History Main / OneBulletClips

* The original ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' and its trilogy of expansion packs played this differently depending on system. In the PC version, this is played in the same manner as ''Rainbow Six'', where used magazines are put back in a queue and could end up loaded later if you go through a lot of ammo throughout a mission. The console versions instead go for dumping the current mag entirely when you reload, with the tutorial at the beginning making a point of saying that it is better to sacrifice a few rounds and reload when the coast is clear than to have a magazine run out in the middle of a fight. However, there is no animation or extra time needed for racking the charging handle of an automatic weapon if you emptied the mag, nor do you get to keep an extra round in the chamber if you reload early. Later games got progressively more arcadey about this, playing this trope completely straight by ''[[VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier Future Soldier]]'' where even the added animations for pulling the charging handle only ever add a quarter of a second to an empty reload, although ''[[VideoGame/GhostReconBreakpoint Breakpoint]]'' eventually added a toggle option where reloading with bullets still in your current magazine once again causes you to lose those bullets.

** The usual rule for empty reloads isn't quite followed for the FAD in ''Modern Warfare 3''. While a reload from empty does take slightly longer than a mid-mag reload, the added length is just from the player character smacking the new mag a second time after inserting it - he never touches any charging handle. The most likely reason for this is that [[https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/FAD_assault_rifle the weapon in question]] was an obscure prototype when the game came out, and it still is rather obscure even now. Most likely, the person who modeled and/or animated it most likely didn't have much reference material to work with and didn't know exactly where the charging handle was, hence the mag tap.[[note]]For the record, the FAD's charging handle is [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fad_9.png a crescent-shaped pull handle located on the right side of the rifle near the ejection port]]. This charging handle is properly depicted being used ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyGhosts Ghosts]]''.[[/note]]
* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife'', this is {{Handwave}}d as a function of the HEV suit. It's also guilty of the "reload more visible rounds than you have" bit with the revolver, but not the shotgun - it's loaded one shell at a time, thus reloads to full faster if you have shells already loaded, and its reload cycle can be interrupted between shells (both essential anti-zombie features).

** The VR mod for ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', in its default settings, plays this more or less the same - ejecting a magazine causes all bullets except for the one in the chamber (a mechanic added with the mod specifically to mirror ''Alyx'') to be dropped on the ground, though you can then pick that magazine back up to add its remaining ammo back to your ammo pool. Weapons that are loaded with loose rounds (the revolver and shotgun) or only hold one round at a time (the crossbow and RPG) avoid this.

* The original ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' and its trilogy of expansion packs played this differently depending on system. In the PC version, this was played in the same manner as ''Rainbow Six'', where used magazines were put back in a queue and could end up loaded later if you go through a lot of ammo throughout a mission. The console versions instead go for dumping the current mag entirely when you reload, with the tutorial at the beginning making a point of saying that it is better to sacrifice a few rounds and reload when the coast is clear than to have a magazine run out in the middle of a fight. However, there is no animation or extra time needed for racking the charging handle of an automatic weapon if you emptied the mag, nor do you get to keep an extra round in the chamber if you reload early. Later games got progressively more arcadey about this, playing this trope completely straight by ''[[VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier Future Soldier]]'' where even the added animations for pulling the charging handle only ever add a quarter of a second to an empty reload, although ''[[VideoGame/GhostReconBreakpoint Breakpoint]]'' eventually added a toggle option where reloading with bullets still in your current magazine once again causes you to lose those bullets.

* Pistol magazines in ''VideoGame/HalfLifeAlyx'' keep their current ammo reserves if ejected while still partially-full. They can be picked back up and loaded back into the gun, though they can't be stored in Alyx's ammo backpack (and the individual rounds can't be loaded into another magazine either). Realistically, you can also skip racking the slide if reloaded while there's still a round in the chamber, which gives the next magazine one "extra" bullet. The other guns work the same way, though with the twist that neither has to worry about losing ammo on a reload without conscious effort from the player - the shotgun, as in the other games, loads with loose shells, while the Combine SMG uses "pulse plugs" that can't be manually removed, only automatically ejected and replaced once empty.

* ''VideoGame/RainbowSix: Vegas'' is similar to ''Crysis'' in this regard. Reloading an empty weapon requires the protagonist to cock the gun to put the first round into the chamber. In addition, the game tracked chambered rounds after reloading a magazine, letting the player fire one more round (excluding belt-fed [=LMGs=], which are always re-cocked no matter how many rounds you had left - in return, you can see their belts visibly get smaller as you run through the last few rounds in them). However, despite the HUD only showing an amount of magazines equivalent to the remaining ammunition you have remaining, they're not actually individually tracked. This was also implemented rather weirdly with ''Vegas 2''[='=]s {{revolver|sAreJustBetter}}, which due to being a revolver doesn't get chambered rounds, but still gets a slower reloading animation when reloading from empty, just because. ''[[VideoGame/RainbowSixSiege Siege]]'' excised the bit about trying to pretend it still tracked magazines and just outright tells you how many more bullets you have in reserve, and takes the chambered-round bit to an extreme by even letting open-bolt and belt-fed weapons keep a round from the previous magazine or belt - even though, by virtue of being open-bolt, they never actually ''have'' a live round in the chamber until the trigger has already been pulled to fire that round.
** Also averted in previous ''Rainbow Six'' games and in the later-added "Tactical Realism" mode for ''Siege'', where you start each level with X magazines, each holding Y rounds - all tracked individually. You never just drop a mag unless it's empty (this includes reloading with a single round left, at least in ''Raven Shield''; that single round would be kept in the chamber and fired along with those in the next mag), instead you put it back in your pockets. Whenever you reload, any non-empty magazine you're holding is kept, and put at the bottom of your loading queue. Meaning that if you're the kind of person who reloads when half of your magazine is gone, then more often than not by the middle of the level you'll be reloading with half-empty mags.

** The last release of the ''Covert Forces'' mod keeps track of the round in the chamber, but otherwise plays the trope straight, even spawning an empty magazine model that drops to the ground regardless of if the player actually emptied the mag before reloading.

** ''Opposing Force'' had a nice little detail with the M249 SAW when you ran low on bullets, the end of the chain is actually seen once you're below ten rounds left and it visibly gets shorter.
* Similar to the Call of Duty one above, ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' applied a similar mechanic to the pump and automatic shotguns. If you had any shells in the gun before you started to reload, you performed the standard animation. If you reloaded from empty, your character performed a slightly different animation and would need to take an extra second to chamber the first shell before you could start firing again. It dips back into FridgeLogic territory again in [[VideoGame/Left4Dead2 the sequel]], though, where both Tier 2 shotguns will do the cocking animation regardless of how many rounds are left in the gun (and much faster than it was performed in the first game), but the Tier 1 shotguns won't, and the animation can be interrupted at any point to fire the gun even if reloading from empty, thus eliminating the drawback.

** The first two games are actually somewhat mercurial about this trope. The bolt-action weapons all follow these rules ''except'' for the Lee-Enfield, which can only be loaded five rounds at a time if you've fired more than five rounds (which makes sense to a degree, as stripper clips for the Lee-Enfield hold 5 rounds, but so do those for all the other bolt-action rifles in the game; it may have been for balance since the Enfield holds ten rounds at a time to every other bolt-action's 5). The M1 Garand takes it a step further, where, in a nod to how real soldiers were trained in its use, the player cannot reload it ''at all'' except from empty; in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyWorldAtWar World at War]]'', ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyWWII WWII]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyVanguard Vanguard]]'', the gun inverts the usual rules for this and still reloads much faster from empty (since a mid-clip reload requires manually ejecting the current clip before inserting a new one - an empty reload will have already had the clip eject when the last bullet was fired). There are also a few weapons in the earlier games that are treated oddly: the SVT-40 and Gewehr 43 take longer to reload mid-magazine than from empty in ''United Offensive'' (a mid-mag reload has your character lock the bolt back manually before replacing the magazine, while the bolt is already locked back at the start of an empty reload) and then reloads that never acknowledge the need to chamber a round in ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDuty2 2]]'', while the Bren went from reloads in [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty1 the first game]] that never require a rechamber to reloads that always start with your character very quickly pulling the bolt open[[labelnote:*]]which only actually makes any noise to indicate it happened if you reload from empty[[/labelnote]] in ''2''.

* A constant in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series. Even with the addition of limited magazines and reloading animations in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'', there was still not a dedicated reload button, and the only way to reload a weapon was to either fire off every bullet currently in it or simply switch to a different one, at which point the weapon would instantly refill. The shotgun took this to the extreme by not even having reloads beyond the pumping animation (a case which continued even through ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]'', where the pump shotgun was the only one that didn't have to reload after a set number of shots); even when they eventually got actual reloading animations in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV V]]'', they consist of only loading, respectively, two and then ''one'' shell into the weapon. Submachine guns that can be fired out the windows of a car or while on a bike handle this oddly as well, where while being used normally they have to reload after emptying their mags, but if fired from a vehicle, they can keep shooting long after that mag should have emptied.

* The original ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' and its trilogy of expansion packs played this differently depending on system. In the PC version, this was played in the same manner as ''Rainbow Six'', where used magazines were put back in a queue and could end up loaded later if you go through a lot of ammo throughout a mission. The console versions instead go for dumping the current mag entirely when you reload, with the tutorial at the beginning making a point of saying that it is better to sacrifice a few rounds and reload when the coast is clear than to have a magazine run out in the middle of a fight. However, there is no animation or extra time needed for racking the charging handle of an automatic weapon if you emptied the mag, nor do you get to keep an extra round in the chamber if you reload early. Later games got progressively more arcadey about this, playing this trope completely straight by ''Future Soldier'' where even the added animations for pulling the charging handle only ever add a quarter of a second to an empty reload.

* ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'' avoids this issue by simply not using weapons that have detachable magazines. The guns in the game are either revolvers or hunting rifles; you reload the cylinders or internal magazines with loose rounds. It also deals with the corollary by [[UnusableEnemyEquipment not letting you take weapons from fallen enemies.]]

** ''VideoGame/Battlefield1'' uses a variation of this trope: Firearms with integral magazines[[note]]most rifles, the C96 pistol, and the automatic version of the Steyr 1912 (the normal version doesn't count, as it instead has you always ejecting all unfired rounds before inserting a fresh clip)[[/note]] are loaded with stripper clips if needed, and single rounds otherwise, with a mid-mag reload for most weapons even showing your character blocking the currently-chambered bullet from being ejected when they pull the bolt open. Both methods draw from the same pool of ammunition, however, as if rounds attach to or detach from clips on their own as necessary.

->''"Watch me pop in six bullets and only get one. Sweet."''
-->-- '''LetsPlay/ChristopherOdd''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLj_Goi54wf0eI9TaYBxbrRrqDi3hCdPMr&feature=player_detailpage&v=B63D1NXieS8&t=957 reloading his empty revolver with his last remaining round]] in ''VideoGame/BlackMesa''

* Averted for comedic purposes in ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}: Shattered Soldier'' - the intro movie shows one of the main characters loading individual bullets into magazines. Turns out that they're BottomlessMagazines once the game starts.

* The ''Firearms'' GameMod for ''Half-Life'' (and its ''Source'' successor, ''Firearms: Source'') [[AvertedTrope avert this]] ''very thoroughly.'' The mod's motto, after all, was that ''it's all about the guns''.
** Partially-empty magazines are simply moved to the end of your magazine reserve, and still partially empty if the player reloads them. Consolidating rounds between partial magazines requires a button press and a significant amount of time, leaving the player vulnerable.
** Shotgun reloads can be interrupted after each shell.
** Most guns retain a round in the chamber if reloaded while there is still at least one round in the magazine; exceptions are programmed in specifically in the cases where the weapon's real-world counterpart would not behave that way, such as revolvers or open-bolt firearms like the Sterling submachine gun.
** In the case of the revolvers, there is a distinct reload animation for each of the possible number of shots fired: if reloading only two rounds, the character would place a thumb over the remaining ones to keep them in their chambers. The empty chambers were then reloaded one at a time, and the reload could be canceled partway through, similar to the shotgun.

* Pistol magazines in ''VideoGame/HalfLifeAlyx'' keep their current ammo reserves if ejected while still partially-full. They can be picked back up and loaded back into the gun, though they can't be stored in Alyx's ammo backpack (and the individual rounds can't be loaded into another magazine either). Realistically, you can also skip racking the slide if reloaded while there's still a round in the chamber, which gives the next magazine one "extra" bullet. The other guns work the same way, though with the twist that neither has to worry about losing ammo on a reload - the shotgun, as in the other games, loads with loose shells, while the Combine SMG uses "pulse plugs" that can't be manually removed, only automatically ejected and replaced once empty.