Some video games are simulators. They replicate reality, and the in-game weaponry reflects that painstaking effort. In a game like Sniper Elite IV, for example, the accuracy extends to the physics of the bullets, the ammo capacity, and the reload animations.But other video games are escapist fantasy. You don't play as a Marine; you play as a Space Marine. And those games are where developers get to flex their creative muscles. Because fighting in unconventional environments necessitates unconventional weaponry.
In a world where tech has touched nearly everything, why aren't we looking to make smarter, safer guns? Find out why in Motherboard's new full-length documentary, A Smarter Gun.
Motherboard tracked down six game developers who had a hand in inventing some of the funniest, off-the-wall firearms in order to understand how these digital firearms were created.HAND CANNON
Game: Dead Space 2
Developer: Visceral Games
Date: 2011
Dead Space 2 is difficult enough on its normal setting. The Hard Core setting? It's an exercise in masochism. No checkpoints. Only three saves per game. But if you do manage to complete the game on Hard Core, you receive the mightiest weapon in the game: a red, foam sports hand. Just point (literally) at someone, and fire. You can hear your character, Isaac Clarke, yelling "BANG BANG!" as Necromorphs explode around you.Senior Level Designer Matthias Worch: "It was added as a joke/reward late, but I didn't actually know that we were making it until I saw it on somebody's development machine. Everybody was laughing about it. As a joke weapon? It's up there with the best ones ever. But because it insta-kills everything that makes the moment-to-moment combat fun, I don't like using it when playing the game for real."PEPPER GRINDER
Game: Alice: Madness Returns
Developer: Spicy Horse
Date: 2011
In 2000, American McGee's Alice took Lewis Carroll's topsy-turvy tales and gave them a dark, surreal twist. The Cheshire Cat looked like a mangy stray. The Mad Hatter was an evil scientist who experimented on the March Hare. And Alice, now a teenager, armed herself with a series of "toys," such as a deck of playing cards and a set of dice. For the sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, the developers added more toys to Alice's repertoire. And the most unique one is the Pepper Grinder. When turned, it fires a barrage of peppercorns at Alice's enemies. It is both charming and distinctly Carroll-esque to give a mundane, household appliance such lethal effectiveness.Director and Designer American McGee: "The Alice source material made design a lot of fun, and the weapon design was no exception. When you're building weapons in a world powered by a girl's imagination, the only limitations are related to her character and personal experiences. The Pepper Grinder was inspired by the Duchess character from the Alice novel. For me, the core concept was a throwback to the Nail Gun in Quake—another interesting weapon I had a hand in creating."BULLET GUN
Game: Enter The Gungeon
Developer: Dodge Roll
Date: 2016
Gungeon is a shooter game with a top-down perspective. Its premise sounds like a joke that came at the end of a long brainstorming session, and all the programmers threw up their hands and decided to go with it. Armed with a gun (there are over 200 different types of guns in the game), you explore a dungeon and shoot your enemies. Those enemies are bullets. And you kill them with bullets.The weapons are as excessive as you might expect. One of the guns in your arsenal looks like bullet. It fires guns. And those guns then fire bullets. That's the sort hypermasculine self-parody that one might see in an Old Spice commercial. It wasn't on purpose, however; the Bullet Gun actually began its life as a programming error.Programmer Brent Sodman: "We were trying to make a normal gun—you know, one that shoots bullets—but we effed up the code. So instead of shooting bullets, it ended up shooting guns. We were also really surprised when it came out of the computer as a big bullet instead of a gun."NEEDLER
Game: Halo: Combat Evolved
Developer: Bungie
Date: 2001
Xbox is the house that Halo built. Without Halo, it's difficult to imagine Microsoft's debut console succeeding how it did. The franchise prides itself on its multiplayer, but then again, there are a lot of games which boast multiplayer. Halo distinguished itself with its variety of weird weapons. One of these weapons was the Needler, which fired crystal shards at an enemy. Those shards would then impale an enemy's body before exploding, killing their target.Lead Designer John Howard: "The first time I saw the Needler was on a list of possible weapons in a text file from Bungie co-founder Jason Jones. Each weapon had a one line description that summed up its reason for being. Jason described the Needler as firing a swarm of exploding bees.The alien Covenant weapons were very different from the human weapons. All the human weapons were familiar (pistol, shotgun) and damage was mostly instant-hit. But the Covenant weapons had slow-moving projectiles you could actually see coming.To counteract this, each Covenant weapon had a gimmick. The plasma rifle took down energy shields. The plasma pistol could over-charge. And the Needler had the exploding swarm of bees thing. I felt like we never got the Needler's damage tuning right in Halo: Combat Evolved. The gun just wasn't useful enough. But that got fixed in Halo 2 and the other sequels."MR. TOOTS
Game: Red Faction: Armageddon
Developer: Volition
Date: 2011
Your reward for completing the Red Faction: Armageddon storyline is Mr. Toots, a unicorn who blasts rainbow magic from his butt. You can hardly believe what you're looking at; It's cute and wrong at the same time. And the best part is the expression on Mr. Toot's face, which is the sort of look a person might give if he was kicked in the crotch while passing a kidney stone.Lead Designer David Abzug: "I reacted to seeing Mr. Toots for the first time by laughing my ass off. The way his eyes bugged out, the way he opened his mouth so wide, and the way he screamed like a flatulent balloon were hilarious. You could never quite tell what the player was grabbing onto as a trigger, and that fell perfectly into the Volition humor style.Senior Gameplay Designer Doug Nelson was the driving force behind Mr Toots, and he delivered everything you could want in an easter egg. I hold up Mr Toots as an example of a designer pushing to get something in a game, and being proven right once it's in."DUBSTEP GUN
Game: Saints Row IV
Developer: Volition
Date: 2013
The Saints Row franchise is inherently ridiculous. The fourth installment stars the head of the Third Street Saints and President of the United States, who must use his superpowers to defend Earth against an alien attack. To stand out against that sort of extreme background, a weapon must be truly bizarre and out of left field. Enter the Dubstep Gun.It makes the civilians dance. It makes the cars bounce on their hydraulics. And it plays a sick wub-wub-wub to get your impromptu dance party started.Senior Producer Jim Boone: "A Saints Row game is a very liberating game to work on. You get to focus on what's fun, what gamers will enjoy, and what will make them laugh. The Dubstep Gun is certainly an example of this project's culture.When I was first presented the concept for the Dubstep Gun, I laughed, and I imagined how amazing it would be in-game. We had lots of moments like this, where the team came up with amazing ideas that could only live in a series like Saints Row. I clearly remember the first time the Dubstep Gun was operational in-game. It didn't have all the bells and whistles it would ultimately have, but it still functioned like the final version.Fast forward months later to the official press unveiling of Saints Row IV in London . We had a video of gameplay we planned to show the press, and one of the earliest moments of our presentation featured the Dubstep Gun. I figured this would be the moment where we got a pretty good idea of what the press thought of Saints Row IV. If they liked the Dubstep Gun, I figured they would likely enjoy the rest of the madness we had in the game. If they didn't get the Dubstep Gun, we might have a problem on our hands.So, I give a minimal introduction, and then we get right to the video. Our audience members spend part of their time laughing, part of their time looking at each other thinking, 'What the hell am I seeing?' and part of their time looking at me, as though they are wondering, 'What the hell were they thinking?' To say this was a gratifying moment would be an understatement."
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In a world where tech has touched nearly everything, why aren't we looking to make smarter, safer guns? Find out why in Motherboard's new full-length documentary, A Smarter Gun.
Motherboard tracked down six game developers who had a hand in inventing some of the funniest, off-the-wall firearms in order to understand how these digital firearms were created.HAND CANNON
Game: Dead Space 2
Developer: Visceral Games
Date: 2011
Dead Space 2 is difficult enough on its normal setting. The Hard Core setting? It's an exercise in masochism. No checkpoints. Only three saves per game. But if you do manage to complete the game on Hard Core, you receive the mightiest weapon in the game: a red, foam sports hand. Just point (literally) at someone, and fire. You can hear your character, Isaac Clarke, yelling "BANG BANG!" as Necromorphs explode around you.Senior Level Designer Matthias Worch: "It was added as a joke/reward late, but I didn't actually know that we were making it until I saw it on somebody's development machine. Everybody was laughing about it. As a joke weapon? It's up there with the best ones ever. But because it insta-kills everything that makes the moment-to-moment combat fun, I don't like using it when playing the game for real."PEPPER GRINDER
Game: Alice: Madness Returns
Developer: Spicy Horse
Date: 2011
In 2000, American McGee's Alice took Lewis Carroll's topsy-turvy tales and gave them a dark, surreal twist. The Cheshire Cat looked like a mangy stray. The Mad Hatter was an evil scientist who experimented on the March Hare. And Alice, now a teenager, armed herself with a series of "toys," such as a deck of playing cards and a set of dice. For the sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, the developers added more toys to Alice's repertoire. And the most unique one is the Pepper Grinder. When turned, it fires a barrage of peppercorns at Alice's enemies. It is both charming and distinctly Carroll-esque to give a mundane, household appliance such lethal effectiveness.
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Game: Enter The Gungeon
Developer: Dodge Roll
Date: 2016
Gungeon is a shooter game with a top-down perspective. Its premise sounds like a joke that came at the end of a long brainstorming session, and all the programmers threw up their hands and decided to go with it. Armed with a gun (there are over 200 different types of guns in the game), you explore a dungeon and shoot your enemies. Those enemies are bullets. And you kill them with bullets.The weapons are as excessive as you might expect. One of the guns in your arsenal looks like bullet. It fires guns. And those guns then fire bullets. That's the sort hypermasculine self-parody that one might see in an Old Spice commercial. It wasn't on purpose, however; the Bullet Gun actually began its life as a programming error.Programmer Brent Sodman: "We were trying to make a normal gun—you know, one that shoots bullets—but we effed up the code. So instead of shooting bullets, it ended up shooting guns. We were also really surprised when it came out of the computer as a big bullet instead of a gun."
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Game: Halo: Combat Evolved
Developer: Bungie
Date: 2001
Xbox is the house that Halo built. Without Halo, it's difficult to imagine Microsoft's debut console succeeding how it did. The franchise prides itself on its multiplayer, but then again, there are a lot of games which boast multiplayer. Halo distinguished itself with its variety of weird weapons. One of these weapons was the Needler, which fired crystal shards at an enemy. Those shards would then impale an enemy's body before exploding, killing their target.Lead Designer John Howard: "The first time I saw the Needler was on a list of possible weapons in a text file from Bungie co-founder Jason Jones. Each weapon had a one line description that summed up its reason for being. Jason described the Needler as firing a swarm of exploding bees.The alien Covenant weapons were very different from the human weapons. All the human weapons were familiar (pistol, shotgun) and damage was mostly instant-hit. But the Covenant weapons had slow-moving projectiles you could actually see coming.To counteract this, each Covenant weapon had a gimmick. The plasma rifle took down energy shields. The plasma pistol could over-charge. And the Needler had the exploding swarm of bees thing. I felt like we never got the Needler's damage tuning right in Halo: Combat Evolved. The gun just wasn't useful enough. But that got fixed in Halo 2 and the other sequels."
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Game: Red Faction: Armageddon
Developer: Volition
Date: 2011
Your reward for completing the Red Faction: Armageddon storyline is Mr. Toots, a unicorn who blasts rainbow magic from his butt. You can hardly believe what you're looking at; It's cute and wrong at the same time. And the best part is the expression on Mr. Toot's face, which is the sort of look a person might give if he was kicked in the crotch while passing a kidney stone.Lead Designer David Abzug: "I reacted to seeing Mr. Toots for the first time by laughing my ass off. The way his eyes bugged out, the way he opened his mouth so wide, and the way he screamed like a flatulent balloon were hilarious. You could never quite tell what the player was grabbing onto as a trigger, and that fell perfectly into the Volition humor style.Senior Gameplay Designer Doug Nelson was the driving force behind Mr Toots, and he delivered everything you could want in an easter egg. I hold up Mr Toots as an example of a designer pushing to get something in a game, and being proven right once it's in."DUBSTEP GUN
Game: Saints Row IV
Developer: Volition
Date: 2013
The Saints Row franchise is inherently ridiculous. The fourth installment stars the head of the Third Street Saints and President of the United States, who must use his superpowers to defend Earth against an alien attack. To stand out against that sort of extreme background, a weapon must be truly bizarre and out of left field. Enter the Dubstep Gun.
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