In a lifetime, most are only skilled enough to properly use one weapon, let alone two (especially doing so simultaneously).
And then there's this guy.
He strolls into danger at a leisurely pace... and strapped to his back are enough weapons to make the U.S. military jealous. He doesn't even seem to have some magical satchel that he can just dump his weapons into for storage. Surely the weight must be doing a number on his back, right?
But no worries. The character is bona-fide badass, so they manage to pull it off. They are the reinforcements, and they've taken the necessary precautions for the upcoming fight - hauling as many weapons as they possibly can. You can bet your sorry behind that they're gonna use 'em all, too. They are often Multi-Melee Masters or Multi-Ranged Masters (or both).
Compare More Dakka, which is most likely the result when the character is packing heat. If so, expect them to be wearing quite a few Badass Bandoliers if their ammo supply isn't unlimited.
Generally goes hand-in-hand with a Wall of Weapons. If the huge amount of weapons is mostly/entirely hidden under the character's clothes, then you have Trenchcoat Warfare.
Compare Hammerspace, Hyperspace Arsenal, Extended Disarming, Choice of Two Weapons. Contrast Limited Loadout.
Examples:
- Callahan from Sprint's "Epic Renegade Cop"
commercial was apparently armed with three handguns, an assault rifle, several grenades, and a rocket launcher.
- Berserk:
- Guts walks the earth carrying a BFS, an arm cannon, a repeating crossbow, throwing knives, and a dagger. He later acquires some miniature bombs.
- Silat carries a pair of katars, a pair of urimi, several chakram, and has concealed blades in his shoes.
- In Black Clover, Asta acquires several Anti-Magic swords over the course of the story, all of them conveniently stored within his grimoire.
- Black Lagoon:
- Roberta carries a gatling gun briefcase, shotgun disguised as an umbrella, at least one knife, and a crapload of grenades.
- Similarly, Fabiola has a pair of shotguns hidden in her sleeves, knives in the soles of her shoes, and a collapsible grenade launcher hidden in her dress.
- The assassin Tongpu in the Cowboy Bebop episode "Pierrot le Fou". When he first faces off against Spike, he spreads his coat to reveal a huge number of weapons hanging inside it.
- Hiruma from Eyeshield 21 brings a massive arsenal of firearms wherever he goes, though where he keeps them all isn't so clear.
- Fairy Tail: Erza Scarlet's magic allows her store weapons and suits of armor in pocket dimensions and summon them at will. She is stated to have well over 100 weapons and suits of armor at her disposal.
- In the second half of Episode 1 of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Sōsuke Sagara is told to disarm during a hostage situation. It starts off normally: a couple of pistols, a knife, some frag grenades. Scene cuts to the whole mess of bad guys smirking and grinning at his bad luck and upcoming beating. As things clunk and clank to the floor, though, their expressions shift first to puzzlement, then surprise, finally settling on horror. When the scene cuts back to Sōsuke, he's standing beside a literal truckload of various rifles and rocket launchers. Might have even been an artillery piece in there, it is hard to tell.
- The titular hero from Goblin Slayer. He has a short sword, several daggers, several shurikens, torches, magical scrolls, smaller bombs and smoke bombs, and before High Elf Archer joined his party, he occasionally used a bow and arrow. This is justified because he wants to be as well prepared as possible to fight goblins.
- Gundam Build Fighters manages to get in on this with the Kämpfer Amazing
, which is fast, powerful, tough, and well armed, especially relative to its source material. The Kämpfer Amazing carries a ludicrous number of weapons, especially for what is supposed to be a model of a giant robot. It boasts dual kukris, superheated striking plates in its arms and legs, dual beam sabers, dual pistols, dual beam rifles, dual sniper rifles, dual beam machine guns, a gatling gun, and a quad-barrel rocket launcher. Oh, and it carries all these weapons in four huge 'weapon binders' that attach to its body, so Hammerspace is flatly averted—it literally carries all those weapons on itself in its most prominent match. It's almost obscene.
- In addition to her giant Hiraikotsu boomerang, Sango from Inuyasha also carries a wakizashi sword, a spring-loaded blade hidden in an arm guard, and a vast assortment of poisons.
- Macross Plus: While all Variable Fighters in the show are well-armed, Isamu Dyson's super prototype YF-19 takes the cake with its loads of weapons, which include a robot-scaled assault rifle, hidden missile compartments, two gatling guns, anit-aircraft laser cannon, two more lasers in its wing roots, a physical shield with spare ammo clips for the rifle, and a forcefield system that doubles as Falcon Punch when generated around the robot mode's fists. And that's when it's not using its various expansion packs that usually add further micro-missile launchers to the mix. Combined with its built-in stealth tech, it's enough to blow up a decent chunk of a planet's orbital defense system and enter the atmosphere undetected by posing as part of the debris it has just fashioned. Also, don't stand anywhere near its flight path, or the sheer air currents around it will rip you to shreds.
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00's Celestial Being are fans of this in their suit design:
- The most famous example is the aptly-named Gundam Exia "Seven Swords." CB had observed that beam sabers, while phenomenal cutting tools, didn't work so well in an atmospheric environment, and since they hadn't yet figured out the best way to implement the Swiss Army Weapons that would become an iconic part of their suit design, this meant that they ended up sticking a weapon for every conceivable job on the Exia. It had two beam sabers and two beam daggers weighted for throwing for space combat and three solid GN Blades of various shapes and sizes for ground combat, the smallest of which was also weighted for throwing. For ranged combat, the Exia had no less than three Arm Cannons — its enormous Blade Below the Shoulder, the GN Sword could transform into a beam rifle, and it also had two GN Vulcans (rapid-fire, low-power beam guns) mounted in its forearms.
- The Dynames series of Gundams slowly evolved (or devolved) from relatively pared-down sniper/reconnaissance designs to what can only be described as loosely-connected clouds of guns spewing beams and missiles all over the place. In order:
- The prototype, the Sadalsuud, was positively spartan — it just had the mandatory two beam sabers and the Revolve Bazooka, a primitive revolver/rocket launcher.
- The first production model, the Dynames, kept the beam sabers, swapped out the bazooka for a powerful sniper rifle with an optional Wave-Motion Gun upgrade/attachment, and added a pair of beam pistols and a set of six four-tube missile launchers built into the waist and knee armour.
- Its successor, the Cherudim, stepped things up quite a bit. In its fully-upgraded form, it dropped the beam sabers and only arried a third of the Dynames's missiles (four twin-tubed launchers on the skirt armour), but compensated in all other areas. The sniper rifle could now transform into a three-barreled sub-machine-gun, it was now equipped with four beam pistols that could transform into solid-bladed axes, rendering the missing sabers irrelevant, and the missing missiles were compensated for by the addition of fifteen Attack Drones — six large "rifle bits" that could almost match the Cherudim's sniper rifle in power, and nine "shield bits" equivalent in output to its beam pistols that could combine to launch much more powerful beams.
- The final machine in the line, the GN-010 Gundam Zabanya, was the most ridiculous of the lot. It now had a total of twenty three-tube and four four-tube missile pods, allowing it to launch seventy-six missiles at once. Its guns, meanwhile, were completely overhauled. It now had up to fourteen Holster Bits (yes, even the holsters were weapons) that worked like more powerful versions of the Cherudim's Shield Bits, and could shoot Wave-Motion Gun-tier blasts when combined with each other, and its suit-mounted guns and Rifle Bits were replaced with fourteen Pistol/Rifle Bits. Each one of these was as powerful as the Cherudim's sniper rifle, could be hand-carried or used as Attack Drones, could be combined to fire more powerful beams like the Shield and Holster Bits, and had the option of splitting apart to form pistol-axes like the Cherudim's preferred close-combat weapons. The Zabanya was a Walking Armory almost entirely comprised of guns that could use all of them at once, and the result was a constant, eye-searing Beam Spam and Macross Missile Massacre unmatched almost anywhere else in the franchise.
- A mecha example comes from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in the form of the GAT-X131 Calamity Gundam.
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- The Freedom, Justice, and Providence Gundams are no better. In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, the Destiny and the Legend are equally heavily armed, and the Freedom and Justice upgrade into the even better equipped Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice.
- From Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn we have the Full Armor Unicorn that has weapons stuffed on practically every available surface, it even has some weapons stacked on the other weapons.
- The Full Armor Unicorn includes the standard 60mm vulcans in the head, 4 beam sabers, two stored in the backpack, with the other two stored in the forearms and could flip out to be used like tonfas, the extremely powerful beam magnum rifle, two hyper-bazookas mounted on the back that includes two grenade launchers, four grenade racks also strapped to the sides of the bazookas with another four strapped to the legs of the Unicorn, two three tube anti-ship missile launchers sourced from the Stark Jegan that are also strapped to the bazookas, three I-field shields mounted on the forearms and back of the Unicorn with 6 gatling-guns mounted on them that can be used as as Attack Drones, finally two hyper-beam javelins also stored on the forearm shields. To counter the sheer bulk of mass added to the Unicorn, two massive rockets and propellant tanks sourced from a Base Jabber Type 94 are attached to the rear of the Full Armor Unicorn, which can also be fired off as impromptu rockets.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing's Heavyarms. Its original configuration
and its Mid-Season Upgrade (the Heavyarms Kai) weren't too egregious, with only a gatling gun-shield combo on its left arm and an army knife on its right (the rest of the missiles, vulcans, and cannons were stored inside Heavyarms; during Heero's duel with Zechs, Trowa also outfitted the left arm with a beam saber), Endless Waltz's redesign gives the Gundam two Double Barrel Beam Gatlings and adds several more missile packs on its legs. Couple this with Trowa's acrobatic prowess as a circus performer transferring over to his Gundam and most of Trowa's defeats can be attributed to the plot alone. And if you think that's ridiculous, a guidebook for the series called New Mobile Report Gundam Wing Perfect Album
features what-if designs based off of the original five Gundams. Gundam Crazy Beast
(Deathscythe) and Gundam Sky-High Arms
(Heavyarms) are pretty decked out, but Gundam Super-Armed Tank
(another Heavyarms variant) is what happens when you put Heavyarms and Guntank in a blender and set it to "OVERKILL."
- One Piece:
- Don Krieg has a lot of hidden weaponry, including pistols, guns hidden in the armor, a diamond knuckleduster, a morningstar, a flamethrower, a spike-shooting shield, a giant exploding spear, several minibombs and a bombshells full of shurikens and poisonous gas.
- Diamante, courtesy of his Hira Hira no Mi, allows him to compress various objects into thin, clothlike form, and he comes in loaded with a lot of weapons.
- This is Mousse's whole shtick in Ranma ½, along with being an improbable weapons user. In fact, during a fight with another walking armory, he notes that the other guy is sticking to using his 49th sword, meaning he ran out of weapons. Mouse then proceeds to use a barrage of even more weapons to win.
- Rebuild World: Thanks to the extra strength afforded by his Powered Armor, Akira ends up as one of these. Some snapshots of his armaments which change constantly: Two different types of assault rifle, an anti-tank rifle, a minigun, and a Grenade Launcher. Later, four Bifurcated Weapon rifles, a high-tech sword, and a Wave-Motion Gun mounted on his back. If there is one thing proven time and time again, Akira could always use more firepower and not less.
- This is literally the job of the Libra Saint in Saint Seiya: while Athena's Saints usually fight unarmed, the Libra Cloth includes six pairs of weapons (swords, tonfas, nunchakus, throwing shields, tridents, and three-section staffs
) to be loaned to other Saints on a need basis.
- SD Gundam Force has a few examples;
- Destroyer Dom of the Dark Axis is a partial example. He doesn't actually carry his vast arsenal, but he does tow them around in a little trailer called the Gallop. However, he only uses his bazooka in basic combat, his "Operation: Wipeout" is where he fires off his collection of weapons at once...much to the ire of his squadmates, who get caught in the crossfire.
- Ashuramaru of the Kibao Clan has a basket of various swords and spears, and axes he keeps on his back, which he uses when he shows that he's Multi-Armed and Dangerous.
- Trigun:
- Nicholas Wolfwood carries around an arsenal of weapons in a giant metal cross: the long end houses a machine gun, the short end a rocket launcher, and each arm is a rack for four handguns.
- Meryl Stryfe normally walks around with a cape that conceals 50 single-shot derringers.
- Marvel's Ares was one of these when starting out. Once he heard his son got kidnapped he opened a wardrobe in his house and pulled out everything from bazookas to Excalibur itself. Though nowadays he's gone back to his big axe.
- In Atomic Robo, Dr. Dinosaur makes his entrance covered in guns, rocket launchers and a cooler full of grenades. In the RPG adaptation, he can whip guns out of apparently nowhere on the grounds that they were always there, you just didn't notice them.
- Batman: Batman is an obvious example. They're often more utilities than weapons in the comics, but the movies and video games in particular show off an impressive number of traps and gadgets to supplement bad guy nabbing. This applies to the entire Bat Family.
- Cable tends to like this trope. The bulk of his telepathic and telekinetic powers are used to keep his techno-organic virus at bay. His real superpower might as well be "carrying lots of firearms and somehow being able to keep his spine intact." Oh, and pouches. Sweet, delicious pouches. In one 90s Crisis Crossover, Cable is depicted carrying half a dozen guns at once. They're each bigger than he is. And Cable is a very large man. It could be explained as being lifted by his telekinesis.
- Fellow Rob Liefeld creation and long-term partner Deadpool is similarly festooned. He's got swords, guns, grenades, shurikens, and so on in pouches.
- DC Anti-Villain/Anti-Hero Deathstroke tends to never have less than two weapons on him at any time. Most commonly he's only shown using either his Cool Sword pistol, but it's not unusual for Deathstroke to be carrying pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles, etc... all at the same time.
- Arsenal, the giant, weapon filled robot that fought the Doom Patrol certainly lived up to his name.
- Green Arrow: Roy has this as a gimmick after he became Arsenal. Initially starting out as a master archer, Roy later upgraded his skillset to include use of knives, billy clubs, hand guns, boomerang, sniper rifles and bolas.
- At one point, Hawkman carries a bunch of weapons on him. An ax, a mace, a net, and a short sword all made their appearances in one story.
- The Punisher is often described as having more guns than some small nations.
- War Machine from the Iron Man comics is a Powered Armor version of this trope (as especially seen in the film version). Note that the regular Iron Man armor is already stuffed with miniaturized weapons; the War Machine suit is overflowing with them... and some of them are not-so-miniaturized; the iconic feature of War Machine is a shoulder-mounted gatling gun. Many versions of the War Machine armor also have a second turret on the other shoulder with a multiple missile launcher on it. The same is also true of his incarnation from Iron Man: Armored Adventures, if not more so.
- Wonder Woman has been written as this when going into a major fight she has time to gear up for, like Medusa's stadium challenge, with writers depicting her as carrying a sword, shield and other weapons in addition to her iconic Lasso of Truth. Her friend and rival Artemis carries a sizable arsenal consisting of an axe, a sword and a bow.
- Fallout: Equestria has the main protagonist, Littlepip, carry no fewer than 2 weapons at all times, and as many as 6 at one point: a revolver capable of punching through most armor (and her weapon of choice), a combat shotgun that sees significant use almost from the start of her adventures, a needle pistol that can poison or paralyze targets, a full-auto assault carbine, an enchanted 3-burst Zebra assault rifle that incinerates her targets, and a sniper rifle that also sees a lot of usage throughout the story. This is ignoring the grenades that she sometimes carries, or the Balefire Eggs she carried around for a while- the only reason she doesn't carry a launcher is because she broke the only one she ever found. And all of this is in spite of the fact that she is exceptionally small-framed. Not even halfway through the entire story, one of her companions even points it out-
Velvet Remedy: The smallest of us is a walking arsenal.
- Assassins on the Discworld are Walking Armouries. This is expected at home and nobody finds it unusual that the usual walking-out dress for an Assassin includes sword (or equivalent cultural weapon), dagger, up to eight throwing knives, blowpipes, darts, a pouch of crossbow quarrels, two pistol crossbows, and anything else they might feel completes the personal selection. But take an Assassin to Planet Earth, to be precise, Pasadena, California, where she encounters the cast of The Big Bang Theory. In The Many Worlds Interpretation, Johanna Smith-Rhodes' personal accessories arouse comment and consternation from her hosts. It takes her a long time to divest herself as a guest at Penny's.
- Persona: The Sougawa Files has its first major fight in Shadow Wilma; she's able to swap out her arms for different weapons and uses a wide variety to combat each member of the Freedom Fighters. In order: an arm cannon, a chainsaw, a sniper rifle with huge bullets, a pair of machine guns, and two "pulse blades".
- A sidestory of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has Gligarman going up against a professional assassin named the Pride Sniper. By the end of their fight, the field around them is littered with weapons all over.
- When arresting a Klingon warrior for assault in The Road Not Taken, Eleya confiscates two d’k tahg, a disruptor pistol, four throwing knives, a cosh, and a pair of grenades that were stuffed down his pants.
"You guarding Ambassador S'taass or occupying the station, taHqeq?"
- The Straw Hats official Gunner in This Bites!, "Angel of Destruction" Conis is a White Beret from Sky Island trained in several different fire arms. Upon reaching the Blue Seas, they gain a level of Super-Strength from the vast increase in oxygen. This lets them carry the bulk of their Sky Island guns on their person in combat. While attacking Enis Lobby, the load out is four pistols, one sawed off shotgun, a blunderbuss converted into a grenade launcher, two riffles, and a burn bazooka.
- Batman: Under the Red Hood: Red Hood even cites the trope by name ("We're a pair of walking armories") while he's fighting Batman at the start of the movie's climax.
- The Big Bad of Kung Fu Panda 2, Shen, has a near limitless supply of knives hidden in his sleeves. Besides those, he's seen whipping out a meteor hammer, sword, and spear at different points in the film. He also has a set of metal Wolverine Claws on each foot.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: "Big" Jack Horner is a wealthy crime boss who has spent his life collecting magical artefacts, and spends the movie lugging them around in his "magic nanny bag" to use at will.
- Justified with the Galactic Rangers in Ratchet & Clank, as their suits allow them to utilize telequipping that warps in any weapon they have from their base's arsenal in Kerwan.
- In TMNT (the 2007 movie), Leonardo ends up tangling with one of Max Winter's Stone General siblings and is sent flying into a stand of various ancient weapons. When he re-emerges, Leo's seen with multiple swords (including a BFS) strapped to his back in addition to his trademark twin katana and tells his foe "Come to Daddy." He loses the extra weapons as the fight goes on, though.
- Qinglong from 14 Blades is never seen without his tricked-out chest filled with weapons. Contained within are the titular fourteen blades, throwing knives, crossbows, a flail, darts, and a garotte. It's also surpisingly light and can be carried on Qinglong's like a backpack, for him to swap weapons in the middle of combat.
- The Boondock Saints has Il Duce, one guy with six guns, who battles the McManus brothers and Rocco.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier: the Winter Soldier typically has a gun in his hands, a gun strapped to his back, maybe two, at least one gun at the belt, 3 pistols strapped to his thighs, a worrying number of knives, and a bionic arm that can bend steel. Given his enhancements, in a way, even his body is a weapon. Virtually every time Steve manages to knock a weapon out of his hands, he reaches down and pulls out another one. Now with proof.
This is all to contrast with Captain America, who, of course, only needs a shield.
- John Matrix in Commando during the final assault. He brings a light machine gun, an Uzi, a shotgun, a pistol, grenades, remote detonated explosives, a 4 barrel rocket launcher, grenades, a ballistic knife, a combat knife, and possibly more. Oh, and was packing a second load of weapons from the armory, before complications lead to him losing those weapons and having to make do with the weapons stated above, so he was likely planning to go in even more heavily armed.
- In preparation for the climactic showdown, Deadpool and friends pack every weapon (and a People magazine) in his apartment, including several SMGs and a few shotguns, plus 3,000 rounds of ammunition, into a Hello Kitty duffel bag. Too bad he leaves the bag in the taxi.
- El Mariachi of Desperado is an interesting variation in that he keeps his entire arsenal hidden inside of a guitar case that he carries with him.
- Barney Ross from The Expendables sometimes qualifies. He doesn't always carry his full arsenal, but in the second film he was packing an assault rifle, a pistol at each hip, another pistol in the small of his back, a big knife, and a pair of brass knuckles. The rest of the team travels well armed as well, but Barney seems to carry the most weapons.
- Ghosts of Mississippi: Downplayed, but Charlie Crisco, one of Bobby's investigators, carries at least three guns, each of which he offers to Bobby out of concern for his safety.
- Nicholas Angel from Hot Fuzz during the street shootout. "Morning."
- In the film I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, one character has a Lock-and-Load Montage where he puts nearly a dozen different guns and pistols on his person. "You can never have enough guns!" he says. Shortly afterwards, he trips, setting off all the guns and putting him out of commission.
- Big-Daddy from Kick-Ass is a superhero who has multiple weapons with him. A pistol, sometimes two small grenades and at least one combat knife. Hit-Girl also qualifies for this. In addition to her blade stick, she has one or two pistols with her and at least one butterfly knife as a throwing knife. However, the sequel shows that they are exceptions to superheroes, most superheroes only fight with one weapon, and at least one even unarmed.
- Javier from The Last Circus becomes the Monster Clown version of this trope.
- Parodied in Loaded Weapon 1 where Colt arms up with as many guns as he can. The full amount of equipment overloads him and he falls down.
- Machete is this, but with machetes and knives instead of guns.
- In Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Max is ordered to disarm upon entering a secure area and it takes a full minute for him to drop all his weapons. It turns out the one thing he brought in with him, a flyswatter, was itself a concealed weapon (an iron rod inside the handle).
- The Matrix: Neo and Trinity's assault on the building where Morpheus is being held is a champion example. "Guns. Lots of guns." He's not kidding — when Neo sheds his Badass Longcoat he's shown to be carrying at least ten guns of various sizes and types.
Security Guard: ...Holy shit.
- The Mummy Trilogy's Rick O'Connell carries at least two pairs of revolvers and semi-automatics on him at all times, in addition to a typical shotgun and a ever-present duffel bag, car trunk or travel chest filled with guns, ammunition, explosives and knives. His son in the third movie is shown to have taken up this habit, with Rick preferring the pre-war classics and the son favouring more advanced WWII-period weaponry.
- The Outlaw Josey Wales: Josey Wales carries four revolvers in various calibers, each with six rounds. Justified in that the film is set in the late 1860s, when revolvers were all cap-and-ball designs that took several minutes to reload.
- In the opening to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End while being disarmed before going to a meeting with The Pirate Lord of Singapore Sao Feng, Elizabeth is shown to have at minimum a knife, four pistols strapped to a vest concealed under her jacket, one much larger gun hidden in the back of her pants, and a hand grenade on her, and that's just the weapons we get to see. This was likely done to show how far she's come since the tough, but upreared and naive young women she was in the first film.
- Split Second (1992): Charley Stone gets chewed out by Chief Thrasher for carrying enough weapons to mow down a crowd, but since he's hunting a Nigh-Invulnerable alien monster, Stone is really being Properly Paranoid.
Trasher: How many weapons are you carrying besides this Hand Cannon I'm holding?
Stone: An M&P15... a Glock .50... and an A3 assault shotgun.
Trasher: I'm surprised you don't have a grenade launcher!
Stone: Couldn't get a permit. - The Star Wars films feature father and son/clone, Jango and Boba Fett with their iconic battle armour designs. Over the course of the films they appear in, each of them is armed with more than one firearm or rifle at a time, an equipment belt, a pair of wrist gauntlets loaded with missiles, blasters, flamethrowers, grapples/whips, dart launchers, and retractable blades, hidden sashes on their legs containing more weapons, a pair of dart launchers located in their kneepads and of course, a jet pack equipped with projectile rockets. And they're among the few who are able to use their weapons and skills to give Jedi a hard time in a fight. Of course, customisation aside, most of this tends to be basic equipment for Mandalorians.
- The Suicide Squad: Bloodsport has a plethora of nanotech-based Ikea Weaponry that he puts to good use throughout the film, consisting of a flail which doubles as a garotte, a flamethrower, a dart-launcher, twin pistols, a Hand Cannon with additional mods that gradually increases it to a BFG, a collapsible katana and a derringer.
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), the first thing that Raphael does before going to rescue his brothers is gather up their weapons and take them with him. Doubles as a Chekhov's Gunman since it also gives the brothers their weapons back for the final battle.
- Transformers Film Series:
- Any given Transformer tends to have at least one gun and one melee weapon, though often more and typically achieved through being a Shapeshifter Weapon formed directly from their hands or shoulders. Some take it to extremes, forming a variety of weapons, Dual Wielding or getting a Mecha Expansion Pack to add even more to their arsenal.
- Optimus Prime accelerates this over the course of the movies. The first movie revealed he had a blade and a gun. The second movie he uses two rifles, two swords and two hooks. The third movie, he carries a trailer that deploys into an armory with filled with gatling guns, missile packs, an axe, a shield, more swords (handheld this time), a flight pack, and more stuff we don't even get a close look at. He also has spiked brass knuckles build-in. This is possibly the most armed Transformer ever.
- Hound from the fourth movie has an assault rifle, two shotguns, two large handguns, two smaller pistols, at least three grenades, and a combat knife. Plus his bullet cigar, which he can and does fire. To top it all off, he wields a triple-minigun (as in three six-barreled miniguns stacked together) as his main weapon. This is replicated faithfully in the toy, and his character model shows much of his body is made up of bandoliers and ammo strips. It actually isn't enough, and towards the end of his massive shootout against the Vehicons runs completely out of ammo and is forced to improvise.
- By the end of Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness, the killer is packing a handgun, a machine gun, knives, a machete, a chainsaw, a spiked club, and a pair of nunchuks.
- Characters in John Woo movies are known for bringing duffel bags or other transportables full of guns to major gunfights, such as Ah Jong and Inspector Li Ying from The Killer (1989)'s church shootout, and the bad guys from Hard Boiled's tea house shootout. This is mainly because characters in John Woo movies tend to throw their guns away instead of reloading.
- Lone Wolf: Not necessarily so, but it's possible for Lone Wolf to be this if the player wants. At best, just going with the special weapons, by the end of the Magnakai series you can carry the magic spear, the Sommerswerd, the Dagger of Vashna, a jeweled mace, the Silver Bow of Duadon or a bronin warhammer (those two are mutually exclusive), an enchanted bullwhip and the Darklord sword Helshezag — all at the same time. Add in how the player probably also has a pair of normal weapons because of all the chances to pick up free ones, and... you can easily imagine any of the scenes preceding the hero being thrown in jail to involve Extended Disarming.
- In Sagard the Barbarian by Gary Gygax, the main character continues with items he picks up over the span of 5 books. He could end up with a valkyrie's longsword, a cutlass and scimitar that are very powerful but inaccurate or inconsistent, a pouch of shurikens and 7 fire darts - magical throwing weapons that explode in a massive lethal fireball.
- In Sorcery!, your character starts off with a sword that's just a bit bigger than a dagger. They'll be able to find or buy several different swords including one that's a blade of legendary quality and one made of silver, a blessed ironwood spear, an axe, a chopping knife, the stinger of a Manticore, a magical silver chain, a bow with some silver arrows and a chakram as well as focus items for your magic. Your character will actually be carrying all these (though some swords can't be carried if you already have a different sword). In the video game adaptation, Sorcery!, your list of carried weapons is even a bit longer, as you keep every sword you get. Plus there were new swords like the Legendary Sword while weapons like the exploding darts didn't make an appearance.
- Stormslayer's protagonist just might be the most heavily armed Fighting Fantasy character ever. The hero starts off with a magic sword Wyrmbiter and through adventuring and the marketplace - can get a crossbow and blunderbuss with as much ammo as they can buy, a warhammer, a magical crystalline mace and a bow with arrows.
- Wizards, Warriors and You: The Warrior can carry a respectable arsenal of 4 weapons, with one always being the legendary relic the Sword of the Golden Lion (an enchanted sword from the same maker as the Excalibur!). But the Warrior has a much larger list of weapons that he can choose from whenever he gets the opportunity to go to his armoury room, with weapons that range from master-crafted mundane items and experimental weapons to magical artifacts that are almost as legendary as the Sword of the Golden Lion.
- Animorphs:
- Hork-Bajir are a literal example, frequently described by the Animorphs with variations on "eight-foot-tall walking razor blades". They have natural blades growing from all of their limbs, sharp horns on their heads, and claws on their hands, and because of this the Yeerks favor them as shock troops. However, in their natural state they're harmless herbivores: the blades are all for stripping bark from trees.
- The Howlers in are heavily armed (even described by Jake as "walking arsenals") beings created by Crayak for the purpose of destroying sentient life.
- Butler from Artemis Fowl provided the former page quote (see the Quotes section).
- Sol of All Weapons, in Piers Anthony's Battle Circle trilogy, employs a wheelbarrow to carry all of the weapons he is proficient in.
- In A Brother's Price, the Whistler sisters are this. They have mostly guns, but also daggers and garrotes. Their brother Jerin, the protagonist, is a bit less heavily armed, but he still has a Chastity Dagger and a little gun. Just in case. This habit of the family leads to an Extended Disarming scene when they visit the royal palace, and decide to really disarm, out of respect for their hosts. (Most of their weapons are hidden.)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Tales Of The Slayer: Ch'ing Shih carries a sword, a shotgun, two pistols he keeps in shoulder holsters, and a stake in his boot.
- In Cryptonomicon, Bobby Shaftoe is on a plane musing that the pilots are "fucking armed to the teeth. Like they were expecting to have to kill twenty or thirty people on their way from the airplane to the latrine and back." This is followed by a detailed description of the various weapons he has to remove from his own person to get comfortable enough to get some sleep.
- Discworld:
- In Pyramids, Teppic's Lock-and-Load Montage ends with him falling over from the weight.
- Members of the Assassins' Guild (which Teppic is) can be expected to be walking armories. They're described in Men at Arms as having hidden within their clothing any number of tools for killing people.
- Also in Men at Arms, Nobby raids an armory, trying to come out with, among others, a flamethrower on wheels. But Carrot makes him put it back.
- In books dealing heavily with dwarf culture, the basic daily clothes of a dwarf include mail and a battle axe, with additional weapons and armor for specific jobs as necessary. Cheery Littlebottom, one of the first openly-female dwarfs, soon realizes the need for different kinds of axes, e.g. that would fit in a bag suitable for evening wear. Dwarf street toughs in Ankh-Morpork, meanwhile, especially as tensions with trolls rise, start carrying a lot more than the traditional battle axe, a form of macho swagger derisively called "clang". By contrast, the personal guard of the dwarf ruler pointedly carry only one axe each.
- In the Dragaera novels, Vlad Taltos and other Jhereg assassins carry a wide variety of weapons hidden about their persons. Vlad carries a sword, a magical chain, a garrote and selection of knives.
- Orson Gregory in The Dreamside Road actively collects weapons. He regularly carries his sword of fire, a blaster, assorted non-lethal defenses, and can use his repulsor boot in combat. This list doesn’t include the weapons he leaves stored on the Aesir.
- Ex-Heroes: In Badass Normal Mauve Shirt Ilya's first chronological appearance (a flashback in Ex-Isle) he's been surviving on his own for several weeks with a pistol, rifle, and baseball bat (which he uses when a gunshot would attract swarms of exes who aren't already aware of his presence).
- War in The Heritage of Shannara and Risca in First King of Shannara. It's justified in both cases, as the former is a Horseman of the Apocalypse and comes armed accordingly, while the latter is a Warrior Druid and channels his magic through his weaponry.
- InCryptid: Among the Price family, the record for most weapons hidden on a single person is 53, held by Evelyn, who is good at hiding darts in her hair. However, Thomas's record is rumored to be in the triple digits.
- In The Legend of Eli Monpress, Josef Liechten is said to carry enough weapons to outfit a small armoury. This leads to a few Extended Disarming scenes as well.
- Liaden Universe:
- Agents of Change, the assassin-spies of the Department of the Interior, carry an enormous number of weapons, most of them disguised as everyday objects or incorporated into their clothing.
- In a scene in Dragon in Exile, Nelirikk, a career soldier turned bodyguard, carrying four handguns, six knives, crowd control explosives, arm-chains and razor wire — and this is his basic everyday complement when he's not expecting trouble.
- Played for Laughs in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Corabb, after joining the Bonehunters, begins hauling around almost more weapons than he can carry. At one point that includes: four spears, two javelins, a single-edged sword, a longsword, two sticker knives, a brace of gutters, a shield, a crossbow and twenty-seven quarrels. And one sharpernote . It becomes a Running Gag in his squad how he tends to either lose or break one of his weapons and come back dragging more of them.
- This is exactly what is expected of an average shadowhunter in The Mortal Instruments. In addition to their preferred weapon, they also carry seraph blades, but often they also have throwing knives or other secondary weapons with them. Isabelle Lightwood takes it to the extreme. Nephilim are trained to be able to fight unarmed in an emergency.
- In Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, Sam and Mary are agents of an organization that is fighting an Alien Invasion of creatures which attach themselves to your spine and control your mind. The only way for other people be to be sure that you don't have one of these attached is to strip naked and stay that way. When Sam disrobes he puts aside several weapons in a pile. When Mary disrobes she does the same, but her stack of weapons is significantly larger than Sam's stack. As Sam puts it, "I guess she just likes weapons".
- Redwall: In Rakkety Tam, one of the squirrels and a vole raid the vermin's encampment, coming back with more weapons than they can wield correctly, making about how to defeat the enemy just by falling over.
- In one of Peter David's Star Trek: The Next Generation novels, a diplomatic contingent from the Klingons come aboard, and every one of them is carrying at least a dozen weapons. Not really shocking, as we're dealing with the Proud Warrior Race where Asskicking Leads to Leadership. Then someone gets the idea to ask Worf how many weapons he has on him — thirteen. This on a Starfleet uniform with no pockets and few hiding spots. A later scene (where he gets "acquainted" with one of the Klingon female diplomats) reveals that he only left twelve on the floor during sex.
- Chase in The Sword of Truth has been described to carry enough weapons for a small army. When asked if he'll really need all of them, he answers "I know that if I leave any behind, I will." That being said he's willing to lend a long knife to an unarmed woman traveling with him.
- In "Tobias the Terrible" by Damon Runyon, the general public is led to believe that Tobias "Twelve-Gun" Tweeney is one of these — although the guns weren't his, and he can't even take a single step without falling over.
- Volume 1, chapter 5 of Violet Evergarden shows that Violet is one of these, although the story was not adapted to the anime. Readers find out just how many weapons she carries when she has to undergo an Extended Disarming sequence. Apparently, she carries knives in her boots, a gun up her sleeve, spare bullets and another knife strapped to her leg and 3 golden coloured needles from her blonde hair leading to this line "Are there really... no more weapons?". Plus, she herself was trained to be a living weapon during her time in the army. All of this is justified as a war had ended not long ago and some areas would be dangerous for a woman travelling alone.
- The angel Jayt in Wars of the Realm is his team's resident weapons specialist. He wears a trench coat loaded with all kinds of translated weapons and is a master of each of them (even grenades, making him the first angel to translate and use explosive successfully).
- Jayne Cobb tends to be this way during jobs in Firefly. Besides his signature big gun Vera, he carries a couple of smaller guns, knives, and if Mal will let him, some grenades.
- Kamen Rider Gaim:
- The titular character's ultimate form, Kiwami Arms, has this as its gimmick; while it lacks a unique weapon of its own, it can summon practically every other weapon seen in the show. note On top of that, it also lets Gaim engage in Dual Wielding to a ludicrous extent: Lance and shield? Sure! Dual-wield spears? Why not? Dual-wield bows? Go for it! He also has some degree of ability to control summoned weapons telekinetically.
- Kamen Rider Ryugen from the same series has his own ultimate form, the Ryugen Yomi Yomotsuheguri Arms, which can summon the Budou Ryuhou, Kiwi Gekirin, and every weapon used by the Over Lords.
- The title character of The Mandalorian, like others of his culture. His normal arsenal includes a blaster pistol, disruptor rifle with attached shock prod, vibroknife, and bracer-mounted whipcord and flamethrower. While his armor is upgraded in episode 3 he has needle-sized missiles called "whistling birds" added to his left bracer. He doesn't have a jetpack, though some of his tribe's warriors come to his aid on jetpacks and he comments, "I've got to get one of those." In the first season finale, he does. In season 2, he also claims a beskar spear and the Darksaber.
- Tested in the Video Game Special episode of MythBusters, when Adam and Jamie duplicate a level based on Doom to see if a person could actually carry the amount of weaponry typically seen in a first person shooter. When Adam and Jamie attempted the course, it took them about twice as long when they had to carry each weapon as opposed to just dumping each gun as they found a new one. Then they asked a professional MMA fighter to try the course and he only took an extra three seconds to complete the course carrying all the weapons. The myth was declared "plausible" assuming that the individual is in extremely good physical condition.
- A few incarnations of the Battlizer
(a Mid-Season Upgrade Super Mode exclusively for the Red Ranger) from Power Rangers could qualify. note
- Stargate Atlantis shows Ronon. In addition to his laser gun, he also has several knives with him. In one episode, Shephard ironically asks him how to get through an airport control.
- On cylinder seals, the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar was usually depicted as carrying a weapon in her hand and as many as six more on her back, reflecting her War God status.
- Magnus of The Adventure Zone: Balance carries up to six weapons on his person over the course of the series: Railsplitter, The Chance Lance, a rapier, a shortbow and quiver, his grandpa's pocket knife, and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom, as well as the Shield of Heroic Memories and the Phantom Fist.
- When Shibuya from Roll to Breathe is in an armory and needs to decide which weapon to take to combat a superpowered mercenary, she takes every single weapon in the room.
- 1001 Science Fiction Weapons for D20 Modern Future has two weapons pods full of weapons, which fit over your forearm; the older model has a laser, shotgun, grenades, tangler, rockets and flamer, albeit with small payloads, and looks more like the one in The Fifth Element. The newer type has only one variable barrel, but can fire several different kinds of energy weapon blasts.
- Early BattleTech had this when you got down to the personal level in Mechwarrior, its RPG companion. Initially, there were only three weapons skills: bows and blades, pistols, and rifles. As might be guessed, these were so broad that they ended up applying to a huge variety of weapons and players could, theoretically, carry a gun for almost every occasion. Due to their light weight, it wasn't unheard of for a player with pistol skill to go around town with a revolver, an automatic pistol, a laser pistol, a gyrojet pistol, a needler pistol, and a flamer pistol close to hand simultaneously just in case your opponenets had anti-laser armor or bulletproof (but not flame retardant) vests. Players with rifle skills probably stood closest to this trope, as that skill controlled the use of shotguns, assault rifles, SMGs, sniper rifles, laser rifles, and heavy weapons. Such a character could conceivably pick up any two-handed weapon and be equally proficient in it, leading to scenarios where a sufficiently brawny individual would carry a shotgun, an SMG, a disposable rocket launcher, and keep a rifle somewhere handy just in case some sniping was necessary. Later games split weapons skill down further to finer degrees of specialization while raising the weight of armor and weapons, so this trope became (somewhat) less prevalent as time progressed.
- Zigzagged with Games Workshop's Chainsaw Warrior and its sequel Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of Night, the Chainsaw Warrior has certain limits regarding his arsenal - he must start with the Laser Lance, he can only take from one primary gun and one heavy weapon choice and in the sequel he can only have one type of chainsaw (the first game only had one chainsaw type) but he can take any amount of melee weapons and other gear up to the point limit in his arsenal or equipment stash/air drop. So the Warrior could be carrying a knife, chainsaw, nets, stun knuckles and more in addition to his laser lance plus a gun and BFG.
- In the Champions setting Dark Champions, the vigilante superhero Harbinger of Justice uses a Hyperspace Arsenal to store his many weapons.
- The Cortex System game Demon Hunters has an advantage with this name. It allows a character to draw an extra weapon or item that they didn't previously have from somewhere about their person.
- Most melee fighters in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd and 3.5 edition. Most mid-level fighters are liable to carry around the following: A) A spiked chain. You gotta have a spiked chain. Alternatively, some other big two-handed sword/axe for a main weapon. B) A secondary two-handed or one-handed weapon in case the first is disarmed/sundered, commonly of a special material (see G). Shield may be included. C) A mace to deal with skeletal undead. D) A dagger/short sword/handaxe for grappling (or both). E) If not covered under D, a handaxe for chopping wood and hacking down doors. F) A bow for those rare moments when an enemy is beyond sword range. G) Any number of weapons/arrows with obscure special materials/enchantments to get around some of the more exotic damage reductions, as long as these do not overlap with weapons A-F. These include but are not limited to: Adamantium, cold iron, silvered, aligned, and/or dealing blunt, slashing or piercing damage (in any given combinations).
- Battle-hydra Dawn Castes in Exalted who do have the Charms for using multiple weapons but don't have Elsewhere storage Charms tend to fall into this. When a big burly Dawn turns up with a sky-cutter, powerbow, daiklave and smashfists strapped to various locations on his body, you know you're not going to have a fun time.
- The "Full Metal Nutball" character class in Feng Shui (based on Burt Gummer) bring along several longarms and pistols to any confrontation (as a matter of fact, they are the class that gets the most starting guns) and they get a special rule (which can only be used for Rule of Funny) in which every time they have to take off all of their gear, they will always forget about some (up-to-that-moment non-existent) hidden gun.
- The Trope Namer is a perk from GURPS that lets a character avoid the issue of where and how he carries all of his guns, no matter how many he has or how big they are.
- Magic: The Gathering has a couple situations, both lore-wise and gameplay-wise, that result in this.
- There is no limit on how much equipment or enchantments can be attached to a creature card. A single creature could be equipped with several suits of armor, several swords, a pair of shuko, a jitte, some shuriken, a couple of bows, a razor whip, a couple of spears, some bladed bracers, a silver skinning knife, Torches and Pitchforks, wooden stakes, the head of a Gorgon, some warhammers, nets, a chainsaw, a giant hammer, brass knuckles, a magic-powered tommy gun and some magical rings. On top of that the creature wields them all at once and gets every mechanical benefit from all of them. Yes, even if the creature is a Wurm and doesn't have hands. Best not to think too hard about it.
- The card art of Ink Eyes, Servant of Oni is a rat ninja wielding a broadsword in the off hand, a guandao with a kusarigama on the end in her main hand, Wolverine Claws, and at the tip of her tail, a shuriken. From the look of things she has little trouble using every one to deadly effect.
- The Professional in Monster of the Week can turn up with three guns and possible Weird Tech Gadgets, while the Initiate can show up with a mixture of modern guns and old-fashioned medieval weaponry (including silver knives).
- Many Rifts giant robots are quite like this, though there are a few which have only a few weapons; then again, many Rifts robots have multiple crew. Powered armour suits, such as the Glitter Boy Killer, can seriously bristle with weapons; one wonders how they could possibly fit worthwhile weapons and ammo storage onto them, let alone how the pilot manages them all in a fight. Full-conversion 'borg, being nearly as big as a powered armour unit, can also have several weapons installed, each; the standard Manhunter alone is not only most commonly sold with a railgun, but is also armed with mini-missiles on the back, has energy weapons concealed in the legs... The cyborg creation options allow for all manner of weapons to be installed on your very body.
- Expatriette from Sentinels of the Multiverse. Dual pistols Pride and Prejudice, a submachine gun, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a rocket launcher, a Bulletproof Vest, liquid nitrogen rounds, incendiary rounds, hollow point rounds, shock rounds... And a card that lets her use all of her weapons in a single turn.
- Shadowrun has a claim to this trope via cyberware and drones. A character can install numerous holsters or integral weapons into their person, allowing a character to, at any moment, pull a heavy caliber pistol out of their arse. That last gets used as an example because one character completely derailed a GM's story by pulling a gun out of his ass to shoot the guy holding him hostage. GM was a good sport about it, though.
- Warhammer 40,000, as if the image for the More Dakka page wasn't a good enuff illustration.
- Taken to quite literal levels with Chaos Obliterators, whose bodies have been mutated by the Obliterator Virus, enabling them to generate weapons ranging from powerfists to lascannons (though the line between the weapon and obliterator is blurry, as the weapons are more of an extra limb, rather than separate item from user), as well as ammunition to said weapons.
- The skirmish game Necromunda, set in the same universe, provides us with "Ammo Jacks", hireable team members that carry absurd amounts of ammunition with them wherever they go (which is quite proudly displayed on its figure
) — in game rules, they are literally this, providing fellow team members that are close to him with ammo to reload their weapons.
- And the RPG Only War has an interesting one in the Weapon Specialist character type, who can buy the "Armsman" upgrade for his NPC comrade that makes him a walking armoury — basically, he can load the comrade up with "all of the necessary weapons" which the comrade will then pass to him as needed, enabling him to switch between them as a Free Action. While in theory this should only mean the character's issued equipment, between the black market and battle trophies there's no upper limit to how many guns, knives, close combat weapons, and grenades the Armsman could be carrying into battle. And because of the way comrades are handled, none of this will affect his ability to keep up with the PC on the march, or to be exactly as athletic and stealthy as the PC.
- Warhammer Fantasy:
- The mercenary Regiment of Renown, Long Drong's Slayer Pirates. They have a special rule, "Festooned with Pistols."
- Black Orcs, similarly, has a special rule called "armed to da teef", and regular slayers have the "slayer axes" rule. In both cases this rule means they're lugging around enough pointy things to let them decide which weapon they want to use every round of melee combat, and in the black orcs' case use a standard hand weapon and shield combo (for the defensive benefits) which would normally be illegal as long as the unit has a different weapon set.
- In the Warhammer Quest Gaiden Game the Imperial Noble character tended to do this. A large chunk of his utility was based around guns which had long reload times and no limit on how many he could carry. Consequently it was more useful to just buy lots of guns and then reload them between fights.
- The advanced career Champion in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay requires at least six Best-quality weapons. As some of the game's greatest warriors, they're likely to be both a Multi-Melee and Multi-Ranged Master with extensive training in various specialist weapons — though the sheer expense of that kind of armoury is almost as impressive.
- The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG: Sword Hunter
is shown with an arming sword, a saber, a katana, a short sword, a jambiya, and a big greatsword worn on his back. This in addition to a spiky helmet with a sword-shaped nosepiece. There's also The Hunter with 7 Weapons,
whose effect implies each weapon is meant to be used against a specific type of enemy.
- The Frame Arms line of model kits made by Kotobukiya, and its Mecha Musume successor Frame Arms Girls, are modular designs covered with 3mm ports which you can attach various parts to. While armor from other Frame Arms kits will work, Kotobukiya also produces a very extensive range of weapons, armor, and other equipment made for use with these ports under their Modeling Support Goods line. Since most of these equipment parts have more 3mm ports of their own, you can keep attaching as many BFGs to your Frame Arms Girl as you like.
- The Transformers:
- Initially, Transformers toys were primarily given only one or two weapons that could be held in their hands, but as the years went on Hasbro realized that as the toys were robots, they could add considerably more weaponry to an individual figure. The City-bots from G1 (Metroplex, Trypticon, Fortress Maximus, and Scorponok) all had numerous guns strapped to their arms, shoulders, and various other points while in robot mode, like Fortress Maximus's infamous leg cannons. This got expanded over the years, with toylines like Beast Wars featuring the gimick of having characters who were equipped with many flip-out weapons.
- After 2009 Hasbro started adding multiple weapon ports to the toys from various Transformers lines to encourage swapping weapons between individual figures. While the 5mm round ports were present in T Fs for a long time at that point, the new figures also added 3mm ports and a two-sized "C-clip" weapon system that allowed to hook up further accessories to small rails scattered on the toys' bodies; and many new weapons included additional weapon slots themselves. This meant that depending on a given toy one could easily create a One Robot Army if they had the proper selection of weapons at disposal, and on some figures the additional loadout could easily catch up to the said toy in terms of bulk and mass.
- Taken literally in the Seige subline, which featured a new type of Deluxe class toy: the Weaponizer. Weaponizers are Deluxe-sized figures whose bodies are actually made up of weapons and other accessories- they can be taken apart and plugged into 5mm ports on other figures to give them a massive amount of firepower.
- Assassin's Creed:
- Assassin's Creed: First as a Master Assassin, and then as he climbs the ranks back to his former station, Altair is a master of several weapons, including a sword, a dagger, throwing knives, and a hidden blade.
- Starting with Assassin's Creed II, Ezio Auditore takes it a step further by carrying a second hidden blade (potentially filled with poison) and a gun. He also apparently can use any weapon he can find with equal effectiveness, from a dagger to a giant axe or a spear. Next in Brotherhood, he gains a crossbow and can throw heavy weapons with deadly accuracy. Finally, in Revelations he expands to carrying up to 15 bombs of different types and configurations. And people wonder why guards get suspicious of a guy wearing a hood and carrying an arsenal on his person. He also has no trouble using Leonardo da Vinci's inventions (tank, bomber, boat-mounted artillery, machine gun) without even reading the manual.
- Naturally, Assassin's Creed III shows that Connor is more of the same, with the arsenal expanded to include a bow and a second holstered gun. Tomahawks can also be carried in place of daggers and Revolutionary-era bayonet-equipped muskets replace spears and two-handed swords.
- The tradition continues in Assassins Creed IV, where a fully upgraded Edward Kenway carries two swords, the traditional concealed blades of the assassins, four pistols, a dartgun with two different kinds of poisoned darts, rope darts and smoke bombs. Being set during the Golden Age of Piracy, this trope could also arguably be added to his ship the Jackdaw which can be upgraded with so many weapons systems that it easily outguns ships that are many times its size.
- Assassin's Creed Rogue uses a similar loadout to Black Flag, letting Shay Cormac brandish a sword and dagger, two pistols, the rope darts and smoke bombs, and an air rifle with a grenade launcher in addition to the hidden blades. His ship the Morrigan also follows after the Jackdaw in being outfitted with so many cutting-edge technologies at its strongest as to be punching way above its weight class and win.
- The series starts downplaying the trope in Assassin's Creed: Unity, with Arno being limited to a single weapon (sword, spear, or axe) and a single pistol (due to being in an era where guns can carry more than one shot each), or else a single rifle, blunderbuss, or guillotine gun (all of which function for both close combat and gunfire), and a single hidden blade with a retractable crossbow function.
- Assassin's Creed Syndicate averts the trope entirely, as openly carrying weapons has gone from common practice to illegality in Victorian London, and the Frye twins must resort to fighting with easy-to-conceal knuckles, cane swords, and kukris, along with carrying a single pistol under their coats.
- Assassin's Creed Origins choosing to backpedal on the temporal scale to Ptolemaic Egypt causes the trope to come back in full as well; a fully-upgraded Bayek can carry two melee weapons (which, if you opt to take a perk allowing for quick-swapping, then equipping two pairs of daggers, means four blades), two bows, a shield, a pouch of smoke bombs, a pouch of poisoned throwing knives, the (chronologically) first hidden blade, and a torch.
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey plays similarly to Origins. Set in Ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War, the Misthios Alexios/Kassandra can master many types of weapons but are limited to equipping two at a time, either a two-handed weapon, a one-handed weapon that pairs with the Spear of Leonidas as a dagger, along with a bow.
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla makes it so Eivor can equip one of many melee weapons in his/her main hand and equip another weapon in their off-hand, including two long-handled axes wielded one-handed or two shields, along with a bow. They are also granted a single over-handed Hidden Blade too.
- A mod for the Half-Life mod Azure Sheep gives Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shephard this.
- BloodRayne opts for a Hyperspace Arsenal by default, though you can switch to Walking Armory by typing in a particular code (showmemyweapons) in the cheat code menu. The end result is a scantily-clad dhampyr stomping about with eight weapons strapped all around her (ranging from Luger P-08s to full size FG-42s and MP-40s) and a special weapon (which may be the MG-08, the single largest weapon in the game). Hilarity ensues when Rayne starts doing cartwheels with well over a hundred kilograms of metal strapped to her.
- In Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King, the heroine can accumulate an impressive stockpile of weapons, techniques, and spells. So much so, in fact, that several attacks are effectively minor variations on each other.
- Borderlands: Once you've unlocked the maximum number of gun slots, you can have four guns hanging on your back and/or hip. These are just the ones in active use; you can swap them for other guns in your inventory basically at will unless you're in Fight For Your Life mode. And since almost every item you can pick up (the exceptions being the occasional shield and class mod), you'll likely have dozens of guns on you at any time.
- Bravely Second has the Charioteer job class, which allows its user to equip a weapon in their head or body armour slot and use them and whatever they've got in their hands in succession. Every time they attack with a weapon, their proficiency with it rises. When Cú Chulainn, the bearer of the Charioteer asterisk, is captured late in the game and disarmed, the resulting pile of weapons is bigger than any of his captors.
- Mentioned directly by Kyle Katarn of the Dark Forces Saga, who acknowledges that by the end of most of his adventures he was better armed than most Imperial platoons—he would end up carrying no less than 9 different weapons at any given time. He would commonly tote his lightsaber, a blaster pistol, a blaster rifle, thermal detonators, a repeater gun (SMG equivalent), land mines, a rocket launcher, and a concussion rifle (sort of an explosive beam weapon), to say nothing of the various unique weapons appearing in each of the titles he appears in. The tendency to pick up and use a lot of guns would be passed on to his student, Jaden Korr.
- Dark Souls II: The Pursuer, who echoes the standard Dark Souls player character in a bunch of ways, echoes the player's no-doubt cluttered Hyperspace Arsenal of miscellaneous weapons claimed from dead enemies and random corpses by carrying around a bunch of swords and axes in a giant quiver on his back, presumably taken from undead he's killed. He never actually uses any of them, however, preferring his BFS.
- Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Aside to wielding a sword, Gun's ranged attacks involve Guns Akimbo, a shotgun and a machinegun. And that's before he learns any technician magic.
- Devil May Cry:
- Dante usually tends to carry around a dozen guns and Devil Arms by the end of every game.
- Lady from Devil May Cry 3 is a walking arsenal herself, always seen carrying several pistols, submachine guns, grenades and her iconic rocket launcher, the Kalina Ann.
- Diablo IV:
- Barbarians are armed with four weapons at once. Two one-handed weapons on their hips for Dual Wielding, a two-handed bludgeoning weapon, and a two-handed slashing weapon, both on their backs. Each skill a Barbarian can use either requires one of the specific weapon groups or gains bonuses for using a specific weapon.
- The Rogue carries two bladed weapons at their hips, a bow or crossbow on their back, and a hidden collection of traps and explosives on their person.
- In Dissidia Final Fantasy, as a Mythology Gag to Final Fantasy II's unique experience-gaining system, Firion wields virtually every equippable weapon from that game (a sword, knives, a bow & arrow, an axe, a lance, a spellcasting rod, and a shield) in honor of his crew. Unlike the other heroes, who summon and disperse their weapons at will, Firion decides to be a man and wear 'em all at once. He's the slowest of the Warriors of Cosmos, and understandably so.
- Being the father of the First-Person Shooter, it's no surprise that Doomguy lugs around more than his fair share of ordnance, even if he's been outclassed a bit nowadays. At full strength, he's carrying a pistol, brass knuckles, a chainsaw, a shotgun, a chaingun, a rocket launcher, a rapid-fire plasma rifle, and the BFG-9000, plus plentiful ammo for all of them - double that if he finds a backpack along the way. And come the sequel, he still finds room in his arsenal to squeeze in the Super Shotgun too.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- Every Player Character in the series can be this, walking around with a Hyperspace Arsenal of swords, axes, blunt weapons, staves, bows, daggers, and more. The only limit is the player character's Strength, though having high skill scores and the right perks will help you to actually be effective with the weapons.
- In Skyrim, normally only one equipped weapon is actually shown on character, but there is undocumented option to make multiple weapons show up. With it, character can carry one two-handed weapon (like greatsword, battleaxe or warhammer), one bow or crossbow with quiver, two one-handed weapons (like sword, axe or mace), and a dagger at the same time.
- From the Final Fantasy series in general, although starting with Final Fantasy V, is Gilgamesh, a fiend sorcerer and samurai general who simultaneously wields eight different weapons in his eight arms. He normally sports a collection of swords (Excalibur and Excalipoor being his go-to, with Masamune and Zantetsuken close behind) but has also been seen wielding spears, axes, daggers, bows, and automatic rifles; depending on the game he makes a cameo in.
- Grand Theft Auto:
- The various protagonists in the series can generally carry every type of weapon available in the game with the only stipulation being, you can only carry one of each category of weapon. This means the play can armed with one melee weapon, a pistol, a sub-machine gun, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, either grenades, Molotov Cocktails, or some kind of Sticky Bomb, and one heavy weapon.
- Grand Theft Auto V completely threw the "One weapon per slot" restriction out the window. So assuming a player has all the DLC, they can be walking around with up to: 11 melee weapons, 11 handguns, 5 shotguns, 6 SMGs, 2 LMGs, 5 assault rifles, 3 sniper rifles, 2 rocket launchers, a grenade launcher, a minigun, a musket, 25 frag grenades, 25 tear gas grenades, 25 sticky bombs, 25 Molotov cocktails, 5 proximity mines, a jerry can, and 9,999 rounds of ammunition for most weapon types. And this list does not even include some of the limited-edition special weapons, such as the railgun.
- Lord Francisca from Half-Minute Hero, who appears in the appropriately-named quest Infinite Weapon Lord. She's seated on a chest with a mass of various weapons at her back, and will actually steal that quest's weapons if you aren't quick enough.
- As mentioned above, DC assassin Deathstroke often fits this trope. In Injustice: Gods Among Us he is equipped with a sword, an assault rifle with under-barrel grenade launcher, a pair of submachineguns, four handguns, and a vast number of explosives to blow up interactive objects. And a knife.
- Rico Rodriguez in Just Cause 2 and subsequent games will show all his weapons on his person. This means he can be visibly carrying (for example) a grenade launcher, shotgun, bazooka, C4, grappling hook, and minigun at the same time.
- League of Legends features Jinx, the Loose Cannon, who wields the largest amount of visible weapons on a person at a time in the game (which, considering the amount of playable characters in the game, is quite an accomplishment). She carries a machine gun strapped over her shoulder and next to her waist, a rocket launcher on her back, an electric pistol and loads of additional bullets on her belt, with additional bear-trap grenades and rockets from hyperspace. What makes this arsenal especially notable is that Jinx is also the leanest and most petite woman in the game.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Link, especially in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Official art for the game shows him carrying all of his equipment—which includes the Master Sword, a Hylian shield, a Precision-Guided Boomerang, the hookshot, a bow and arrows, among others—on his back.
- Invoked for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild where the developers wanted to recreate how Link appeared in his artwork from the very first game carrying every possible item. In this game, Link can be seen with a sword, a shield, a bow and quiver of arrows, and his Sheikah Slate.
- The protagonists in The Mark of Kri and its sequel Rise of the Kasai all carry at least four weapons at any given time, generally in golf bag-style leather packs on their back.
- Mass Effect is notable for having this be visible during gameplay: all four guns can be seen on you and your Squad Mates: assault and sniper rifles are on the back, pistols on the side of the leg and shotguns at the base of the spine (moved to the right leg in Andromeda). As a result, seeing the butts of your assault and sniper rifes sticking up above the shoulder is almost as iconic as the N7 stripe!
- In the first game, every member of your party would carry a handgun, a shotgun, an assault-rifle and a sniper-rifle on them at all times (regardless of whether they had the actual talents for them). They're all "collapsible", but they still wind up with their backs utterly covered in guns. It's mostly for show, since the squad can typically only use one or two effectively. The exception is Ashley Williams, who is unique among the first game's squad for being able to use all weapon types effectively.
- In one of the conversations before the Eden Prime mission, Shepard can describe Nihlus as "carrying enough weapons to kill an entire squad." He doesn't have more guns than Shepard, but he doesn't have fewer, either.
- In the sequel, this has been dialed down noticeably - each NPC only carries 2 weapons from the list (now with one more weapon type, SMGs), while most PCs carry 3 or 4 weapons at most. But Soldier!Shepard actually takes it even further than before. Not only does s/he carry each of the above-mentioned weapon (except the SMG as the assault rifles basically fill that role), s/he also carries a "Heavy Weapon" of choice, which can range from a Flamethrower or a Lightning-Bolt Gun to a Portable Nuke Launcher. (Infiltrator!Shepard and Vanguard!Shepard can reach a similar level of ridiculousness if he/she picks an additional Weapon Specialization in the Collector Ship, instead of upgrading to a better Sniper Rifle/Shotgun. Soldier!Shepard just gets the choice between the aforementioned Sniper/Shotgun upgrades, and trading in an Assault-Rifle for a Heavy Machinegun.)
- In the third game, Shepard can quite happily go into battle carrying a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, an SMG, a shotgun, and a pistol should they so choose, provided they don't mind the severe penalty to their power recharge time from all that weight. Should Shepard happen upon a heavy weapon during a mission, this leaves them carrying SIX guns, which is more firepower than they'll probably ever need.
- Mass Effect: Andromeda continues letting you carry weapons on your back with the Mass Effect 3 rules, but for the first time each slot doesn't have a pre-determined type, meaning Ryder and walk around wearing four copies of the biggest gun in the game!
- Mega Man:
- Mega Man 5 introduces us to Napalm Man,
who is essentially a human-sized tank. Mars
from Mega Man V (the Game Boy Rockman World series) would appear to be an expy of him, albeit not quite as armed.
- In Mega Man X: Command Mission, X's Ultimate Armor is—by far
—the most heavily-equipped Armor in the entire franchise. By the time you obtain it, however, you (possibly) won't even need it.
- Vile in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X starts out with Vulcan in his fingers, a Shoulder Cannon, and Napalm launchers in his knees. As he defeats more and more bosses he gains access to new weapons like cutters, lasers, flamethrowers, Rocket Punches, missiles, among others (though he can only equip three at once per mission).
- Mega Man 5 introduces us to Napalm Man,
- While averted in the game itself, a promotional poster for Metal Slug has Marco wearing an absolutely huge rucksack filled to overflowing with dakka.
- Similarly, Kurtis Stryker from Mortal Kombat is known for never hesitating to bring a gun to a fistfight. In Mortal Kombat 9 he’s got two pistols, two police batons, a taser, a flashlight durable enough to crack a person’s skull, and a load of grenades. And a SMG, though he lost it in the very first cutscene of his chapter.
- MouseHunt has the Master of the Cheese Fang.
- In the Gundam video game MS Saga: A New Dawn, there are two skills that reward you for turning your Mobile Suits into Walking Armories; one that lets you fire every ranged weapon you have equipped all at once, and one that does the same but adds in an attack with your melee weapon at the end. They have the potential to be perhaps the most damaging attacks in the game, so it's well worth your while to load up your Mobile Suits with as many guns as you possibly can.
- Reiji Arisu, Xiaomu, and Saya of Namco × Capcom. Reiji wields two katanas, two guns, and a shotgun, while Xiaomu uses a shikomizue and two pistols. Saya, going for the gusto, carries three katanas as well as lugging around a M203 Grenade Launcher. Seeing as their styles involve constantly swapping out their weapons, using the swords in concert with their guns, and spicing up their attacks with magic, expect a lot of Gun Kata and Guns Akimbo.
- As of Project × Zone Reiji's started carrying his father's ice katana alongside the fire and lightning katanas he already used, meaning he's upped the overkill of Saya, carrying 3 blades, a magnum and a shotgun.
- The intro
for Neo Contra showed one of the protagonists reloading weapon magazines, then panning out to reveal he is surrounded by stacks of hundreds of magazines.
- A staple trope of the Ratchet & Clank series, as Ratchet can carry over 15 weapons and gadgets not fit for this world, ranging from wrenches, grappling hooks, automatic pistols, gliders, shotguns, hologuises, sniper rifles, hackers, morph rays, rocket launchers and outright BFGs. This was made more obvious with the use of a weapon wheel, letting you quickly equip them without having to pause and go into the Weapons menu first. The Movieverse explains this mechanic with Telequipping, which warps the weapons into a Galactic Ranger's hand (although you can only select 16 of them in the video game, leaving out some used in the movie).
- Rengoku: Stronger ADAMs are normally equipped with blades, rockets, and lasers at the same time. The game heavily encourages mixing weapon types and categories.
- Jason in Rise of the Argonauts. Even the box art
◊ makes no effort to hide that he carts around a sword, spear, mace, and shield everywhere.
- In The Specialists, a Half-Life Game Mod inspired by The Matrix, players can carry as much weaponry as their carrying capacity allows. It's possible to carry a dozen pistols at once, ranging from from the tiny 22LR silenced plinker to the Raging Bull Hand Cannon. It's a particularly entertaining tactic for defeating players who bunnyhop around punching guns out of people's hands; once disarmed, you can simply whip out a second, third, or seventh gun and blast them in the face.
- The page quote, from Star Wars: The Old Republic, is in reference to a late-game Bounty Hunter Player Character. To give some perspective, by this point the player has acquired: Their trusty blaster pistol, a secondary pistol/power generator/personal shield generator, a Blade Below the Shoulder, a flamethrower, a carbonite projector, a dart shooter, rocket boots, a rocket pack, rockets that shoot from the rocket pack with various payloads and destructive yields, rocket gauntlets (also useful for punching), and various other little, specialist devices. So yes, everything you wear CAN kill someone - and probably already has at that point in the game.
- Sunrider: In a game where most of the player-controlled Ryders have one, two, or maybe three weapons systems mounted on them, the Black Jack stands out by having almost every type of weapon that exists in the game as part of its arsenal. It has missile launchers, a submachinegun, a pulse laser submachinegun, four shoulder-mounted ship-grade laser cannons, and both a giant metal sword and a Laser Blade, which it dual wields. The only weapon types it lacks are kinetic weapons and rockets, and ship-grade kinetic weapons can be added to it in Sunrider Liberation Day. The only other player-controlled unit with such a wide variety of weapons is the Sunrider itself, which is a capital ship.
- Mr. Game & Watch brings a whole arsenal of bizarre weapons with him in Super Smash Bros. He's armed to the teeth with a frying pan, some hammers, a fish bowl, a diving helmet, a bucket, a torch, and many more.
- The Syphon Filter series originally combined this with Hyperspace Arsenal for the first three games in the series as the player had absolutely no limit on the number of weapons they could carry. In The Omega Strain they tried scaling it back to be more realistic, but your character still carried one long gun slung across their back, an auxiliary gun slung across their torso, two pistols (after completing a specific mission), grenades, a melee weapon and mission-specific gear.
- Tomb Raider: Lara Croft is able to carry an abundance of weapons as well as items, such as health packs. While proficient in using many weapons, Lara's signature weapon is her pair of dual pistols.
- Parodied in the opening of Total Overdose. Ram sorts through weapons in the back of a truck, then kicks in the gates of a mobster's compound with every one of them bundled in his arms, and dynamite clenched in his teeth.
- Late into Twin Caliber, as the game has practically zero limits to the amount of firearms your characters can carry. As the game goes on they'll have at least five rifles, shotguns and machine-guns strapped to their backs, pistols holstered to their legs, while carrying two other firearms on each hand.
- In Vagrant Story, Ashley Riot can carry an impressive 8 weapons in his sack but he can carry more blades and hilts to assemble new weapons or use for crafting.
- You can turn your Frame into this in Warframe if you have enough dual weapons and gear equipped with the "show when holstered" option available. This is best embodied by Mesa, who can be shown carrying the following items on her person at all times: a two-handed primary weapon, dual secondaries (equip the Twin Grakatas for maximum absurdity), her twin Regulator revolvers built into her forearms, Dual Wield melee weapons such as the Dual Skana, and a piece of resource-gathering gear such as one of the fishing spears/electroshock spears or the tranquilizer rifle, which technically operate using the game's weapon mechanics. This gives Mesa no less than eight weapons close to hand.
- Geralt of The Witcher has no less than five weapon slots. One for a steel sword (used on mundane creatures), one for a silver sword (used on supernatural creatures), one for a torch, axe, or mace, one for a dagger and smaller hand axes, and one for bombs. Only one weapon for each slot may be carried at a time, and all of them are stowed visibly somewhere on Geralt's body.
- In the sequel, he just uses a steel sword, silver sword, throwing daggers and bombs, however.
- In X-COM you could turn your soldiers into this though it would severely cut down on their mobility. A single soldier could carry four rifles, two pistols and fill out the rest of the slots with assorted ammo, grenades and high explosives. Heavy weapons like auto-guns and missile launchers required the same space as two rifles.
- KOS-MOS of Xenosaga half-subverts this trope. Aside from her ability to transmute her arms into various weapons, she can utilize the U.M.N. Transportation Gate to summon BFGs, all of which she dual-wields. The most iconic (and weakest) special weapons are a set of triple-barreled tri-gatling guns. That's three sets of barrels each, making for a grand total of nine barrels per gun; in other words, she's using eighteen barrels of firepower in all.
- In Yakuza 4, the hulking brute, Saejima, makes his debut by arming himself with six revolvers: two in his pants, two in his hands, one stuck in his coat pocket and one clenched in his teeth. He winds up using every last one of these bullets (since he was planning on going on a rampage to kill off nearly the entire heads of a rival yakuza family, he wouldn't have any time to reload).
- 6 Gun Mage: Sierra Cavanaugh (and the rest of her family) has the power to carry a literal armoire functioning as a hyperspace armory. Sometimes she bludgeons enemies with it.
- In Homestuck, robotic bunny Liv Tyler shows up with four ultimate weapons strapped to its back — Warhammer of Zillyhoo, Quills of Echidna, Royal Deringer, and Ahab's Crosshairs.
- Jailhouse Blues, a defunct fancomic formerly
hosted on the Bob and George website. In it, the Blue Bomber encounters Artillery Man (based off of the aforementioned Napalm Man), whose weaponry includes an Arm Cannon, missiles, a chain gun, a Laser Blade, and (apparently) more ammunition than God. As such, Mega Man dubs him Obviously Compensating for Something Man. The weapon Mega Man obtains from him does nothing in the few times he decides to whip it out. This is lampshaded when Nasty Toilet Man notes that it resembles a widely-used tactic from Dragon Ball Z and points out that such attacks never work.
- Runners: See Ril. See Ril laying down
his gear.
- Schlock Mercenary: While Schlock is best-known for his plasma cannon, or for emergencies two plasma cannons, during the Random Access Memorabilia arc he carries something like six or seven weapons contained within his bloblike body, ranging from guns to an axe, and since he can sprout new limbs at will he can wield every last one of them simultaneously. He technically doesn't walk however, being a Blob Monster.
Chief Chevre: Sergeant Schlock here seems to be little more than an ambulatory weapons depot.
Schlock: Thank you. - The titular character in Vápnthjófr saga carries an entire arsenal of weapons on her back.
- Critical Role: Grog carries a war hammer, greataxe, greatsword, javelin and several full sets of armour in his Bag of Holding.
- The Rooster Teeth show Immersion tested this in an episode, basing the arsenal that their subjects would carry on their respective persons (total weight about 200 pounds or slightly below) off of Doom and using two test subjects walking through a course. One managed to walk through the course, albeit slowly, and the second subject fell over where he stood before taking even a single step. The one who made it was previously in the military and likened the experience to being in the military.
- Batman Beyond villain Armory, a vengeful weapons developer who took some samples home from work.
- Lampshaded in Batman: Under the Red Hood. While fighting Batman the Red Hood banters, "Hidden goodies all over huh? We're both just a couple of walking armories!" Batman then makes the Red Hood chuck his armoury by setting his jacket on fire. The Red Hood turns out to be Robin turned evil, so his use of this trope is hardly surprising.
- Iron Kid: Shadow has 108 weapons built into his robot body.
- In The Spectacular Spiderman, when Kraven first confronts Spider-man, he attacks with a bow and arrow. When that doesn't work, he pulls out a pair of huge knives. When those don't work, he pulls out a boomerang, then bolos, a blow dart, a spear, and finally, resorts to his bare hands.
- In Steven Universe, Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst's Fusion, Alexandrite, has no apparent fusion weapon of her own, but can use all of her components weapons and any of their Fusion weapons, and use them all with equal amounts of skill.
- Transformers:
- More than a few of the Transformers in Beast Wars:
- Optimus Primal's original body had two swords, double-barreled guns fixed to his wrists, and a pair of missile launchers on his back.
- Predacon Terrorsaur took it even further, carrying a short-barraeled pistol, a longer pistol, a medium-sized gun, a rifle, laser Eye Beams, and a pair of short-barreled guns on his neck/shoulders. And on one occasion, a gigantic fucking missile on his arm.
- Originally, the Transformers tended to have weapons that they used like humans would guns. (The Decepticons tended to have a weapon or two built-in.) More recent series have taken advantage of the fact that the characters are robots and tend to include their "classic" weapons as sort of their special power, integrated directly into their systems, while they carry (or mount) more standard-issue weapons tech. The first characters to really exemplify this trope were the four "city" Transformers: Autobots Metroplex and Fortress Maximus and Decepticons Trypticon and Scorponok. Each of them are bristling with gun turrets and missile launchers.
- More than a few of the Transformers in Beast Wars:
- Young Justice (2010): Sportmaster and his daughters Cheshire and Tigress all use a multitude of weapons in battle although Tigress is only really this in season and sticks to The Straight and Arrow Path in seasons 1 and 3.
- A few decades before The Roman Republic became The Roman Empire, a consul named Gaius Marius demanded that armies stop using beasts of burden to carry weapons and armor: If it's your weapon, it's your responsibility to carry it. Initially, this rule was ridiculed, and the soldiers who were now forced to carry a whole bunch of weapons and armor rather than rely on pack animals were called "Marius' Mules"... Then people realized how much it improved the army's mobility and overall effectiveness...
- One would-be bank robber attempted to pull this off in real life, and demonstrated exactly why more people don't do this: he fell over on his way out of the bank and couldn't get back up because his weapons were too heavy. He remained there until the police arrived and arrested him.
- In the wake of the Columbine shootings, Garett Metal Detectors
did an ad showing a high school student in regular clothes (if a bit baggy, which was in style at the time) who proceeds to pull out 8 pistols, an Uzi submachine gun, and a full length pump action shotgun concealed in his pants. Weight and mobility concerns aside, it would be next to impossible to carry all of those at once without making a hell of a lot of noise.
- During the days of wheellock and flintlock firearms, it was not unusual for combatants to carry at least six pistols, as well as assorted melee weapons. This was bred out of necessity, as reloading times were long and misfires were notoriously common. Even in the later era of percussion firearms, when misfires were greatly reduced, it was common to carry multiple pistols, because reloading was still slow. During The American Civil War, Confederate guerrillas like Jesse James tended to carry multiple revolvers. The cap-and-ball revolver had six shots compared to the one shot of most weapons of the day, but once it was empty it was still slow to reload. Thus, a few men on horseback carrying 6 revolvers each could take out a platoon of regular infantry, as long as the fighting was at close range.
- Standard in many military units. For example, in the US Army, the basic combat load includes boots, body armor, helmet, tactical gloves, rifle, bayonet, knife/multitool, shackles, grenades, and 180 rounds of ammunition - along with a bunch of other things designed to let the soldier fight and survive for two or three days if they have to.
- Make it double for any specialist soldier such as sniper or machinegunner, who in addition to their main gear usually also has a backup and/or personal defense weapon, from the pistol up to a SMG with an additional ammo set for that, or serves as a Number Two for a crewed weapon like a heavy machinegun, light mortar or grenade launcher, in which case they're armed like a common trooper but also carries additional ammo or a weapon part like a spare barrel or a portable mount.
- New York City police officer Jim Cirillo, the most famous member of the NYPD's elite "Stakeout Squad", carried four different handguns on duty while he was with that unit in the 1960s: Two Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolvers, a .38 caliber snub nosed Colt Cobra, and .32 caliber Walther PPK. It is hardly surprising that Cirillo never once had to reload in any the of the numerous gunfights he participated in. His practice of relying on multiple handguns rather than spare ammo gave rise to the term "New York Reload".
- Interestingly, throughout history, the weight of an average soldier's gear has maintained relatively similar. Many accounts exist of the arrival of new gear or military philosophies trying to increase loads, but the most successful examples of new gear often come with reduced weight in an effort to avoid these encumbrance issues.
- A light weight soldier would be expected to carry 20 lbs. of gear and move unhindered. Examples include police officers with vest and pistol, or guerilla soldiers who usually carry a single weapon but also require additional supplies for their missions or food for longer deployments
- The average warrior would often carry gear around 40-60 lbs. This would require very careful placement so that the weight is evenly distributed, and many examples would prefer mounted warfare as it limited the need to use up their endurance early. However, done properly this weight in gear allows the soldier to mover quickly and efficiently under most conditions, while providing them sufficient armor and weapons.
- While many examples exist of going beyond these weight limits, these are often while on the march when mobility was linear and additional weights could be dropped if necessary, or in moments when carrying the gear was temporary.
- The Boston Dynamics "BigDog
" was meant to avert this trope for the common soldier, intending to serve as a robotic "pack mule" that could keep up with soldiers in the field across a variety of terrains, essentially becoming the Walking Arsenal itself. Unfortunately, the government lost interest in the project because the robot was just too loud. In order to have the power to keep up, it used a small 2-stroke engine that made an ungodly amount of noise, even with a muffler; it essentially would have made it painfully easy to track a squad's location and would have interfered with communication — while installing a four-stroke engine was out of question because their mass efficiency is significantly worse, and a sufficiently powerful engine would've been just too heavy, defeating the whole purpose of having a "pack mule".