There's been an awful lot of sometimes-cool, sometimes-odd crossovers in Call of Duty: Warzone 2—corrupt superheroes, Nicki Minaj, a bulletproof dog named Merlin who rides around on your belt—but this is my favorite: The super-shotgun from Doom 2, which will be added to the game as part of the Doom bundle that's coming in October.
The super shotgun—technically the combat shotgun, but only old, pedantic nerds (like me) insist on calling it that—debuted in Doom 2, and it's been a staple of the series, and virtually every other shotgun-toting FPS, ever since. They have an alarmingly slow rate of fire, but they make up for that shortcoming by hitting like a truck.
From the Doom 2 manual:
- The sickest gun from Doom: The Dark Ages' trailer is called the 'Skullcrusher' and does such horrible things to demons, the game's lead dev boasts id has 'the best gore in the industry'
- 'I think only the shotguns are the same,' says Doom: The Dark Ages director, otherwise the guns are brand-new or significantly transformed
Combat shotguns are double-barrelled, sawed-off killing sticks. These gats are the ultimate in pellet warfare. Beware, two barrels not only deliver more firepower, but takes more time to reload.
Of course, you don't have to worry about reloading if you only have to pull the trigger once, am I right?
What makes the Warzone 2 rendition of the super shotgun so impressive is the way it so perfectly recreates the original. It looks the part, it sounds the part, it's got the same muzzle blast animation, and best of all it has the same low-framerate reload animation. Charlie Intel posted a brief clip of the weapon in action on Twitter: That mid-'90s chop is completely incongruous with the silky-smooth movement of the rest of the game, and yet, it's perfect. It is the super shotgun.
The DOOM bundle shotgun for Warzone is the classic weapon and has the old school look and low FPS. pic.twitter.com/Hj1hM2lrYLSeptember 28, 2023
For comparison, here's the original super shotgun showing off what it can do in Doom 2, courtesy of The PsiRocker on YouTube:
There are no details at this point as to how the weapon will actually perform in the game, but speaking as a casual player who's more interested in having fun than whatever the meta is at any given moment, I don't care—I think this thing looks like (forgive the pun) a blast.
The bundle will also include the Doomgun gunscreen, Doom weapon charm, Cacodemon and Slayer stickers, a handful of new emblems, and—of course—a very familiar chainsaw: We don't have an animation for that bad boy yet, but this is what it looks like:
The Doom bundle will be available for Call of Duty: Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2 on October 9.
