Top 10 Most Overpowered Guns in Gaming

Most video games are power fantasies that allow us to live out impossible lives as undercover spies, futuristic super-soldiers, or hell-walking demon slayers. So when it comes to lethal tools of destruction, gamers are used to blasting through enemies with all sorts of shiny weapons. But there are those special few guns that outshine all others; guns so powerful that they make every other weapon in the game look forceless and feeble.

Since most of the games on this list are available on PlayStation, go on and try them out for yourself with some PlayStation Gift Cards in hand.

Check out this list of the most overpowered guns in gaming with descriptions explaining what makes them so darn broken.

Pistol (Halo: Combat Evolved)

At first glance, the M6D Personal Defense Weapon System looks like your standard FPS starter pistol, but anyone who grew up blasting Covenant in the early aughts knows that Halo 1’s pistol can be lethally effective in the hands of an expert.

The M6D comes with a very good scope that makes it far too easy to nail effective shots from a distance. Three shots to the head can take down a target in multiplayer, which should be no issue — even if you’re a terrible shooter — thanks to the gun’s quick fire rate. And since it’s technically supposed to be the weakest gun in the game, pistol ammo is all over the place, so you’ll never have to worry about running out of bullets.

Chicago Typewriter (Resident Evil 4)

The Chicago Typewriter is so ridiculously overpowered that it makes completing the Resident Evil 4 campaign trivial. A single shot will absolutely decimate most of the enemies you encounter, and even more powerful foes can’t stand to take more than two or three direct blasts. In fact, the Typewriter is so good that it can be game-ruining.

This superweapon will cost you a pretty penny to acquire — a cool 1 million Pesetas — but it’s worth every coin. Many of the guns on this list have some sort of drawback that limits their viability, like hard-to-find ammunition or long charge-up times; the Chicago Typewriter is good in any situation. Once you have it in your inventory, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be using it all the time.

Spread Gun (Contra Series)

Over the years, Contra’s Spread Gun has consistently been regarded as one of the most effective weapons in the series, but it was indisputably the most powerful gun for the first two games in the franchise.

Depending on the game, the Spread Gun power-up enables your super soldier’s standard issue rifle to fire up to five different directions at once. This makes for better defensive cover, allowing players to move about the stages with more freedom. It also allows the spreading nature of its shots to result in multiple bullets hitting a target. With proper technique, the Spread Gun can deal damage comparable to the Laser, making every other weapon feel wimpy by comparison.

M488 (Just Cause 3)

One-shotting enemies or taking out entire squads with a few blasts is undeniably satisfying, but what if you could demolish entire outposts with a single rocket? The M488 in Just Cause 3 will do that and more. It’s the strongest weapon in the game by a huge margin, capable of instantly deleting any destructible object in the game.

The M488, or Bavarium nuke launcher, will absolutely melt anything caught within its blast radius. This isn’t some explosion zone of a few meters — we’re talking 20-30 meters in diameter and 30-40 meters tall. Every person or destructible objects within that death zone is immediately reduced to dust, and even Bavarium-shielded vehicles don’t stand a chance against the M488’s destructive power.

Golden Gun (GoldenEye 007)

The Golden Gun is a high-risk, high-reward pistol based on Francisco Scaramanga’s personal weapon in the appropriately titled film, The Man with the Golden Gun. It’s a guaranteed one-shot kill in the right hands, capable of taking out any enemy in GoldenEye 007 with one shot. While certainly overpowered, its potential for mass destruction is tempered by the fact that its chamber can only hold a single round, thus the gun must be reloaded after every shot.

A lot of the guns on this list can absolutely ruin their game, making their main campaigns laughably easy, but the Golden Gun isn’t one of them. It’s only obtainable in one bonus mission and requires solving a hidden puzzle first.

BFG 9000 (Doom Series)

The Doom series’ BFG is probably the first weapon that springs to mind when talking about overpowered guns. How could it not? It’s the OG superweapon in one of the most iconic first-person shooters in history.

BFG is an acronym for “Big F-ing Gun,” a deliciously spot-on name for this absolute unit of a weapon. Pulling the trigger on the BFG releases a huge glowing blob that casually floats out of the weapon, totally obliterating anything in its path without prejudice. Not even the most powerful demon from hell can withstand the BFG’s ruinous destruction, a fact you’ll have to remind them off on occasion by pulling it out when surrounded by fiends and devils.

Farsight XR-20 (Perfect Dark)

Imagine a sniper rifle that can kill with a shot to the body, fires through obstacles like a knife through butter, and comes with a super-accurate long-range scope that can see through walls. At that point, you might as well be playing with a wallhack and auto-aim, right? Well, the Farsight has a secondary mode that does those things, too, so the gun can automatically track living targets through walls and objects.

To give the gun some pitiful semblance of balance, aiming down the scope removes peripheral vision, and the secondary mode’s target tracking only locks the in-game camera to your victim; you’ll have to aim manually if you want to hit anything. Those measures just aren’t enough to rein in the Farsight’s devastating power, and the weapon is widely regarded as one of the most overpowered guns in any first-person shooter.

R.Y.N.O. (Ratchet & Clank Series)

According to Clank, the R.Y.N.O. (an acronym for “Rip You a New One”) is the strongest missile launcher in the Solana Galaxy. After seeing the sheer havoc this black market missile launcher can create, we’re inclined to believe him. Over time, the gun has been improved upon so we see a shadow of the original in its predecessors as shown in the picture above of the RYNO 8.

The R.Y.N.O. can target up to nine separate targets at once, and once it’s locked on, it fires a single missile at each. Its missiles are insanely devastating and can totally decimate almost any enemy in the game.

Once you have the R.Y.N.O. in your inventory, you can toss every other weapon in the trash bin. It’s such a powerful general-use gun that it makes defeating even the toughest enemies a walk in the park.

Experimental MIRV (Fallout 3)

Did you know if you fire the MIRV while looking directly at the ground, the explosive force of this gun’s 8 mini nukes will launch your irradiated corpse to the Fallout 3 map’s height limit? That’s the kind of power you’re dealing with when you pull out the Experimental MIRV in Fallout 3.

The Experimental MIRV functions like a shotgun that fires eight miniature nuclear rockets out of its barrel with each pull of its trigger. Anything at the wrong end of a rocket is promptly stricken from existence and crushed into atomic dust.

Fallout 3 is notoriously bug-filled and doesn’t play nice with the cataclysmic effects of the Experimental MIRV. That’s right, this is a gun so overpowered that you have to quicksave before firing it in case it crashes the game.

Gjallahorn (Destiny)

We’ve talked about a lot of overpowered guns here, but we’ve yet to see one so ridiculously fatal that its developers had to patch it out of their game. That’s precisely what happened to the Gjallarhorn in Destiny. This gold-embossed rocket launcher could fire a string of powerful missiles and cluster bombs that would absolutely shred anything in its path.

Its strengths were particularly evident in PVE, where a player wielding the Gjallahorn could power their way through several quests in minutes. Even several of the game’s mightiest bosses were helpless before the Ghorn’s might, including the notoriously difficult Archon Priest, whom some players beat in 10 seconds flat!

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Sarah Paul

Passionate writer and certified night owl. Currently drowning in coffee.