary fire modes. One of the best parts of that game is how the weapons that you get as you explore the USG Ishimura, make it feel more and more likely Isaac can survive this horrific situation.
All of these industrial tools have deadly usesand the more you upgrade them, the more you feel like you can finally push back against the necromorphs. Sure, the pulse rifle having 360-degree firing mode might be the most dangerous idea ever, and the contact beam’s area of effect attack makes little scientific sense, but who cares? Especially when you have access to maybe the best mode-firing switch animation ever in the plasma cutter’s directional shift.
7Perfect Dark - Farsight XR-20 And Rocket Launcher
I was never aPerfect Darkkid growing up; the N64 was slightly before my time and I owned a PS2 rather than an Xbox, but even I knew Perfect Dark was the game with all the cool guns. Rare was so proud it all the alternate firing modes it came up with that it even saw fit to give the mechanic a name.
Some of these “second functions” were very straightforward, like adding a three-round burst to a pistol or allowing you to charge up shots. However, others were wildly experimental and often made it feel like you were breaking the game. Being able to turn you machine gun into a wall-mounted turret, or throwing a gun like a grenade is one thing, but having a gun that can shoot through walls, or rockets that can chase enemies around corners? Well, that just feels like you are bullying the forces of dataDyne.
6Team Fortress 2 - The Pyro’s Flamethrower
Team Fortress 2did a really remarkable job of remaining a well-balanced team shooter even after years of new guns being added to the game. Some of these later weapons have fun alternate firing modes like the Cow Mangler’s charge shot, the Scout’s Sandman bat and baseball combo, or the Engineer’s wrench that can teleport him back to spawn.
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However, none of these can hold a candle to the one weapon that had an alternate fire mode from launch: the Pyro’s flamethrower. Thisfirey wielding characterwas already the bane of most new players' existence, and they caused even more nuance for Soldiers and Demomen that couldn’t hold their fire. That’s thanks to the flamethrower’s alternate fire, which shoots a gust of wind that can redirect projectiles. Even if you fear no man, that weapon… it’ll scare you.
5Borderlands 2 - Tediore Guns
The Borderlands series has always loved giving gun manufacturers interesting traits. By the time the third game came around almost every gun, whether it wasJakobs, Torgue, or Maliwan, got its own secondary fire, but it was Tediore inBorderlands 2that blazed the trail. In the first game, Tediore only produced legendary weapons with the ability to regenerate ammo.
Obviously, this somewhat dull gimmick wasn’t good for business so by the time the second game came around the company moved took to selling cheaper, more disposable products, literally. In Borderlands 2 Tediore guns are thrown away instead of being reloaded, once thrown they can hit enemies and explode, and do more damage the more ammo was left in them. Thankfully they reappear in the wielder’s hands thanks to digistruct technology ready to be tossed aside again.
4Bulletstorm - Screamer
Bulletstorm is ridiculous, from its purposefully unlikeable protagonist that swears like a sailor to its unforgettable guns. Honourable mentions have to go to both the gravity boots and energy leash. Neither of them are guns, nor do they have alternate attacks, but they’re truly amazing tools of chaos.
And while The Penetrator is a fun mix of a sawblade launcher and a grenade launcher, and The Headhunter lets you take control of bullets to do what the name implies, there’s no beating The Screamer. Someone on this outlaw planet, asked, “What if we loaded a firework in this hand cannon?” and that person was a genius. He probably also blew up his own hand, but he was a genius!
3Wolfenstein: The New Colossus - Schokchammer/Kugelgewehr
The New Colossusis full of massively customisable guns, all of which are brutally effective in the hands of BJ Blazkowicz. However, there are few moments in games as satisfying when you upgrade the Kuglegewehr — which is already an automatic shotgun with three barrels — so that its alternate fire allows you to bounce bullets off of walls.
In a game where cover is vital, there is no greater joy than trick-shotting Nazis from around a corner.
2Metroid - Arm Cannon
For one of the most renowned bounty hunters in the universe, Samus doesn’t actually use too many different weapons. Instead, the adoptive mother of the lastMetroidusually opts to modify her existing (and already extremely badass) arm cannon.
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Over the years this part of her suit has fired power beams, long beams, ice beams, wave beams, dark beams, light beams, nova beams missiles, super missiles, ice missiles, plasma missiles, hyper missiles, acted as a flamethrower, and even turned into an Omega Cannon in Metroid Dread. If you want to argue that an arm cannon isn’t a gun, sure. Just don’t get into a fight with her about it.
1Doom (2016) - All Of Them
You can’t pick. They’re all so good! The pistol’s charge shot that can one tap demons. The shotgun’s triple-shot and grenade launcher. The heavy machine gun’s mini rockets and sniper mode.
All these alternate fire modes make every gun inDoomviable and plenty capable of ripping and tearing until it is done.
