The Absolute Worst Halo Weapons In The Franchise

One of the standout segments of Microsoft's Xbox Series X Games Showcase was the long-awaited Halo Infinite gameplay. While not everyone loved the graphics on display, many were excited to finally see some gameplay, especially since it confirmed several weapons players can wield in the upcoming title.

Weapon balance is one of the keys to a great first-person shooter. It's no fun to fire a gun that deals little damage and has to reload after every shot, and it's especially frustrating if you're sniped across the map by a shotgun while reloading. Usually, weapons are tweaked to shine in different situations, but sometimes a gun slips through the cracks and ends up essentially useless. The Halo franchise has seen its share of bad weapons. Here are the weapons players have pegged as the absolute worst in the series.

Halo is full of iconic weapons, but most are iconic from a cosmetic perspective. The plasma sword might appear unique, but it basically works like any other blade. Most Halo weapons function like real-world weapons, with the Needler offering a marked exception. While it certainly looks and feels distinct, some players question its functionality.

Unlike most Covenant weapons, which fire balls of plasma, the Needler shoots needle-shaped crystal shards that explode if enough sink into a target. Moreover, the Needler has limited homing capabilities, so mobile enemies aren't necessarily safe. On paper, the Needler sounds overpowered, but in practice, some players found it worthless.

Just what makes the Needler a bad weapon? It's pretty impressive when the shards go off, but without that explosion, they deal about as much damage as an acupuncture session. Frequently, a Needler wielder will drop dead before they can pin the final needle.

The Needler was buffed in subsequent games, but if you plan on using it in early Halo titles, you might want to choose a different strategy.

The Halo franchise has a love-hate relationship with sidearms. In some games, sidearms are little pistols that struggle to kill anything; in others they are pocket powerhouses that outperform every weapon save rocket launchers. The former is especially true in Halo 2 and 3.

Many gamers agree pistols are at their worst in Halo 2 and Halo 3. These iterations might fire quickly, but they also deal next to no damage. You essentially need to expend an entire pistol magazine to have any hope of killing an enemy. You have to make sure every shot counts; if you miss even once, you will probably die before you can reload your pistol. Because of weapon balancing in Halo, your punches are more devastating than pistol bullets.

The Covenant doesn't have much in the way of personal long-range weapons. If you're running low on ammo for your UNSC-issued sniper rifle and want something that can bullseye a Grunt from across a bridge, you need abandoned Covenant weaponry. Usually, that means a Beam Rifle or a Particle Beam Rifle, but in Halo: Reach, you're stuck with the Focus Rifle.

The Focus Rifle is reportedly one of the worst sniper rifles ever conceived. Forums are full of players who hate this weapon, with one user even likening it to a "hair dryer." Conventional wisdom says sniper rifles should penetrate targets (and anyone behind them for good measure) before they duck behind cover. Instead of packing the kinetic power of a charging rhino into one concentrated bullet, the Focus Rifle vomits a constant stream of energy. If you can keep the beam focused on your target, the damage snowballs — hence the name — but that's a big if since nobody stands still in Halo: Reach.

More often than not, you will hit someone with the beginning of the beam and miss the rest.

In Halo lore, the mysterious Forerunners were an ancient, advanced civilization that created the titular Halo, and the Covenant worshiped the Forerunners as gods. You would assume a civilization capable of creating giant space WMDs that can target and exterminate all sentient life within a 25,000 light year radius could manufacture small firearms capable of vaporizing mountains. The Suppressor is proof against that.

Halo 4 introduced gamers to the first Forerunner weapons, and few were impressed. The Suppressor is an especially egregious example since gamers gathered in droves just to decry the alien weapon. The gun is inaccurate, and even when the stars align and the Suppressor lands a hit, it deals minimal damage. Anyone who manages to kill an opponent with Halo 4's Suppressor deserves to be called the luckiest person alive.