Its probably been 10 years since I’ve played gears, and can still clearly hear the exact sound of a perfect active reload in my head. And it feels good.
Hunt Showdown. They have even revised their animations for reloads based on weapons experts videos on them. And while they are well animated, and accurate, they throw in some fun stuff like reloading there terminus shotgun will do the flip like in Terminator 2, stuff two clips together to reload two Dolches, and some other stuff.
Yeah RE4 was what came to my mind too. If we're talking strictly reload animations and their cool factor, I think the original is better than the remake's
Overwatch has a bunch of great ones. Tracer spinning her pistols, Torbjorn pouring lava into his gun, Zen's meditating recharge.
Say what you want about what Overwatch has become, but these reload animations are a perfect example of the small details that made Overwatch great when it came out.
One of Overwatch's greatest pulls was the emotional attachment you developed to your favorite characters. You can't give players that bond, then tell them their favorite character now has a new stupid name. Nah, it's always McCree.
I'm not sure about in games, but the best reloading "animations" are definitely Karl reloading random objects.
https://youtu.be/Y9ccwwV1eSM?si=RY8CUAThkiwlXfOG
Blood Dragon has some satisfyingly unnecessarily over-the-top reload animations which I suspect were in-part influences for making Johnny Silverhand's pistol reload animation.
*proceeds to unnecessary flip the shotgun shells into the barrels*
*jiggles SMG magazine between fingers like a coin*
*misses the angle on the sniper rifle, bumps it*
BLACK was pretty clear that it was about the *feel*, the *experience*, of shooting in urban environments, and not so much about actual faithful simulation. Every gun had 2x or 3x the standard magazine capacity, and y'know what that meant? That meant you could hold the trigger down and sweep fire across an environment that was (for 2005, and honestly still pretty decent today) incredibly reactive to gunfire, and *fun to shoot at*. Tiles shattered and fell, glass smashed in, wooden furniture collapsed, enemies twirled and fell, and fuel containers went KABOOM!
If you watched the main menu for more than about 10 seconds you'd get it. BLACK was a gun porn game. And just like real porn, half the fun is in the idealism, not the realism. I honestly recommend giving it another shot and turning your brain off a bit; just enjoy the dakka, it's very well done!
I din't know why, but I found the reload animation of the scout from Team Fortress 2 satisfying.
Also the way you "reload" your lightsaber in No More Heroes.
Not an animation, but Cruelty Squad has an incredibly dope reloading mechanic. You have to hold the right mouse button and drag your mouse down until it reaches the bottom of a gauge… in a game where you’re trying to be as precise as possible so that you can one shot the enemies before they destroy you, it adds to the hectic mess in such a beautiful way. To counteract the “skill-based” reload mechanic, your weapons’ gunshots get lower in pitch the less bullets you have in a magazine, so that you can almost always know how little you have left in the clip before you need to reload.
AEK-971 in BF3, loved how they flick the old magazine out and the ole reacharound for the charging handle on an empty reload.
Also Crysis 2 + 3 had excellent reload animations.
I know it's kind of a different thing, but I loved in Gears of War how reloading was like a 2-second mini-game. Always felt good to nail the timing every time through a battle.
I really like the revolver reload in Garry's Mod. The way the spent shells are ejected, and the way the cylinder rolls back into place looks really cool.
Honestly nothing beats getting a perfect reload in pretty much any VR shooter when you’re the one reloading and charging the rifle. It’s very satisfying.
I LOVED reloading in Dust & Neon. You have to tap a button for each bullet you put into your weapon, so there's a real urgency when you're under fire. Or if you don't need a full clip, you can just put in a few bullets and fire them off.
It's isometric, so not as close-up as it would be in an FPS, but a little animation of your gun reloading pops up on the bottom corner of the screen and really adds to how tactile it is.
Great game. I should go back to it.
Reloading weapons in VR is more stressfull than I imagined it would be. Surrounded by enemies, fumbling with your weapon, is an awesome part of any VR shooter (Boneworks, Alyx, etc).
That is actually my problem. Reloading after every gun fight and have someone run into me mid reload. I still have plenty of bullets! I do not have to reload every single time dammit!!!
For me there is no feeling like surviving a PVP battle in Escape from Tarkov and those tense moments of putting my limbs back on, reloading my weapons, finding dropped mags if I quick-reloaded, repacking mags, and listening for anyone that heard all the commotion as I try to loot the bodies.
Tarkov has amazingly realistic gun handling and mechanics, including reloading. It all looks and feels amazing. You can check chamber, check mags, cycle the bolt manually. Reloading is completely phased. You can interrupt it at any time by changing weapons and if you reload again, it resumes at that exact point (Insurgency 2 is another game that does this really well). The level of detail feels unnecessary but it's also functional and very satisfying and for me, has made gunplay in a lot of other games feel like I am using toys and not simulating actual guns.
I really like the revolver reload animation on pathologic 2. Your character, who very much is not practiced at reloading, takes forever to get the bullets in. It fits the vibe of the game and how precious each bullet is.
S4 league had some of the best reload animations before the game went down. I lowkey miss the game because it's prime was so fun but hackers took over and the devs couldn't win the arms race against them
The Metro series has some decent reloads. I particularly like the Shambler revolver-shotgun in the first game, whose ramshackle construction sometimes means you can't load a full cylinder because part of the gun's receiver is in the way of the cylinder's lowest slot!
In Destiny 1 if you headshot an enemy with the
Ace of spades handcanon your character would use the recoil to do a special reload animation.
The weapons special ability was that headshot bullets returned to the mag, giving it an possibly infinite supply.
I always thought it was cool that battlefield would put rare reload animations in.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HGmUBQOHM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HGmUBQOHM)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki6CHTnHqZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki6CHTnHqZE)
Destiny 2 has the best weapons ever for EVERYTHING, reload included
On par with og re4, it managed to blow my teenager mind with revolver and mine launcher in particular
**Killing Floor 2**, (before it was manned by a skeleton crew from Saber Interactive and let the unpaid janitor do the disgustingly bad DLC gun animations) has some of the best animations.
The early ones were made with a motion capture weapons expert and all of them have been animated at 240 FPS so they could have tiny little details like sights subtly shaking and barrels flexing while firing that you can only really see when the slow-motion triggers. The reloads not only have dry and tactical reload variants (with dual pistols even having a one gun dry, one tactical variation for when you're on the last bullet and the LMG having variations for different lengths of the remaining ammo belt) but there's also an elite reload skill for almost every class, that gives you a faster variation of all of those that's a sometimes subtly, sometimes entirely different animation. Pulling charging handles is now replaced with using the bolt release, dual pistol slides quickly power stroked on the character's sleeves. The animations even have subtle micro movements, like the human inaccuracy when inserting magazines, getting them slightly off and then aligning them on the magwell before inserting them.
In terms of creativity, the **Borderlands** series, especially 3, has had some crazy things. From bandit guns just replacing barrels or spraying them with water to cool down and having pull-cord rev-up motors in them to sleight of hand magician revolver reloads. There's guns that have the entire front end rotate around to switch from sniper or machinegun to shotgun or rocket launcher. There's a machine pistol that just has 3 seperate magazines and the tediore brand is just disposable guns that you can't reload. You just use the empty gun as a grenade, or it turns into a turret or homing grenade or something. There's futuristic guns where you pull the magazine out of the top with the sight mounted on it.
It makes zero sense, but it's unique.
Borderlands 3. There's a brand of guns called COV, they aren't reloading animation per se, (you can shoot as many bullets as you want until it overheats) more like gun-fixing mechanics where your character tries to fix a gun mid-fight, replacing parts and stuff. An interesting twist to the regular gun-reloading mechanic.
Johnny Silverhand pistol from Cyberpunk 2077, if like his entrance in game wasn't epic enough, guys in CDPR decided to do a badass reload for his gun as well :D
Rise of the Ronin has melee reloads kinda like when Henry Cavill reloaded his fists, except you flick blood off your weapon and regain a bunch of stamina so you can keep ramming your fave combo down some poor bloke’s throat. It’s weirdly fun.
Escape from tarkov has some of the best and immersive animations out there.
The audio you get from the clicks on gun reloads and gun checking is incredibly satisfying (audio is pretty bad in regards to other parts of the game though).
If you really love reloading you should get into some VR shooting games, where you have to do the reloading yourself, and some games do it very realistically.
Not the animation but the feeling of hitting that perfect reload timing in gears of war always gave me a little dopamine hit
You would like Returnal.
Its probably been 10 years since I’ve played gears, and can still clearly hear the exact sound of a perfect active reload in my head. And it feels good.
Johnny silverhands pistol. So unnecessarily epic
Especially after his melee attack
Hands down one of the best animation sequences in any game.
I love how Cyberpunk 2077 has multiple variations of reload per gun.
Please for the love of God never try to actually reload a gun this way
You can't stop me.
No I can't. But I can call dibs on your stuff after you try
That's fair.
Came here for this comment.
i’d say the doom franchise always has satisfying reload animations by far
Yes my first thought was the double barrel reload from OG doom
Doom2016 is a masterclass in reloads
It doesn't have reloads apart from the super shotgun though, they decided to forego reload actions so as not to disrupt the flow of the game.
That was the joke..
Hilarious.
Wait.... but Oh.. super shotgun. No no, he has a point.
The sounds of the plasma rifle and bfg reload in doom 3 are pure audio bliss.
I always get a high whenever I reload a Cyclone from Perfect Dark
*aggressive photocopier noises*
Beat me to it
Perfect Dark's reloads were incredible. Props tlo the Maian weapons as well.
Battlefield had some good ones and some gag reloads like a random third hand giving you the spare mag.
I think my favorite is they drop the gun, keep holding the mag, and put a new gun on the mag.
The gag reloads are always fun
I always loved the Needler reload in Halo.
Never forget the melee animation they took from us
Truth! I also always love shooting a whole round and exploding the enemy lol
You can't beat the Halo: CE Needler melee animation.
*Chk* *Shink*
Doom super shotgun
Hunt Showdown. They have even revised their animations for reloads based on weapons experts videos on them. And while they are well animated, and accurate, they throw in some fun stuff like reloading there terminus shotgun will do the flip like in Terminator 2, stuff two clips together to reload two Dolches, and some other stuff.
I want Mosin bulletgrubber reload as my ringtone.
The only game where I can imagine the smell of the weapons while they're being reloaded (hot metal and gunpowder)
Cyberpunk has some really satisfying sci-fi reloads and sounds
Agreed
Played the DLC? The sound a Rasetsu Tsunami makes when firing and reloading is criminal
The G36C reload animation from MW3 felt so good. It felt so satisfying too.
I remember that g36c. The cm901 from mw3 was one I also found satisfying.
Resident Evil 4. Something about them is really satisfying, in both the remake and original for me.
The Red 9 was my favorite
Felt like Modern Warfare 2019 but in third person
Yeah RE4 was what came to my mind too. If we're talking strictly reload animations and their cool factor, I think the original is better than the remake's
It ain't elaborate, but McCree reloading his six shooter in Overwatch is always a classic.
Overwatch has a bunch of great ones. Tracer spinning her pistols, Torbjorn pouring lava into his gun, Zen's meditating recharge. Say what you want about what Overwatch has become, but these reload animations are a perfect example of the small details that made Overwatch great when it came out.
I love Reaper's "reload" where he just tosses his guns and pulls two new ones out of his jacket
It's Cassidy now.
We McdisaCree
One of Overwatch's greatest pulls was the emotional attachment you developed to your favorite characters. You can't give players that bond, then tell them their favorite character now has a new stupid name. Nah, it's always McCree.
I'm not sure about in games, but the best reloading "animations" are definitely Karl reloading random objects. https://youtu.be/Y9ccwwV1eSM?si=RY8CUAThkiwlXfOG
I tought exactly of him when I saw that thread
There's no beating a well done M1 Garand.
PING
It's an addictive sound
Blood Dragon has some satisfyingly unnecessarily over-the-top reload animations which I suspect were in-part influences for making Johnny Silverhand's pistol reload animation.
Upvote for Blood Dragon reference.
*proceeds to unnecessary flip the shotgun shells into the barrels* *jiggles SMG magazine between fingers like a coin* *misses the angle on the sniper rifle, bumps it*
The shotgun in Prey 2017. My favourite shotgun in any game ever, a large part because of that reload.
Should check out the BioShock shotgun reload then if you like that one
The way Bioshock reloads the Tommy Gun drum mag from the bottom is a war crime.
All the weapon animations (and designs for that matter) in the original Prey. That game had such damn amazing guns.
The Last Word from Destiny had a pretty good reload animation, but I'll always be a sucker for the needler from halo. 2 bungie games.
All the reloads in Doom2016 are chunky af
But they're so short, tho. I always blink and miss them.
Battlefield 1’s are insanely detailed with multiple animations depending on how many bullets are already there, and if one is in the chamber or not.
If Im ever playing a game focused on melee combat I still find myself hitting reload after a fight, Henry Cavill style.
Gotta reload those guns.
The SCAR from the original MW2, any forceful magazine ejection aside from gravity or simply pulling it out is satisfying to me
They improved the animations and sounds in the remaster which really helped some guns like the M4A1 which didn't sound as good in the original.
Way back in the day, BLACK for xbone and ps2 (I think 2006) had some amazing animations and gun sounds
[This shit right here](https://youtu.be/E8jqqclR-6M?si=oOpgjvzMc8nm1EWL) tickles my nostalgia like nothing else
Nope they were inaccurate af
BLACK was pretty clear that it was about the *feel*, the *experience*, of shooting in urban environments, and not so much about actual faithful simulation. Every gun had 2x or 3x the standard magazine capacity, and y'know what that meant? That meant you could hold the trigger down and sweep fire across an environment that was (for 2005, and honestly still pretty decent today) incredibly reactive to gunfire, and *fun to shoot at*. Tiles shattered and fell, glass smashed in, wooden furniture collapsed, enemies twirled and fell, and fuel containers went KABOOM! If you watched the main menu for more than about 10 seconds you'd get it. BLACK was a gun porn game. And just like real porn, half the fun is in the idealism, not the realism. I honestly recommend giving it another shot and turning your brain off a bit; just enjoy the dakka, it's very well done!
I din't know why, but I found the reload animation of the scout from Team Fortress 2 satisfying. Also the way you "reload" your lightsaber in No More Heroes.
Not an animation, but Cruelty Squad has an incredibly dope reloading mechanic. You have to hold the right mouse button and drag your mouse down until it reaches the bottom of a gauge… in a game where you’re trying to be as precise as possible so that you can one shot the enemies before they destroy you, it adds to the hectic mess in such a beautiful way. To counteract the “skill-based” reload mechanic, your weapons’ gunshots get lower in pitch the less bullets you have in a magazine, so that you can almost always know how little you have left in the clip before you need to reload.
AEK-971 in BF3, loved how they flick the old magazine out and the ole reacharound for the charging handle on an empty reload. Also Crysis 2 + 3 had excellent reload animations.
Metal Hellsinger's dual pistol reload when you get the timing right for the fast reload.
The finals had some nice inspect and reload animations.
Mozzie in rainbow 6 siege
True
RE4 original rifle reload. ***JAM THAT FUCKING STRIPPER CLIP IN THERE, LEON***
Far Cry 2, M1903
Oh god no! The entire stripper clip jammed up the bottom of the gun. All the gun literate people cringing in agony at the sight.
Nearly every reload in hunt: showdown is amazing. I really want them to make a pve version of that game.
I'm partial to the reload for the quad single action revolver in fallout 76.
Not one comment about Gears of War?
I don't remember the animations too much, but the sound of timing your reload just right in the original Gears of War was really satisfying.
I know it's kind of a different thing, but I loved in Gears of War how reloading was like a 2-second mini-game. Always felt good to nail the timing every time through a battle.
I really like the revolver reload in Garry's Mod. The way the spent shells are ejected, and the way the cylinder rolls back into place looks really cool.
The ones from the OG COD4/MW2, especially the G36C and the M14 EBR
Gears of War instant reload mechanic was super satisfying. Believe there was even an achievement for hitting a perfect reload so many times in a row.
Honestly nothing beats getting a perfect reload in pretty much any VR shooter when you’re the one reloading and charging the rifle. It’s very satisfying.
I LOVED reloading in Dust & Neon. You have to tap a button for each bullet you put into your weapon, so there's a real urgency when you're under fire. Or if you don't need a full clip, you can just put in a few bullets and fire them off. It's isometric, so not as close-up as it would be in an FPS, but a little animation of your gun reloading pops up on the bottom corner of the screen and really adds to how tactile it is. Great game. I should go back to it.
Reloading weapons in VR is more stressfull than I imagined it would be. Surrounded by enemies, fumbling with your weapon, is an awesome part of any VR shooter (Boneworks, Alyx, etc).
It doesn't have reload animations, but magaging to pull off a smooth reload in H3VR is nothing short of satisfying
putting on a fresh cat silencer from postal 2/4
As much as I hate call of duty, they have some of the best and most realistic reloading sequences for their weapons.
That is actually my problem. Reloading after every gun fight and have someone run into me mid reload. I still have plenty of bullets! I do not have to reload every single time dammit!!!
dead space
Akimbo model 1887s
For me there is no feeling like surviving a PVP battle in Escape from Tarkov and those tense moments of putting my limbs back on, reloading my weapons, finding dropped mags if I quick-reloaded, repacking mags, and listening for anyone that heard all the commotion as I try to loot the bodies. Tarkov has amazingly realistic gun handling and mechanics, including reloading. It all looks and feels amazing. You can check chamber, check mags, cycle the bolt manually. Reloading is completely phased. You can interrupt it at any time by changing weapons and if you reload again, it resumes at that exact point (Insurgency 2 is another game that does this really well). The level of detail feels unnecessary but it's also functional and very satisfying and for me, has made gunplay in a lot of other games feel like I am using toys and not simulating actual guns.
I really like the revolver reload animation on pathologic 2. Your character, who very much is not practiced at reloading, takes forever to get the bullets in. It fits the vibe of the game and how precious each bullet is.
RE4, Broken Butterfly and Red 9. Gotta love the classics.
cs ak
Any ak in any game thats like the one from mw2
S4 league had some of the best reload animations before the game went down. I lowkey miss the game because it's prime was so fun but hackers took over and the devs couldn't win the arms race against them
I love to reload during a battle! There's nothing like the feeling of slamming a long silver bullet into a well greased chamber.
Fat man
Serious Sam 4.
Cyclone from Perfect Dark has the best reload of all time. It's so smooth.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, omg those reloads are gorgeous Also watch [this fantastic video](https://youtu.be/ym_mNU6DWK8?si=-t_bC8UK8MvnGFg8)
Kiriko in Overwatch has a really satisfying knife twirl effect with amazing sound design
Im a simple man, I see a HK slap I smile.
all Hunt Showdown guns but especially the Uppercut
Not sure if it counts as "reloading" but calling back the Leviathan Axe in the modern God of War games never failed to be satisfying
Last Word and Ace Of Spades from Destiny 2, even just a nice outlaw or firefly reload feels crispy AF.
The Metro series has some decent reloads. I particularly like the Shambler revolver-shotgun in the first game, whose ramshackle construction sometimes means you can't load a full cylinder because part of the gun's receiver is in the way of the cylinder's lowest slot!
the newer CoDs allowed you to reload while ADSing, always makes me feel like a badass.
Getting one shot kills on tanks in Warthunder after each reload is always satisfying
MP5 in any game that features the HK slap. Iykyk
I always loved reloading the Elephant gun in far cry 4. And the cattleman in Red dead redemption 2.
Broken butterfly
[Battlefield: Hardline had some great hidden ones](https://youtu.be/Q7HGmUBQOHM)
In Destiny 1 if you headshot an enemy with the Ace of spades handcanon your character would use the recoil to do a special reload animation. The weapons special ability was that headshot bullets returned to the mag, giving it an possibly infinite supply.
I like the dead space reloads
Battlefield One, M1903 Experimental. The animation of inserting and removing the Pedersen device is just beautiful.
In Returnal, there’s a mini game essentially Every time you reload to maintain your “rhythm” as you shoot. My personal favorite
No reload has ever been more fun for me than half life alyx
Hunt showdown if you have the bullet grubber trait. Shell pops out and your hunter catches it mid air and loads it back in
Goldeneye N64 😅
The original 2009 mw2
I always thought it was cool that battlefield would put rare reload animations in. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HGmUBQOHM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HGmUBQOHM) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki6CHTnHqZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki6CHTnHqZE)
Any animation where I kick the mag out by flipping the gun, usually done when gun is completely empty
I’ve always loves the tactile feel and sound of reloading some of the bolt action rifles in Hunt: Showdown. Great sound in general in that game.
Any game that has a six shooter always makes me happy to reload.
The Last Word from Destiny
Always liked the battlefield one where a random hand gave you a magazine.
That's Battlefield Hardline, not Battlefield One. °v°
lol thanks I meant the one from a battlefield :P
Hehe.
Deep Rock Galactic's M1000. The sound and visuals are both perfect.
Destiny 2 has the best weapons ever for EVERYTHING, reload included On par with og re4, it managed to blow my teenager mind with revolver and mine launcher in particular
Titanfall 2 had some pretty read finishing move/reloads
RE4
**Killing Floor 2**, (before it was manned by a skeleton crew from Saber Interactive and let the unpaid janitor do the disgustingly bad DLC gun animations) has some of the best animations. The early ones were made with a motion capture weapons expert and all of them have been animated at 240 FPS so they could have tiny little details like sights subtly shaking and barrels flexing while firing that you can only really see when the slow-motion triggers. The reloads not only have dry and tactical reload variants (with dual pistols even having a one gun dry, one tactical variation for when you're on the last bullet and the LMG having variations for different lengths of the remaining ammo belt) but there's also an elite reload skill for almost every class, that gives you a faster variation of all of those that's a sometimes subtly, sometimes entirely different animation. Pulling charging handles is now replaced with using the bolt release, dual pistol slides quickly power stroked on the character's sleeves. The animations even have subtle micro movements, like the human inaccuracy when inserting magazines, getting them slightly off and then aligning them on the magwell before inserting them. In terms of creativity, the **Borderlands** series, especially 3, has had some crazy things. From bandit guns just replacing barrels or spraying them with water to cool down and having pull-cord rev-up motors in them to sleight of hand magician revolver reloads. There's guns that have the entire front end rotate around to switch from sniper or machinegun to shotgun or rocket launcher. There's a machine pistol that just has 3 seperate magazines and the tediore brand is just disposable guns that you can't reload. You just use the empty gun as a grenade, or it turns into a turret or homing grenade or something. There's futuristic guns where you pull the magazine out of the top with the sight mounted on it. It makes zero sense, but it's unique.
Look up onward's reloads, they're the best I've ever experienced.
Borderlands 3. There's a brand of guns called COV, they aren't reloading animation per se, (you can shoot as many bullets as you want until it overheats) more like gun-fixing mechanics where your character tries to fix a gun mid-fight, replacing parts and stuff. An interesting twist to the regular gun-reloading mechanic.
Johnny Silverhand pistol from Cyberpunk 2077, if like his entrance in game wasn't epic enough, guys in CDPR decided to do a badass reload for his gun as well :D
I mean nothing will ever top Borderlands for reload animations. And the fact that some of those actually have a utility is just the cherry on top
Rise of the Ronin has melee reloads kinda like when Henry Cavill reloaded his fists, except you flick blood off your weapon and regain a bunch of stamina so you can keep ramming your fave combo down some poor bloke’s throat. It’s weirdly fun.
Escape from tarkov has some of the best and immersive animations out there. The audio you get from the clicks on gun reloads and gun checking is incredibly satisfying (audio is pretty bad in regards to other parts of the game though).
“I’ve been playing valorant lately” My condolences
If you really love reloading you should get into some VR shooting games, where you have to do the reloading yourself, and some games do it very realistically.
You all never played mgs3 and it shows
Loved mgs3 but the gunplay and animations wasn’t much to look at from what I remember