11 Call of Duty Guns That Looked Awesome but Fell Flat the Moment You Pulled the Trigger

It is always nice to have a gun that looks and sounds super cool, but sometimes that gun's performance does not live up to the expectations set by its appearance. Here are 11 Call of Duty guns that looked awesome and made you feel like a boss right up until you pulled the trigger.

A couple of these are probably going to be hot takes, and that is okay.

The M60E4 in COD 4 made you look like an action star but didn't hit a whole lot of people

This is one of the biggest, literally biggest, guns in COD history, and one of the coolest sounding as well. It made you look like an action movie star from the 80s or 90s. Think Rambo, Terminator or Commando, running around the battlefield with a giant LMG and a firing sound that cracked through the entire map every time you pulled the trigger.

Unfortunately, you were going to hear a whole lot of that firing sound and not see a whole lot of people getting shot, because the M60 was a bottom tier weapon despite being one of the coolest in the game. Aside from being extremely heavy and hard to maneuver, it was comically inaccurate. The recoil would fly off in random directions, and it arguably had the worst iron sights in the game.

I like giving Infinity Ward a pass for their mistakes in this game because it was a huge experiment, but they should have tested this more. They had to know nobody was going to use it. There is no way they put this thing through development without realizing how bad it was.

The HG 40 in Black Ops 3 was a nostalgic letdown locked behind supply drops

The MP40 is one of the coolest looking guns ever, absolutely loaded with nostalgia for oldhead players like me. So when Treyarch brought it back to Black Ops 3, I will admit I spent an irresponsible amount of money on supply drops trying to get it.

I got it. I threw it on a class. I stared at how cool it looked, and then I tried to shoot somebody with it on Nuketown and it just did not work. It was bouncy, it was weak and it was inconsistent. I know Treyarch eventually buffed it, but it was a letdown for one of the first DLC weapons in the game and such an iconic piece of COD history. If you are going to bring back a legacy weapon and hide it behind a paywall, you better make sure it is worth using.

The L4 Siege in Black Ops 3 needed multiple rockets for a basic UAV

A semiautomatic rocket launcher. You could lock it onto things or free fire it, and it was like the Grim Reaper from Black Ops 1. It was locked behind supply drops, so it was definitely going to be totally overpowered, right? That is what we were all thinking when the L4 Siege was announced. Then we got it out of a drop, or got lucky enough to pick it up off a dead enemy, and immediately forgot it existed because it was not good.

It looked amazing and had a unique sound effect. It held four rockets at a time, but the damage was so low that you needed multiple rockets to take down basic killstreaks like UAVs and counter UAVs. Against players, you needed to hit them with two to three rockets to get a kill, at which point you were wasting all your ammo. Nothing about the Siege was any better than the starting default launchers that were not locked behind supply drops. That was a shame, because I really think this was supposed to be the spiritual successor to the Grim Reaper, and that thing was insane back in Black Ops 1.

The Type 2 in Infinite Warfare split in half and still nobody used it

A fast firing laser rifle that could split itself in half and become a laser version of the akimbo FMG9. That is awesome. Remember the first time we saw it split in half? Infinity Ward was hoping we would think it looked awesome and tell all our friends, so we could all go get Infinite Warfare and have a great time together. That is not what happened.

Not only did we not get on Infinite Warfare and have a great time together, but the Type 2 was also not very good despite the cool design. The rifle version was unhelpful, and the FMG9 version was just mid, only really effective at point blank range. The few people who were playing Infinite Warfare were spamming other guns at each other. You could snap it in half and act like you were playing a futuristic version of Modern Warfare 3, but if you want that, just go play Modern Warfare 3 for real.

The Executioner in Black Ops 2 lost out to a stacked pistol lineup

This one hurts a lot of people, and a lot of people get upset when it gets brought up. The Executioner is one of the worst best looking pistols in Call of Duty history: a shotgun revolver hybrid that held five shells. We thought this was going to be the next evolution of busted secondary weapons.

What Treyarch did not tell us was that the range was bad, the reload took forever and the recoil was insane. There was literally no reason to use this over the other pistols, because Black Ops 2 had an absolutely stacked lineup. We had the KAP 40. We had the B23R. So who in the world was going to choose the worst shotgun pistol in COD history over one of those monsters?

I know some of you will tell me I was just using the Executioner wrong, but I do not understand how anyone can actually try to defend this thing. "It's been over 13 years since Black Ops 2 came out. I feel like we should have gotten honest with each other about this thing by now."

The 48 Dredge in Black Ops 3 was a six round burst LMG

I know some of you like this gun. I think it looks cool, and it has one of the coolest names in COD history, but I think it is really poor as a gun in terms of performance, and if you insist on using it, I think you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. It is a six round burst LMG. Let me repeat that: a six round burst LMG.

You get the slow handling and long reload animation of an LMG, but it fires a six round burst, which makes it one of the most needlessly awkward guns ever to actually aim and shoot. Someone might say the damage is so good, but that only matters if you can land the six round burst consistently in a game where everybody has jetpacks. If I am going to commit to using an LMG, I am going to use one that is fully automatic so I can actually hold down positions. What is the point of having all the downsides of an LMG without the ability to just hold the fire button and clean up a group of enemies?

The EM1 in Advanced Warfare was a giant laser beam that overheated

This is literally a giant laser beam. How do you make a giant laser beam not fun to use? It was definitely the point where Call of Duty leaned into the goofier side of gaming, but everybody wanted to use it, because why would you not?

Unfortunately, it was not very good. Despite being a constant laser beam, the DPS actually was not that good, and it would overheat pretty quickly. That left you standing out in the open with a giant metal box in your hand that could not deal any damage until it cooled off. In Advanced Warfare you could use the Bal 27 or the ASM1, two of the best ballistic weapons in Call of Duty history, or you could use an awkward laser cannon that did not kill people very quickly and would frequently get you in trouble because it had to take a nap to reset. I think the choice was pretty clear. And yes, I know there were variants that were better.

The M60 in Black Ops sounded incredible and played badly

I have said it before and I will say it again: this gun has one of the best firing sounds in Call of Duty history, and I stand firm on that. But another thing I have said before and will say again is that it is one of the worst guns in Black Ops history.

It had all the same problems as the COD 4 version, just with better iron sights, since the irons on this one were actually decent. The fire rate was low, the recoil was bouncy and unpredictable, and it was way too heavy for a game this fast. If you are going to slow players down this much, they need awesome damage to make it feel worth it, but the M60 was just slow and poor. It could not make up for that awesome weapon model or that great sound effect. How many times is the M60 going to be in Call of Duty before developers figure out how to make it good?

The China Lake in Black Ops slowed you to a crawl

A giant pump action grenade launcher. I think I just saw that someone bought an actual China Lake in real life. I remember seeing it back in the day and being convinced it was the coolest thing ever. Then you equipped it and immediately got killed, because it slowed your movement speed down to something closer to a very slow snail. You pulled the trigger and the gun took about six business days to aim in, fire and pump to the next round.

The thing is, the China Lake still looks awesome and sounds cool. There is no reason something like this should have been bad. Why was it so heavy? It is not even that big, so why did Treyarch make it weigh 500 lb, like you were walking through quicksand? And why would I waste my secondary slot on it when I could just equip a noob tube on my primary weapon? What was the point of making something this cool this bad?

The RSA Interdiction in Black Ops 3 was arguably the worst sniper in the game

A bolt action sniper with a futuristic design and a revolving chamber that made you feel like a gunslinger, kind of like an early version of the Outlaw from Black Ops 4. If you were around during the Black Ops 3 days, you know why it is on this list. It looked awesome, but it was also arguably the worst sniper in the game because of its horrible one shot kill range and very slow fire rate.

Treyarch was trying to compensate for the fact that it was the only bolt action in the game with aim assist, but they went too far with the balancing and completely destroyed any point of using it. Just put in the work to get good with the Locus and you have an infinitely better bolt action at your disposal. Nobody wanted to use the RSA, even the lucky few who pulled it out of a supply drop. As I said above, its design was basically an earlier version of the Outlaw, which kept all the coolness but was actually a good gun to use.

The XMG in Advanced Warfare is the perfect example of cool over function

Number one is the perfect example of an awesome looking gun nobody wanted to be close to. The XMGs were dual wielded machine guns that looked like your character pulled them right off a tank and started running around like an actual turret. Few things are cooler than running around with double rotating machine guns like that.

But I am not exaggerating when I say it was way more fun and way more effective to run around and look cool than to fire them. They were wildly inaccurate and turned you into a sitting duck when you tried to be precise in any way. In a game where everybody was lasering each other with the Bal 27, there was no way you could keep up carrying these things. I guess a handful of variants made the XMG slightly better than bad, and there was one I think was called Bacon and Eggs, which is one of the coolest names too. Ultimately, though, it was a bottom tier weapon in Advanced Warfare despite being the coolest thing ever. How do you make dual wielded machine guns not fun to use?

Which of these awesome looking guns do you think was the biggest letdown, and is the Executioner really as defensible as some players claim?