One of the greatest franchises of all time, Halo, remains incredibly popular even to this day. With Halo 3 still hosting some of the most intense gunfights and campaign missions in video game history over on the Master Chief Collection, it remains as prominent as ever. Whether you’re bashing a grunt the head with a pistol or sniping out the back of a Warthog on Valhalla, you always need to carry a weapon.
We’ve taken a look back through the weapon list on Halo 3 and ranked every gun (based on everything from effectiveness to appearance) in order from most useless, to most iconic.
19 Plasma Rifle
When it was first introduced back in Combat Evolved, the Plasma Rifle was a rather powerful weapon. By the time of Halo 3, it was one of the weakest guns in the game and forced you to recoil in pain after over-shooting.
18 Sub-Machine Gun
There isn’t anything particularly, distinctively wrong with the sub-machine gun, it’s just very rare to get a hold of in comparison to most of the other UNSC weapons. You can duel wield it, which is a nice touch.
17 Brute Spiker
While the Covenant typically shares a selection of weapons that they seem to be able to share amongst themselves, the Brutes have their own unique set-up. The Brute Spiker is probably the least impactful of all of their weapons.
16 Mauler
The Mauler, also known as the Type-52 Pistol, is another weapon we don’t see much of in Halo 3.
It looks great and comes with a powerful blade beneath making it helpful in melee situations, but as a weapon, it’s a little misleading. Rather than acting like a normal pistol, it’s actually a short-range handheld shotgun.
15 Magnum
Unlike the Mauler, the Magnum is a pistol in both appearance, name, and function. It may be great for headshots, but as it doesn’t come close to being one of the most powerful guns in-game, it has to take a low position.
14 Carbine
The Carbine is the Covenant equivalent of the Battle Rifle and in terms of pure statistics, it’s just as powerful and just as accurate. However, it just isn’t as satisfying to kill things with plasma as it is bullets.
13 Assault Rifle
The most bog-standard weapon in Halo 3 is the one you almost always see Master Chief lugging around. There isn’t a lot to say either way for this weapon as it falls into just about every ‘average’ bracket possible.
12 Plasma Pistol
In terms of sheer firepower, the Plasma Pistol is one of the weakest guns in the game. Grunts are always seen holding these and making very little use of them. However, charging one up and using it to EMP a vehicle or destroy a shield is some seriously overpowered stuff.
11 Battle Rifle
Before Halo Reach introduced us to the DMR and the days of the Battle Rifle were numbered, this was the go-to weapon for multiplayer matches thanks to its helpful scope and powerful headshots abilities.
10 Shotgun
Unlike the Mauler, it was very clear that the shotgun was a powerful, if short-range, weapon. If you’ve got the dexterity to get up in the face of an enemy, then you can use this weapon to absolutely destroy it.