Highlights
- Action games have evolved over time to provide players with a wide range of unique and unusual weapons to use against enemies.
- Games like Dead Rising, Bloodborne, and Ratchet and Clank have gained popularity for their creative and eclectic weaponry.
- Skyrim and the Assassin's Creed franchise also have standout weapons that offer a unique and enjoyable combat experience.
Action games throughout history have been judged by what sort of weaponry they provide players with in order to deal maximum damage to opponents. Over time, action games have evolved in many ways, from including much more compelling stories compared to old games to introducing all kinds of strange weaponry that players are free to use.
Moving on from the early days when only a couple of different weapon types were available, most action-based games now come with the expectation of providing players with many varied ways to brutalize their enemies throughout the game’s duration. Some of these ways in more recent games have become especially unusual, and even completely unique.
10 Dead Rising
The world of Dead Rising is a bizarre one, and while the franchise has reveled in allowing players open-world freedom around various malls while fighting against real hordes of zombies, there is one thing the franchise is known for above all else.
That is creating one of the most amazingly unique, weapon-filled environments where players can beat back zombie hordes with railings, traffic cones, garden tools, or pretty much anything that could actually be found in a mall. From lawnmowers to guns, the weaponry in Dead Rising makes an eclectic mix. The original game has aged particularly well, especially in terms of weaponry.
9 Bloodborne
Of all the FromSoftware games in the Soulsborne franchise, Bloodborne is the one with the strangest selection of weapons. The style, reminiscent of Lovecraftian horror, incorporates many different weapon types, bringing a truly unique feel of combat to a fantasy game.
From wheels to rifle spears, there are all kinds of trick weapons in addition to the vast array of shotguns, pistols, and slashing melee blades available. Bloodborne is filled to the brim with uniquely styled weapons, making it one of the most beloved action games of all time.
8 Armed And Dangerous
Armed and Dangerous is a curious action game that introduced some particularly unusual weapons to audiences. Published by LucasArts, the company behind the Star Wars games, this 2003 shooter provided players with the strange opportunity to fire a gun that spawned land sharks all around.
Mixing a fantasy world setting into a third-person shooter game, Armed and Dangerous was a parody of other games and many films as well, providing some of the most baffling weaponry that players have ever seen in any game. A truly hilarious experience, Armed and Dangerous didn’t manage to find the cult following it had hoped for.
7 Ratchet And Clank
The 2016 edition of Ratchet and Clank is a truly bizarre action game that provides the sort of unique fun in combat that fans were hoping to find. Sheepinators, the glove of doom, and suck cannons were just a few of the particularly fascinating and unique names that popped up.
One in particular though, makes it worthy of a place in any discussion of baffling weapons in gaming. The Groovitron allowed players to send enemies into a dancing frenzy. Working similarly to how FPS games might use a flash-bang grenade, the Groovitron was a particularly wonderful weapon that players love and remember well.
6 Doom: Eternal
Everything about the combat in Doom: Eternal feels smooth. It is also very satisfying, providing an experience unlike most other action games.
Doom: Eternal provides one of the most bloody, brutal experiences in the action genre. Though the variety of weapon choices may not be as wide as in some other action games, the weapons found here are brutal, from chainsaws to meat hooks and doom swords, there’s plenty to try out, as well as just tearing demonic creatures apart with one's bare hands.
5 Alice: Madness Returns
Obviously, any game based on the idea of Alice in Wonderland will always leave players with a lot of uncertainty over what is real. Every weapon in the game is ridiculous and very different from what players would expect to see in any other game.
From umbrellas to hobbyhorses and teapot cannons, many weapons are inspired by the Alice in Wonderland story, while putting a unique and deadly twist on the idea. Alice: Madness Returns is one game filled with many things that can be called unique.
4 Skyrim
From the capabilities in enchanting that allow players to complete runs of Skyrim using only a child’s toy sword, to the many types of magic and the way players can master them, the traditional-appearing weapons of Skyrim have proven their uniqueness time after time.
The genius of Skyrim’s weapons is in the open-ended nature of the game, the way that players can break it and the weaponry to make anything supremely powerful if they only train enough. But from the sheer number of types of weapons that can be crafted with a huge variety of materials, Skyrim is a contender for having some of the best weaponry in video games.
3 Assassin’s Creed 2
Though many installments in the franchise have moved forward with the various weapons that can be used, the most recent Assassin’s Creed entries serve mostly as more regular RPGs, with a lot of the weaponry proving to be quite ordinary and expected from such a genre.
Assassin’s Creed 2 is a game that many still believe to be one of the pinnacles of the entire franchise. This game made amazing use of the hidden blades, which were unique to the Assassin’s Creed franchise from the beginning, and many of the other weapons that could be collected throughout the title were beautifully designed and worked in unique, fun ways as well.
2 Saint’s Row 4
Saint’s Row as a franchise has always been tongue-in-cheek and Saint’s Row 4 is no different. From tentacle bats to rectifier probes, there are a lot of weapons that will give players pause because they are so vastly out of the ordinary.
Inflato rays and Xmas BB rifles are also pieces to the arsenal that are bafflingly available to players over the course of the game. A plunger gun is a real thing, so is a dubstep gun, and even a gun that just throws knives, as if players couldn’t do that for themselves.
1 Pokemon Games
Pokemon games can be considered action games in the sense that players are often in a near-constant battle against other trainers, wild Pokemon, and whatever nefarious organization is present in that region.
The Pokemon, over 1000 of them now throughout the franchise, are living creatures that can be commanded to fight in whatever way the player wishes. Technically, this makes them weapons, and that means the whole franchise has one of the most unique sets of weaponry in gaming history.