Explosively popular indie Battlefield-alike BattleBit Remastered draws a line in the sand against boomsticks: 'no shotguns'

battlebit remastered
(Image credit: OkiGames)

First spotted by PCGamesN, one of BattleBit Remastered's developers stated in no uncertain terms that the breakout FPS will not be adding shotguns. In response to a query about the FPS staple, co-developer ThatLiquidHorse simply stated "no shotguns."

Alright, fair enough, but why? Every FPS game and its dog has a shotgun in it. This seems to be a fairly regular question faced by the BattleBit team, and as Prima Games reports, the primary issue seems to be a question of balance. "Shotguns in games have the ability to either be too powerful, or underpowered," BattleBit Discord moderator TrueDevil™ told a fan. "As you mentioned, balancing is very hard on them, therefore, the Devs have decided not to add them."

That judgment really does have the uncomfortable ring of truth: you're either high on the hog dual wielding one-shot kill Winchesters in the OG Modern Warfare 2, or just kind of annoying enemies with what might as well be blasts of hot air⁠—I was never a fan of TF2's take on the weapon, for example. Back in my Destiny days, there was a particularly ugly meta centered around a boomstick called Fellwinter's Lie that completely upended PvP for a hot minute.

It doesn't help that videogame shotguns never really behave like real life ones: shotguns are effective to a surprisingly long range compared to their digital brethren, but also real-life rifles aren't quite the pew-pew damage-limited plinkers of videogame land. But that's the thing, isn't it: videogames are way more fun than real life, and having shotguns be some kind of high risk, high reward scattergun that can out-damage a high caliber rifle is fun.

BattleBit's based around large, open maps, but I could easily imagine some little gremlin loading in with a pump action and camping a building or other enclosed space for easy kills. The BattleBit team simply decided to head that possibility off, and fair enough.

I do take issue with PCGN's contention that shotguns are "the best weapon in FPS games." The best weapon in FPS games is assuredly the Magnum or "Deagle."

Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.

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