One of the best things about theFalloutseries has always been its weapons, butFallout 4’s entries really shook up the franchise. The game features a wide variety of weapons, most of them customizable. It has everything from traditional-looking FPS pistols, Shotguns, and rifles, to grenade launchers that shoot nukes and cannons that fire junk.
There are a lot of choices, butFallout 4is an example of how sometimes quality is more important than quantity. The game mighthave some great guns,but it also has its fair share of junk. The Wasteland is a dangerous place, and these weapons are more of a hindrance than a help.
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Accuracy
63
The Fat Man is a staple of the Fallout franchise and one of its most iconic weapons. It’s also one of thewildest weapons ever seen in an FPS. For anyone unfamiliar with it, it’s essentially a massive grenade launcher that fires Mini Nukes.
Unfortunately, it’s also impractical. For a start, the blast radius means more often than not the Lone Survivor will nuke themselves as well as whatever enemy they were aiming at. The ammo is scarce, and it’s not easy to aim. The Fat Man does ridiculous damage, but 99% of the time, there’s a better option.
Damage
101 Explosive
Fallout 4often feels like it’s littered with mines. It doesn’t matter where the player goes; they always have to watch their footing for these little nasties. There are a lot of mine types to choose from, most of them useless. The problem with mines is that despite dealing good damage, they don’t have many uses.
Poor settler AI, and the fact enemies spawn within player settlements, mean that mines are next to useless for base defense. Out in the wild, by the time the player has lured an enemy into their mine, it would have been quicker to shoot them. The only reason they don’t rank lower is that they’re plentiful, and a decent option for cheesing powerful bosses at lower levels.
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.45
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107
Fallout 4’s Submachine Gun is one of the many guns in the franchise to have beenbased on a real gun. Whereas its inspiration, the infamous Tommy Gun, is beloved by many video game fans,Fallout 4’s Submachine Gun isn’t.
The Submachine Gun has a high rate of fire but abysmal damage. This means it eats through .45 rounds like they’re going out of fashion, but will barely scratch tougher opponents. That .45 ammo is better used in the far superior Combat Rifle. The weapon’s only saving grace is its legendary variant, Spray n’Pray, which fires explosive rounds. This variant turns the Submachine Gun from one of the game’s worst weapons to one of its best.
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.38
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Fallout 4’s pipe guns are a cool concept that makes sense for its setting, but they’re not great weapons. While the basic Pipe Gun is highlighted here, its bolt action and revolver variants are equally flawed.
In the early game, pipe weapons are perfectly viable, but spon become outclassed by their non-pipe equivalents. It becomes clear there’s little point in carrying one around unless the player has a specific ammo type they don’t mind using up on low-level enemies.
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The Railway Rife is an otherwise excellent weapon hampered by a couple of fatal flaws. Aspart of the right build,it can be devastating, but so can almost any other rifle-class weapon.
The biggest problem with the Railway Rifle is that it uses railway spikes as ammo — one of the game’s rarest ammo types. This is enough to kill the gun for most players. The gun’s other fatal flaw is how slowly its projectiles move. This means in VATs the gun is only good at short-to-medium range, and outside VATs, it’s hard to hit anything that’s moving. This makes the Railway Rifle a sniper rifle that’s pretty terrible at sniping.
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The idea behind the Syringer is interesting. It’s a rifle that fires a range of syringes, each of which causes a unique effect. Some send the target berserk, some do poison damage, and some make dead enemies spawn a Bloatfly (sometimes). It’s essentially a support weapon designed to weaken enemies before finishing them off.
Sadly, this idea doesn’t work in action. The player is usually better off filling the enemy with lead rather than wasting time with the Syringer. Its unique ammo types are also resource-heavy to craft. Unless the player wants to have a little fun trying out different syringes, there’s no point in using this weapon.
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It says a lot aboutFallout 4that the Gamma Gun isn’t its strangest weapon. The Gamma Gun fires waves of radiation at enemies that cause both radiation poisoning (which lowers their max health) and direct radiation damage. This sounds promising, until one remembers that most ofFallout’s enemies have adapted to living in a radioactive wasteland.
Simply put, most ofFallout 4’s most dangerous enemiesare immune to this weapon. Adding insult to lack of injury, ghouls (one of the most common enemy types) are in fact healed by the Gamma Gun.
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Range
Very Short
It’s no secret that the melee combat inFallout 4feels lackluster. Many of its melee weaponsare wildly impracticaland are only useful if the player has run out of ammo. While the Rolling Pin epitomizes this idea, countless other weapons like the Pool Cue, Switchblade, and Pole Hook could also have been placed here.
The Rolling Pin does low damage and has a medium swing speed. What’s more, the player needs to be standing on the enemy’s toes if they want to hit them. Perhaps the worst thing about it, though, is how often enemies drop legendary variants of it. There is no worse feeling than killing a tough legendary enemy just for them to drop a Rolling Pin.
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In a series thatloves strange weapons, the Acid Soaker is arguably one of the strangest. It’s also one of the worst. Found in the NukaWorld DLC’s Nuka-Cade, the Acid Soaker is a unique pistol that can be bought for 6250 tickets.
The gun squirts a jet of acid at enemies, which causes low acid damage and temporarily reduces their damage resistance. As one might expect from a glorified water gun, the Acid Soaker has a painfully short range and doesn’t do much damage. It also uses a unique ammo type that has to be crafted at a chemistry bench. Even worse, it can’t be modified and only works with the Bloody Mess perk. It’s a cute novelty weapon, but that’s all.
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In a game full of almost useless weapons, the Flare Gun is arguably the worst. It’s a break-action single-shot pistol that, if it hits, does a pathetic 10 damage. It also doesn’t work with any perks and can’t be upgraded. The flares it uses also aren’t that easy to come by either.
To be fair, the Flare Gun isn’t meant to hurt enemies. Given to the player by Preston Garvey, the Lone Survivor can use it to summon Minutemen support. Fire it within range of a friendly settlement or checkpoint, and 3–6 Minutemen and maybe a dog will arrive to help. Sadly, they’re nearly always level 1, and this feature can only be used once per in-game day. By the time help has arrived, the player is probably either dead or has already mopped up the last of the enemies.
