History Main / AutomaticCrossbows

* ''Shrek 2'' features crossbows which can be loaded with multiple arrows and fired one by one in a manner similar to a revolver and held like a Tommy Gun. Probably done partly because of RuleOfCool and mostly because the shooting would be very slow and less dramatic if they had to keep stopping to reload.

* The Crossbow in ''Medievil'' actually has rapid fire listed as one of its abilities by its original owner. Justified since every weapon you get in the Hall of Heroes is at least somewhat magical in nature.

* ''Hype: The Time Quest'' has some quick crossbows, one of which actually could rapid fire three arrows!

* Interestingly, the official lightgun attachment for the Nintendo Wii, known as the Wii Zapper, comes with ''[[TheLegendOfZelda Link's Crossbow Training]]''. It remains to be seen whether the next Zelda game will feature one of these. Link's Crossbow never needs to be reloaded, and can be powered up with 100 bolts of automatic rapid-fire.

* This trope was probably inspired by Ranulf's handy piece of villain-slaying hardware in 1980's camp sword and sorcery classic, ''{{Hawk The Slayer}}''.
* ''VanHelsing'' gives its hero a [[{{Steampunk}} steam powered]], [[GatlingGood gatling gun]] crossbow.
* In the original ''Film/HeavyMetal'' movie, the land where the Tarna segment was set did have guns. But automatic bolt-shooters were in exclusive use by those mounted on giant featherless birds. [[JustifiedTrope Well, giant featherless birds that also didn't exist in the medieval age]].
* Captain Navarre (played by Rutger Hauer) in the movie ''{{Ladyhawke}}'' has a double crossbow as one of his two signature weapons.

* Varric's crossbow [[ICallItVera Bianca]] in ''DragonAgeII'' has a much, much faster rate of fire than any real crossbow, plus its double bow arms. However, it doesn't become truly automatic until Varric's attack speed is upgraded, though at that point Bianca is devastating.

* In ''[[{{Film/Nine}} 9]]'', 5's weapon of choice is a crossbow made of a clock key and a spring. He used it to [[spoiler:crack the Seamstresses eye, which was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for a previously timid character.]]

* The vampire soldiers use three-stringed crossbows in [[{{Underworld}} Rise of the Lycans]]. Sensible, since the Lycans typically show up in numbers and might be able to shrug off a single bolt.

** Simliarly, the third ''{{Samurai Warriors}}'' games introduces Motonari Mori, who uses one of these [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome combined with]] ''{{Wolverine Claws}}''.

* In ''{{Berserk}}'', Guts's primary ranged weapon is a repeating crossbow. His ''other'' ranged weapon is a [[ArmCannon steampunk gunpowder cannon built into the replacement for his left arm]].]]

* A character in ''AfroSamurai'' has one of these. It also comes with an underslung grenade launcher. And the arrows are poisoned.

There are several ways this might be accomplished. The most realistic options use mechanical means to produce repeating bows that are similar to RealLife [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow historical examples]]. Others might use SchizoTech or magic to accomplish this purposes. If it is the latter, the use of magically justified BottomlessMagazines might make the AutomaticCrossbow even more powerful.

* In ''{{Berserk}}'', Guts's primary ranged weapon is a repeating crossbow. His ''other'' ranged weapon is a [[ArmCannon steampunk gunpowder cannon built into the replacement for his left arm]].

* ''{{Fable}} 2'' features repeating crossbows, which fire much faster than a normal crossbow, but are inferior in terms of speed to pistols, and in terms of power to rifles. And nothing beats a good clockwork or turret rifle.

** In GoingPostal, Moist, on several occasions, finds himself staring down the barrel of Miss Dearheart's... automatic crossbow, taking the place of the shotgun that a shopkeeper would normally have.

* RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms (the novel) attributes the original creation of an automatic crossbow to Zhu-ge Liang, circa 200 AD. While this is not exactly historical fact, the existence of the weapon in that time frame is confirmed. While certainly weaker and less accurate than a typical bow, it was much quicker and used effectively in mass combat against lightly armored foes.

** China actually did develop a repeating crossbow called a chu-ko-nu sometime in the third century, complete with an ammo magazine. It was used in combat as a serious weapon during the China-Japan war of 1894-1895. One hand had to hold the chu-ko-nu while the other cranked an arm back and forth to cock and fire, not nearly as easy or accurate as the fictional semi-auto or full-auto versions. It didn't even have a trigger in the usual sense.
*** Actually, "Chu-Ko-Nu" is just Cantonese for the actual name... "Zhuge-Nu" (Zhuge's Crossbow) or "Zhuge Lian-Nu" (Zhuge's Repeating Crossbow), being attributed to Zhuge Liang (Chu Ko Liang) as mentioned. Age of Empires back then, like many cases, just assumed Cantonese to be "Chinese" and went with the horribly unrecognizable name "Chu-Ko-Nu".
**** That's not Cantonese vs Mandarin; it's just Wade-Giles ("classic") vs Pinyin ("modern") romanization. All crossbow literature refers to it as the chu-ko-nu, as the latter romanization scheme didn't come into use until 1979.
*** Followed by Diablo 2.

* In DungeonSiege Throne of Agony, crossbows are all automatic, and only slightly slower than regular bows. They are apparently fired by yarding on a firing crank.

* In one issue of ''TheMask'', The Mask pulled out a repeating crossbow with an ammo belt like a machine gun.

* A rapid-fire crossbow in one of [[FinalFantasyXII Vaan's]] [[MultiMeleeMaster (ma]][[MultiRangedMaster ny)]] BRV attacks in ''[[DissidiaFinalFantasy Duodecim 012]]''.

* In the original ''HeavyMetal'' movie, the land where the Tarna segment was set did have guns. But automatic bolt-shooters were in exclusive use by those mounted on giant featherless birds. [[JustifiedTrope Well, giant featherless birds that also didn't exist in the medieval age]].

[[/folder]]

Sometimes in a work the urge to use some GunsAndGunplayTropes is just too powerful. Most times this isn't difficult; just have a cop, a soldier or a criminal show up and the {{Quick Draw}}s practically write themselves. However, sometimes this isn't so easy because the work just happens to be set in the past, before guns became commonplace, or it's set in another world that has FantasyGunControl. So the obvious solution to this dilemma is to use crossbows, as they were the ancient version of firearms.

Of course this means the most used kind of crossbows are those that allow the user to shoot several times before having to reload, just like guns do. Not only they add [[RuleOfCool instant awesome]], but they allow having MoreDakka, something bows can't give because of having to reload every time.

* ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': Yoko's sniper rifle is a LostTechnology railgun, which means it can also fire arrows as well as bullets -- which comes in handy for hunting.

* In the original ''{{Shrek}}'', the bad guys' loading their crossbows makes a sound uncannily similar to a [[DramaticGunCock shotgun being cocked]].
** ''Shrek 2'' features crossbows which can be loaded with multiple arrows and fired one by one in a manner similar to a revolver and held like a Tommy Gun. Probably done partly because of RuleOfCool and mostly because the shooting would be very slow and less dramatic if they had to keep stopping to reload.

* ''[[RobinHoodMenInTights Robin Hood: Men in Tights]]'' features a sniper who uses a crossbow, complete with a telescopic sight.
** The sniper's name is [[DirtyHarry Dirty Ezio]]. No, not that [[AssassinsCreed Ezio]].

* In ''JohnnyMnemonic'', J-Bone uses a sniper crossbow to great effect.

** 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 -- OlderThanFeudalism.

* Some of the scenarios for the ''{{Warhammer}} RolePlayingGame'' first edition were guilty of this - the player bursting in on a room full of bad guys playing cards who all pull loaded crossbows ...

* Oddly used in ''TeamFortress2'' by the Medic, who, in a setting full of shotguns, rifles, and machine guns, gets access to a crossbow that loads from the back. Said crossbow also heals allies it hits.
* 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]].

** Completely subverted in the original. Those crossbows were anything but automatic...
*** Actually, the repeating crossbows were in the game's coding, but were dummied out in the end. If you download the developers toolkit, you can find them and even put them into the game. They weren't super fast, but faster than the normal crossbow. There was even a legendary version.

* While neither is very accurate to life, in ''WorldOfWarcraft'', guns and crossbows function exactly the same. They reload with one hand in a couple seconds and fire the same distance at the same speed with the same accuracy.
** Probably [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that the guns in this game are most likely primitive and jury-rigged enough that they're barely, if ever, better than a crossbow.
*** Actually, most of the higher level guns look pretty well put-together, and some are just [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=44504# modelviewer downright]] [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=29115#modelviewer crazy-advanced]].

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''{{Goblins}}: Life Through Their Eyes'' is set in a basic D&D world, but the fancy crossbows wielded by [[http://www.goblinscomic.com/d/20050910.html Kore the Dwarf Paladin]] is a bit beyond what you'd encounter in your usual everyday adventure... [[MoreDakka KATHUNK KATHUNK KATHUNK KATHUNK KATHUNK KATHUNK]]

Some writers can't resist the urge to use some GunsAndGunplayTropes. For most writers this isn't too difficult; just have a cop, a soldier or a criminal show up and the {{Quick Draw}}s practically write themselves. However, sometimes this isn't so easy, if the story happens to be set in the past, before guns became commonplace, or if it's set in another world that has FantasyGunControl. The simplest solution to this dilemma is to use crossbows, as they were the ancient version of firearms.

Some writers can't resist the urge to use some GunsAndGunplayTropes. For most writers this isn't too difficult; just have a cop, a soldier or a criminal show up and the {{Quick Draw}}s practically write themselves. However, sometimes this isn't so easy, if the story happens to be set in the past, before guns became commonplace, or if it's set in another world that has FantasyGunControl. The simplest solution to this dilemma is to treat crossbows as the ancient/medieval/Renaissance version of firearms.

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, [[MoreDakka repeating crossbows]] actually existed, as did [[SchizoTech bullet-firing crossbows]].

* While this guy built a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtHtPK2MH8&feature=related GatlingGood slingshot crossbow]]!

* While this guy built a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtHtPK2MH8&feature=related GatlingGood slingshow crossbow]]!

** In GoingPostal, Moist, on several occasions, finds himself staring down the barrel of Mrs. Belle's... automatic crossbow, taking the place of the shotgun that a shopkeeper would normally have.

* 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.