10 Overpowered Video Game Weapons Developers Removed
9. Sawn Off Shotgun - Gears Of War 3/Judgment
When a game has a large multiplayer component, balance is an integral part of the experience. For Gears of War 3, the multiplayer was, for a time, completely dominated by players wielding sawn-off shotguns, as the weapon was extremely overpowered and in the right hands could down someone in one hit.
Of course this meant that the delicate balance of the multiplayer component was in danger. Players were becoming increasingly infuriated with being blasted in the face by sneaky shotgunners, and Epic had to take steps.
The shotgun was nerfed after the game's release, reducing the range of its spread. This meant that shotgunners had to get closer to inflict the high levels of damage they could have done previously from much further away than you'd expect to with a shotgun.
In Gears of War: Judgment, the sawn-off shotgun remains in the game, but its incarnation compared to the original in Gears 3 is significantly less powerful too.
In Gears 4 and Gears 5, the sawn-off shotgun is completely removed and is yet to make another appearance in the series.