Weapon design patterns in shooter games

With the increasing complexity of interactive games, the need for a common vocabulary to describe patterns grows. Action-oriented games focus heavily on players using weapons, but categorizations used for weapons are borrowed from real-world patterns, classifying them according to the physical inner-workings of the weapons rather than their gameplay effects. This terminology draws lines between similar weapons that elicit similar gameplay and creates unnecessary distinctions between fictional and non-fictional weapons. We aim to classify weapons in a way that defines weapons by the gameplay behaviors they elicit using a language of common weapon design patterns. This paper expands the taxonomy of game design patterns to better describe how weapons can be used to influence gameplay. These patterns act as a language for communicating game design concepts.