History Main / AutomaticCrossbows

* Maybe with a little nod tuned UpToEleven to the Chinese chu-ko-nu in the RealLife section below, ''DynastyWarriors 7'' players have access to highly-accurate ballistas in some missions. Its {{gatling good}}ness and [[ImprobableAimingSkills never-miss accuracy]] makes {{Mook}} skirmishes look like a CrubStompBattle.

* Maybe with a little nod tuned UpToEleven to the Chinese chu-ko-nu in the RealLife section below, ''DynastyWarriors 7'' players have access to highly-accurate GatlingGood ballistas in some missions.

* Varric's crossbow [[ICallItVera Bianca]] in DragonAge2 has a much, much faster rate of fire than any real crossbow, plus its double bow arms.

* It looks like {{Diablo}} 3 will take this trope and run with it, as the Demon Hunter class can dual-wield crossbows in a blatant equivalent to [[GunsAkimbo Dual wielding guns]].

* It looks like {{Diablo}} 3 will take this trope and run with it, as the Demon Hunter class can dual-wield crossbows in a blatant equivalent to [[GunAkimbo Dual wielding guns]].

* Similarly, the Assassin class in ''{{Hexen}} II'' has a magical crossbow that gets its ammo from the player's blue mana pool.

* In ''[[{{Film/Nine}} 9]]'', 5's weapon of choice is a crossbow made of paperclips, I believe. He used it to [[spoiler:crack the Seamstresses eye, which was a Crowning Moment of Awesome, in my opinion.]]

** The issue with the Piecemaker is that it doesn't need to be fired more than once. Or even ever. In its latest incarnation/modification it's practically the equivalent to detonating a tactical nuke, in proportion to the technology level of the Disc.
** Its actually probably more equivalent to a rocket-launcher.
** Automatic or multi-shot crossbows are alluded in at least ''[[Discworld/MenAtArms Men At Arms]]'' and ''[[Discworld/TheLastContinent The Last Continent]]''. ''The Last Continent'' even used a crossbow to parody ''ArmyOfDarkness''' famous ThisIsMyBoomstick scene.
** Crossbows in ''[[Discworld/NightWatch Night Watch]]'' carry a clip of several bolts, but the string still has to be pulled back.
** Lampshaded a bit in the end of ''[[Discworld/GuardsGuards Guards! Guards!]]''. The protagonists storm the palace to catch the villain, and when the gate is locked, Captain Vimes, drunk on authority and briefly forgetting he's only ''acting'' like Dirty Harry, orders Sergeant Colon to "[[ShootOutTheLock shoot it open!]]" Colon is not sure how he's supposed to accomplish that with a bow and arrow.
** The use of this trope is, unusually, by narrative necessity. The main plot of ''Discworld/MenAtArms'' revolved around the "gonne", a ''real'' gun, which turned out to be so destructive that it was destroyed and could never be used again. Pratchett still had to find some way to use gun tropes, though, considering that his largest story thread is a fantasy version of a cop show, so crossbows took their place.
* ''Red Seas Under Red Skies'' by Scott Lynch features small "street piece" crossbows that are used for duels, [[MexicanStandOff Mexican Stand Offs]], and generic muggings.

* The ''{{Mahabharata}}'' goes ''far'' beyond the land of cowboyish pseudo- small arms tricks where most AutomaticCrossbows reside, right into the "Rapid Fire Point Defence [[TheArcher Archery]]" realm. RainOfArrows does feats now associated with miniguns and rockets: cuts things down, cuts javelins and other thrown weapons to pieces mid-flight, even intercepts incoming volleys of arrows, and the sheer force of impact can move a chariot several steps back -- provided it survives this treatment. And it was ''before crossbows''. So -- OlderThanDirt.

* ''DwarfFortress'' has crossbows that fire absurdly fast and are known for one-shotting the lungs and heart of targets in plate and chain.

This doesn't imply that crossbows are portrayed inaccurately (although that can happen), just that, as a pre-industrial form of point-and-shoot weapons, it can take the place of modern firearms in most Guns and Gunplay Tropes. Interestingly enough, repeating crossbows actually existed, as did bullet-firing crossbows.

* [[Games/Munchkin Munchkin Fu]] has a repeating crossbow. Called--what else would Munchkin call it--the Repeating Crossbow Crossbow Crossbow.

* Subverted in ''MountAndBlade''. It takes a notably longer time to reload a crossbow than a longbow. Also, only the lightest crossbows can be reloaded on horseback--the bolt is loaded and set to fire with one hand on these models.

* Captain Navarre (played by Rutger Hauer) in the movie ''{{Ladyhawke}}'' had one of those double crossbows (see the ''{{Waylander}}'' example below), too.

* The ''[[RPGEpisode Knight Gundam]]'' version of [[GundamWing Gundam]] [[MoreDakka Heavyarms]] weilds a bizarre weapons that's a combination of his traditional [[GatlingGood Gat']] & a crossbow.