AMMUNITION
Weapons consume a finite ammo resource that must be found, bought, crafted, or conserved, turning every shot into a small economic decision.
- SOLO-DEV COST LOW
- TIMING REAL-TIME
- COMMON IN SHOOTER · SURVIVAL-HORROR · SURVIVAL · ACTION
Resident Evil 4 tunes ammo drops against player performance so the inventory always feels one bad fight from empty, and Metro 2033 pushes the idea furthest by making pristine military-grade bullets double as currency — spending money literally means firing your savings. Designers use ammunition to price player actions (a shotgun blast should cost something a knife swing doesn't), to drive tension in horror and survival games where scarcity is the point, and to force weapon variety by starving any single favorite. Key decisions: how scarce ammo really is versus how scarce it feels (many games maintain hidden floors so players are never truly dry), whether ammo types are shared or per-weapon, and how much inventory friction reloading and carrying should add. Pitfall: mismatched scarcity and genre — starving players of ammo in a game whose combat is the fun part just makes them avoid the fun, while showering a survival-horror player in bullets deletes the horror. The economy must match what the game wants players to feel.
SEEN IN
- RESIDENT EVIL 4
- METRO 2033