Games can be defined by their heroes, villains, settings, or even weapons. Especially in long-running series, oftentimes it isn’t a single character that becomes the face of the games, but a weapon that persists throughout. Other times, a weapon can be so unique in function or design that it only needs one appearance to make its mark in gaming history. Since weapons are so fundamental in most games, competition is stiff. A weapon needs to look cool, but also be fun to use. These iconic weapons check all the boxes and are so recognizable that even those who never played the game they’re from will recognize them.
The Master Sword
We have a lot of swords to talk about, so we might as well start with the one we’ve been fighting evil with the longest. The Master Sword has aided many incarnations of Link in defeating any threats to Hyrule for generations (literally and in-game). It isn’t in every single Zelda game, but tends to be a core component of the best ones. The design changes slightly each time we get our hands on it, but the long silver blade and purple grip make it instantly recognizable.
The Buster Sword
It’s a little odd to attribute the popularity of Cloud’s Buster Sword to the game when it was very heavily inspired by Guts’ sword from Berserk. Since that was a manga, however, most gamers associate the massive slab of metal with Cloud’s default sword. Making a sword so big that it is no doubt heavier than its wielder is certainly one way to draw attention to it, but the beautiful simplicity of a massive sword just looks so good. It makes even less sense in Remake and Rebirth, but that’s part of why we love it.
The Keyblade
Using a key as a sword? It sounds dumb, and it is if you think about it too much, but the Keyblade has defined the Kingdom Hearts games. What makes this weapon so impressive is that it can take on so many different forms and designs, but you never confuse it for anything but a Keyblade. Plus, who wouldn’t want their sword to also be able to open any lock? It’s cool and practical.
The Mega Buster
Mega Man has been MIA since 2018, but his legacy will live on forever with the Mega Buster. Again, simplicity is king here. This is just a tube on the end of Mega Man’s arm that shoots out little energy pellets, but you can’t tell me the first thing you did whenever you found a cardboard tube is stick your arm inside and pretend to have a Mega Buster. Each game introduces new powers to collect as you beat the robot bosses, but we always have the Mega Buster to start and fall back to no matter what.
The Blue Shell
We didn’t say iconic needed to be a good thing, and this weapon has become infamous for all the wrong reasons. As soon as the Blue Shell was introduced into the series it became the bane of our existence. As annoying as this weapon is to have used against you, it also isn’t satisfying to use. It just homes in on the best player and ruins their good time. It takes no skill to use, and there’s no real way to avoid it. Still, we can’t deny that it has left such a mark that it earned a spot on this list.
The Golden Gun
The only thing more unfair than picking Oddjob in GoldenEye 007 was using the Golden Gun. Now, this game was far from balanced anyway, but even back then we all knew this gun was way too OP. This little golden handgun was a one-shot kill no matter what. The designers did at least attempt to balance it by giving it only one shot before needing to reload, but even then you are essentially guaranteed to win the next few duels if you take a second to line up your shot. It became so notorious that tons of games pay homage by including an overpowered Golden Gun as a secret or easter egg.
The Lancer
For a more modern entry, we have what can only be described as being incredibly brilliant and stupid at the same time. The Lancer from Gears of War is your standard automatic rifle, except instead of a normal blade bayonet there’s a fully motorized chainsaw. If a Locust or enemy player gets too close, you can rev up your gun and carve them in half before taking aim to shoot at their buddy. As impractical as something like this would be, it helped define Gears of War as an over-the-top shooter that was more concerned about looking cool than being completely grounded.
The Crowbar
It’s very common for games to start us off with a basic blunt object as a first weapon. It could be a hammer or a wrench, but Gordon Freeman’s crowbar is special. Since he’s mute, it has basically become his entire personality and the face of the Half-Life games. We don’t know why fans got so attached to this basic blunt object over any of the other weapons, but it has clearly become the favorite, even more than the Gravity Gun. Despite being such a common item, crowbars appearing in any game are always paying tribute to Half-Life.
The Hidden Blade
There’s an undeniable elegance surrounding the Hidden Blade in the Assassin’s Creed games. It’s just a simple knife, but connecting it to a bracer that extends with a flick of the wrist makes it look and feel so satisfying to leap through the air, snap the blade out, and plunge it into someone’s neck. It’s very much like Wolverine’s claws in that way, but more stealth-focused. There’s even a cool bit of lore about how assassins would cut their ring fingers off to make room for the blade.
The Moonlight Greatsword
With the exception of the Dark Souls trilogy, each FromSoftware game is decidedly separate from one another. The only element that appears in almost all of them, from Armored Core to Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring, is the Moonlight Greatsword. It obviously varies up its design to fit the aesthetic of that game, but always has that pale blue color and some form of ranged wave attack. In a way, the Moonlight Greatsword is like FromSoftware’s Master Sword.
