History Main / LimitedLoadout

* In the UsefulNotes/{{Commodore 64}} game ''VideoGame/ProjectFirestart'', you can carry two laser rifles at a time, and there's no way to recharge or swap ammo. If you want to pick up a brand new rifle from the armory, you need to empty out one of the ones you're carrying.

* ''VideoGame/TheStalinSubway'' puts a limit to your inventory by default. You have your sidearm, some grenades, and a larger automatic weapon, but trying to carry a Thompson Machine-gun with an AK-47 will have the game displaying the message "'''Cannot get the unit: not enough space'''".

* The ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' series has only ever allowed you two weapons. The first game is the most restrictive, giving you only a primary weapon and one secondary piece of equipment, such as giving up a pistol to attach a grenade launcher to your rifle, or carry a few extra magazines. Even at least restrictive, in ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier'', you've still got five slots - two guns and three equipment items, which includes two types of throwables and a remote drone for tagging enemies.

Some games let the player carry an [[HyperspaceArsenal impossibly huge array of weapons]]. Not these games. When this trope is in effect, the player character is stuck with just a certain fraction of the total amount of firepower in the game at any one time. If you want another option, you'll have to trade in one of your weapons to get ahold of it. Very popular in modern titles compared to the HyperspaceArsenal days of ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}''. A common modern variant will limit the player to just two main weapons at any time as [[TropeCodifier popularized]] in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved''.

* ''VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide'' and ''VideoGame/VermintideII'': The heroes have free access to their inventory in the HubLevel, but their gear is set when they enter a mission. Each hero wears a melee weapon; a ranged weapon; and up to three trinkets (in the first game) or a trinket, necklace, and charm (in the second). They also have one inventory slot for each type of pickup found in the map: healing items, magic potions, and bombs. The latter consumable slots feed into a [[SelfImposedChallenge risk/reward mechanic]]: instead of using the slots to hold a potentially run-saving potion or healing item, you can instead carry a useless Tome or actively harmful Grimoire - carry these items to the level edit and you'll receive commensurate rewards.

* ''VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide'' and ''VideoGame/VermintideII'': The heroes have free access to their inventory in the HubLevel, but their gear is set when they enter a mission. Each hero wears a melee weapon; a ranged weapon; and up to three trinkets (in the first game) or a trinket, necklace, and charm (in the second). They also have one inventory slot for each type of pickup found in the map: healing items, magic potions, and bombs.

* ''VideoGame/{{Blood}} II: The Chosen'' has a downplayed example. Other than your starting knife, which always goes in the first slot, and the three varieties of bombs, which are treated as inventory items, weapons are assigned to slots in the order you pick them up in rather than any set order. This leaves you with ten slots for weapons, that knife and nine guns (technically more if you have any that can be [[GunsAkimbo paired up]]), which will eventually mean having to drop older weapons to pick up new ones, since there are twice as many guns in the game as there are slots for you to carry them in.

** ''Halo'' was the Trope Codifier for this trope, but many other games on this list failed to catch on to a trope that went hand-and-hand with it: ThrowAwayGuns. In ''Halo'', you not only are limited to two guns, you are also constantly switching up ''which guns they are'' because of a lack of UniversalAmmunition and that any one gun, even if ammo for it was abundant, had an obvious weakness (human weapons shred meaty bits quickly and [[{{hitscan}} hit instantly]], but for the most part are [[ATeamFiring noticeably less accurate]] and require a lot of bullets to punch through DeflectorShields; plasma overloads shields quickly and are almost all perfectly accurate, but don't hurt the living things underneath them as much and typically [[PainfullySlowProjectile require extensive leading of targets]], etc.). This forced varied gameplay, and the development of both skill with ''every'' weapon, rather than just what you like the most, and foresight to know when you should drop something you like for something that's more immediately useful. In most other games outside the ''Halo'' franchise, once you find the weapons that suit you, you can stick with them basically throughout the entire game because there are always ways to keep them firing, and things that your normal weapons can't do anything against like {{tank|Goodness}}s are typically extremely rare and [[SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity signposted with exactly what you need for it like a McDonald's billboard along a highway]]. This provides a different ''type'' of fun, allowing you to be WeakButSkilled instead of UnskilledButStrong. If there's an {{Aesop}} to be picked up, it's probably that tropes don't always work correctly when out of context, but they don't need to work correctly to still be fun either.

* The ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' series has only ever allowed you two weapons. The first game is the most restrictive, giving you only a primary weapon and one secondary piece of equipment, such as giving up a pistol to attach a grenade launcher to your rifle, or carry a few extra magazines. Even at least restrictive, in ''Future Soldier'', you've still got five slots - two guns and three equipment items, which includes two types of throwables and a remote drone for tagging enemies.

* ''VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide'' and ''VideoGame/VermintideII'': The heroes have free access to their inventory in the HubLevel, but their is locked when they enter a mission. Each hero wears a melee weapon; a ranged weapon; and up to three trinkets (in the first game) or a trinket, necklace, and charm (in the second). They also have one inventory slot for each type of pickup found in the map: healing items, magic potions, and bombs.