Using a gun as a form of gameplay is almost as old as video games themselves. From the Atari 2600, all the way to high-end PC military simulators, firearms in video games are a staple of the medium. From the ever-reliable shotgun to weapons of fantastical and science-fantasy nature, players have been exposed to a wide variety of boomsticks.
Across genres and franchises, some guns have stood out from others, surpassing the veil of gameplay elements and becoming icons themselves. Some weapons have gone so far as to become faces of the franchise, representatives of their respective IP series, and even gaming as a whole. Whether it’s raiders, militants, aliens, or an opposing country’s army, some weapons are the best thing to have in hand over any other.
10 Halo’s Assault Rifle
An elegant firearm for a more civilized space-faring future. The Assault Rifle in its various forms is the backbone of humanity’s 26th-century military and a cornerstone of Halo’s online multiplayer. Whether it’s the 60-round bullet hose MA5B of Halo: Combat Evolved, or the 36-round jack-of-all-trades MA40 in Halo Infinite, this reliable man-made weapon can cut through enemy players, Promethean Soldiers, Covenant infantry and so much more.
Sleek, futuristic, and easily identifiable, Halo’s Assault Rifle is prominently featured in non-game media, appearing with toys, posters, and novels, making the Assault Rifle a torch-carrier for the beloved Xbox-owned series.
9 Fallout’s Fat-Man
Not particularly a gun, and not particularly safe. Both before and well after the nuclear apocalypse, the people of the Fallout universe have been crafting odd and extraordinary weapons of war. The Fat-Man is exactly what it looks like, a spring-fired, shoulder-mounted tube of scrap metal that fires nukes.
Powerful in the right hands, the Fat-Man’s massive weight and expensive ammo forces players to hold it in reserve for special occasions. When these moments come around, the payoff is glorious. Nothing beats sipping an ice-cold Nuka-Cola as a deadly horde of enemies is reduced to radioactive corpses.
8 Gears Of War’s Lancer Rifle
Who could say no to integrally-mounted chainsaw rifles? With a world under threat from subterranean foes, the fighting men and women of the COG need only the best weapons to keep the hordes at bay. The Lancer is a hefty piece of hardware that can deliver medium-range hell-fire, and turn enemies into mince meat up close.
The sound and sight of a revved-up Lancer being hoisted high to cut someone in two are burned into the memories of Gears of War fans around the world, and for good reason.
7 Modern Warfare 2 (2009)’s Intervention
Released at a perfect time, when gaming and internet content creation were both hitting their stride. The birth of montages and the rise of gaming clans made the already highly successful Modern Warfare 2 even more relevant than it already was. With quick-scoping and trick shots becoming as common as frag grenades in every lobby, millions of eyes and ears became well acquainted with the Intervention.
The mere sound of it firing would become famous on its own, commonplace in memes and YouTube montages across the internet. The resulting decade of sniper clips and montages across a variety of shooters on PC and consoles all spawned from the Intervention, and Call of Duty themselves have paid homage to this weapon in several future titles.
6 Heavy’s Minigun
A class-based shooter of insane and vibrant mercenaries is a recipe for hilarity and insanity. Team Fortress 2 delivers on both in spades, and the beloved Russian behemoth, the Heavy, is the game’s resident tank, and carries a gun befitting his role. Heavy has access to a limited yet varied arsenal of portable heavy machine guns to choose from, but for the Heavy himself and a good number of players, the preference leans towards the simplistic efficiency of his default Minigun.
Fast firing with a hefty ammo pool, a Heavy posted up next to a moving payload or dispenser can easily shut down entire lanes and force back ill-prepared enemies. From fan-made animations to the official comics and plenty of merchandise, Heavy and the Minigun are always there, if not front and center outright. For 15 years, the sound of that Minigun spinning up and going off has penetrated the hearts and minds, and eardrums of millions across servers and YouTube videos alike.
5 Half Life 2’s Gravity Gun
Not a traditional gun, but a gun nonetheless. Half-Life 2’s revolutionary physics engine was weaponized and turned into a powerful utility weapon to aid Gordon Freeman’s quest to stop the Combine. The Gravity Gun can grab onto items and weapons, allowing the player to freely move them about to tear down barriers, set up box ramps to get around ledges, or fire wooden boxes at Combine Soldiers and smash their faces in. With all of these things and so much more, the Gravity Gun turned Valve’s new physics system into a tool for gameplay opportunities in a groundbreaking way.
The influence of this weapon would spread beyond Half-Life 2 itself, as the fan-mod turned official game Garry’s Mod modified the weapon further, creating a physics gun. This new tool allows people to individually modify and pose Source Engine items and models, birthing the Garry’s Mod animation scene that dominated YouTube in the late 2000s.
4 The Golden Gun (Goldeneye N64)
Nintendo has long since been behind the curve on first-person shooters compared to Sony and Microsoft, but when they put their hat into the ring, they’re more successful than not. Goldeneye dominated multiplayer game night sessions for many 90s kids and cemented a decade-long presence in the video game medium, and the Golden Gun’s one-shot kill potential made it a weapon that countless firefights erupted over as players tried to deny the weapon to their opposition.
Even more iconic from its inclusion in this game than the James Bond movie whose title it featured in, the Golden Gun being aimed your way was the last thing a lot of losing players saw on plenty of CRT televisions.
3 Mega Man’s Mega Buster
Blowing away evil robots before controllers had more than four buttons. Mega Man’s been using his highly customizable Mega Buster arm cannon to defend humanity against rogue machines and evil doctors for decades, and it hasn’t failed him once.
Able to absorb and integrate other weapons and technologies from defeated foes, the Mega buster lets Mega Man adapt and strategize to new threats by using old foes’ technologies to play to their weaknesses. Having to play a game of rock, paper, scissors with dozens of thematic robot villains is a tall order, but with the Mega Buster, Mega Man manages to make it work time and time again.
2 Counter-Strike’s AWP
The end-all-be-all of video game sniper rifles, one that millions the world over are familiar with in some shape or form. Counter-Strike’s AWP sniper rifle, specifically it’s Global Offensive incarnation, is a one-shot kill-potential weapon that has dominated ranked and casual matches for over a decade.
The star of countless montages, broadcast major league matches, and thousands of Youtube funny moments videos, the AWP and its identifiable boom of a firing sound is just as much a part of Counter Strike’s identity as bomb defuses and knife unboxings. With weapon skins worth thousands of real-world dollars, the AWP may also be the most expensive video game gun to invest in, on top of being one of the best.
1 DOOM’s Super Shotgun
Hardly a surprise for most, but what else could be expected? The double-barreled shotgun from the DOOM series has become so iconic that it was made into the workhorse weapon for DOOM Eternal’s combat loop with the addition of a hook-chain attachment.
With two barrels, one trigger pull unloads a wave of deadly pellets into the demonic hordes that are standing in the way of the Doom Slayer. For over three decades, the Super Shotgun has informed video game design philosophy about how shotguns should interact with the game-world compared to other weapons and gadgets. The eternal image of DOOM, the basis for the entire FPS genre, is a man in green power armor, lots of demonic creatures, and a nice, beefy shotgun to keep them at bay.
