History Main / RangedEmergencyWeapon

** Back in the days of ''VideoGame/Quake1'', there were a lot of mods intended to provide a set of alternate classes and weapons to play with, usually including a melee fighter. As the game's maps used a lot of shoot-to-activate switches, the mods tended to include a key binding to throw a rock for minimal damage (the "Hitscan sword" alternative was rare).

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* While not deliberate, many VideoGame/ModernWarfare2 players have been absolutely shocked when a knife rusher (commando-marathon-lightweight) actually shot at them, since they (usually) rely on {{One Hit Kill}}s from their melee.
* Back in the days of VideoGame/{{Quake}} 1, there were a lot of mods intended to provide a set of alternate classes and weapons to play with, usually including a melee fighter. As the game's maps used a lot of shoot-to-activate switches, the mods tended to include a key binding to throw a rock for minimal damage. (The "Hitscan sword" alternative was rare.)

* In the Literature/{{Dragonlance}} novel ''Dragons of Winter Night'', when Sturm needs to buy time for Laurana to use the [[AncientArtifact Dragon Orb]], he decides that he needs to draw the attacking dragons toward him, and fires a bow at them to do so, even though he never otherwise uses a ranged attack.

* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'' has infinite ammo for all of his pistols, though the magazine has to be taken out and reinserted for the [[AWizardDidIt technomagical]] [[MatterReplicator ammo replenishers]] to work. Said pistols are modeled after {{Hand Cannons}}, but are not much good for more than small groups of weak enemies or lone mid-tier foes.

* ''Franchise/{{Unreal}}'' features the Dispersion Pistol as this in its two main games.
** In ''VideoGame/UnrealI'', it starts off as this, firing very weak energy bolts at a fast rate and recharging over time[[note]]at a rate inversely proportional to the ammo count: the less ammo you have, the faster it recharges[[/note]]. The main gimmick about it is that you can upgrade it by collecting hidden power-ups throughout the game, and each makes it more powerful but slower-firing, going from REW to PunchPackingPistol and to Handcannon when the max of five upgrades are collected; a fully upgraded Dispersion Pistol is {{BFG}}-tier when used with the {{Amplifier|Artifact}}, able to 3-shot the brutish Skaarj Berserkers.

* Mercy's sidearm in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}''. It fires a slow-moving and easily dodged projectile, meaning the player has to LeadTheTarget, but is accurate and packs a fair sting. It suffices for self-defense in emergency situations, as well as things like spooking twitchier snipers or clearing out Symmetra's short range turrets.

* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'' has infinite ammo for all of his pistols, though the magazine has to be taken out and reinserted for the [[AWizardDidIt technomagical]] [[MatterReplicator ammo replenishers]] to work. Said pistols are not much good for more than small groups of weak enemies or lone mid-tier foes.

* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'' has infinite ammo for his pistols, though the magazine has to be taken out and reinserted for the [[MatterReplicator ammo generator to work]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}: Dead Souls'', the Pistol has infinite ammo, making it this for most characters. The only exception is Akiyama, whose primary weapon is a pair of pistols, which serves to ease the player into the game (since Akiyama is the first playable character).

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator Liberator Pistol]], made during WWII was a crude, single shot .45 caliber pistol. It was intended to be dropped into occupied territory and be used by resistance groups to kill occupying soldiers and take their much better weapons. It never saw much use in Europe, but was employed in numbers in the Philippines and China.

* Hand axes and Javelins in ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' have the attack power of the most basic axes/lances with lower accuracy and much lower durability, but have a range of 1 or 2 tiles, opposed to every other melee weapons 1 (There are stronger versions with the strength of higher grade weapons, but they are rare and typically [[TooAwesomeToUse can not be bought]])

* Both ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' games feature pistols with [[BottomlessMagazines an endless supply of magazines]] as your sidearms. [[PunchPackingPistol That's not to say they're ineffective, as even on Advanced (Hard) mode they'll down common zombies in three body shots and kill any Special Infected in less than fifteen; they're decent-to-good on anything that isn't called Witch or Tank]]. ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' adds the Desert Eagle ("[[AKA47 Magnum Pistol]]") as an alternative to your regular pistol, a rare downplay of HandCannon[[note]]against any kind of Special Infected, anyway; against the regular fare of zombie mooks, it's a OneHitKill ''anywhere'', which in Realism Mode is a feature only shared by the [[{{BFG}} M60 heavy machine gun]][[/note]]. Should you decide to pick up a melee weapon to replace your sidearm, get knocked on the ground and it becomes a single pistol. This is justified though, as melee weapons are a one hit kill against almost all infected, and being downed is supposed to put you at a disadvantage. The chainsaw also becomes a single pistol when it runs out of fuel. Clearly, in the south they've run out of places to stash their guns.

* Most WoW or ''{{VideoGame/Lineage 2}}'' inspired [=MMOs=] have ranged weapons serve this purpose for melee characters. In the case of the [[AnAdventurerIsYou Party tank]], a solo ranged pull is often safer than running into the middle of the room with the Taunt key held down as it allows the player to control how much aggro he gets and what mobs notice him. More recently, they have stopped bothering with actual ranged weaponry for any class other than dedicated ranged fighters and instead give them fairly weak abilities that serve the same purpose.
* All of the melee weapon styles in ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' offer some manner of ranged attack capability, via some combination of RazorWind, ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks, ShockwaveClap, throwing rocks, shuriken, or a straight-up [[ElementalAttacks elemental]] ChargedAttack.

* In ''Rune: Halls Of Valhalla'' and possibly Rune itself too, any weapon can be thrown with the obvious backdraw of not having said weapon in your hands anymore. In player versus player duels, throwing your last remaining melee weapon is usually unexpected and can bring victory, but if it fails you're weaponless. You can pick up one of every kind, giving you quite an arsenal to throw with. You can also pick up chopped off pieces of enemies and throw those. Ineffective, but funny.

* In the {{Dragonlance}} novel ''Dragons of Winter Night'', when Sturm needs to buy time for Laurana to use the [[AncientArtifact Dragon Orb]], he decides that he needs to draw the attacking dragons toward him, and fires a bow at them to do so, even though he never otherwise uses a ranged attack.

* Both ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' games feature pistols with [[BottomlessMagazines an endless supply of magazines]] as your sidearms. [[PunchPackingPistol That's not to say they're ineffective, as even on Advanced (Hard) mode they'll down common zombies in three body shots and kill any Special Infected in less than fifteen; they're decent-to-good on anything that isn't called Witch or Tank]]. ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' adds the Desert Eagle ("[[AKA47 Magnum Pistol]]") as an alternative to your regular pistol, a rare aversion of HandCannon[[note]]against Special Infected, anyway; against the Commons it's a OneHitKill ''anywhere'', which in Realism Mode is a feature only shared by the [[{{BFG}} M60 heavy machine gun]][[/note]]. Should you decide to pick up a melee weapon to replace your sidearm, get knocked on the ground and it becomes a single pistol. This is justified though, as melee weapons are a one hit kill against almost all infected, and being downed is supposed to put you at a disadvantage. The chainsaw also becomes a single pistol when it runs out of fuel. Clearly, in the south they've run out of places to stash their guns.

* Most WoW or ''{{VideoGame/Lineage 2}}'' inspired [=MMOs=] have ranged weapons serve this purpose for melee characters. In the case of the [[AnAdventurerIsYou Party tank]], a solo ranged pull is often safer than running into the middle of the room with the Taunt key held down as it allows the player to control how much aggro he gets and what mobs notice him.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' uses Strength to determine whether a character can wield big melee weapons and Dexterity for bows. There are also Strength-based crossbows to provide Warriors with an ranged option. Crossbows are universally and unconditionally awful.
* ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}'' gives War a gun and a boomerang for long-range work, but there's no question that he's a melee-character - neither of them can do much of any damage, but there are a few situations where you're forced to use them on enemies you either can't reach, or don't want to be standing next to.
** Additionally, the boomerang can be upgraded to ricochet many times between several enemies, tying them up well enough for War to finish what he's doing and come beat them up.
* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheLance'', Flint Fireforge, similarly to the Gimli example given above, has a single axe he can throw in addition to his melee axe.
* Throwing knives in ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' require no skill in throwing to use and take up 1 of your 4 weapon slot (opposed to a bow/crossbows 1 another for ammo) but do poor damage. Their primary use is to give a sword/shield/lance user some range. Many infantry units have a chance at having proper throwing weapons at creation.
** And there are rocks for people who are really short of money.
*** Don't underestimate [[RockBeatsLaser rocks]], though. Many a new player has been undone by wild forest men with rocks and sticks.

** The Engineer of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' carries a pistol and more ammo than he can likely spend in one life. While he has the gool ol' {{shotgun|sAreJustBetter}} as a primary, it is slow to fire and reload, and its spread makes it hard to use beyond medium range, so the pistol's the only real option to hit anything past sentry range.

* In ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' when the custom mission creator was released it was possible to make custom enemies with no ranged attacks allowing a ranged character to fly up and fight them in perfect safety. Consequently all custom enemies with a melee attack set now get Throwing Knives or Shuriken as a ranged attack power.
** Much earlier, a quintet of origin-based attacks was introduced to guarantee that all players had at least one (very weak) ranged attack.
** Also averted elsewhere. A few of melee powersets available to players include a ranged attack (SuperStrength, [[DishingOutDirt Stone Melee]], Spines, [[WolverineClaws Claws]] and Kinetic Melee) which is no weaker than their other attacks. Their range may be shorter than a Blaster, and they lack a full ranged attack chain, but the attack is more than capable of putting the hurt on a runner or an enemy that hangs back.
** Also by level 41 all players could choose from ancillary power pools that gave access to abilities they would not normally have for their archetype: for example all melee archetypes would gain access to one or two ranged attacks while ranged archetypes gained access to weaker versions of the defensive shields enjoyed by the melee archetypes.
* Not a single weapon, but Lenneth's ability to equip bows is likely this in the first ''ValkyrieProfile'' game. While there's no enemies that can't ever be reached by melee, an early boss battle has a powerful mage protected by a pair of very durable henchmen, which you'd have to break through to reach the mage with melee, during which the mage will be pounding you with spells. It's possible to have recruited an archer prior to this, but just in case you haven't, the game advises you to switch Lenneth from her usual sword to a bow.

** Most WoW or ''{{VideoGame/Lineage 2}}'' inspired [=MMOs=] have ranged weapons serve this purpose for melee characters. In the case of the [[AnAdventurerIsYou Party tank]], a solo ranged pull is often safer than running into the middle of the room with the Taunt key held down as it allows the player to control how much aggro he gets and what mobs notice him.

* All of the melee weapon styles in ''DCUniverseOnline'' offer some manner of ranged attack capability, via some combination of RazorWind, ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks, ShockwaveClap, throwing rocks, shuriken, or a straight-up [[ElementalAttacks elemental]] ChargedAttack.
* While not deliberate, many ModernWarfare2 players have been absolutely shocked when a knife rusher (commando-marathon-lightweight) actually shot at them, since they (usually) rely on {{One Hit Kill}}s from their melee.
* Back in the days of {{Quake}} 1, there were a lot of mods intended to provide a set of alternate classes and weapons to play with, usually including a melee fighter. As the game's maps used a lot of shoot-to-activate switches, the mods tended to include a key binding to throw a rock for minimal damage. (The "Hitscan sword" alternative was rare.)

* Many melee specialists in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar'' have a ranged weapon or an upgrade that gives them one, pretty much only useful against flyers due to the inaccuracy of firing while moving.

* Many melee specialists in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar'' have a ranged weapon or an upgrade that gives them one.

In movies, a character without such a weapon can always rely on ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks; unfortunately very few video games give you that option.

** The Engineer of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' carries a pistol and more ammo than he can likely spend in one life. While he has a shotgun, it is slow to fire and reload, and its spread makes it hard to use beyond medium range. The pistol is really the only reasonable weapon in his personal arsenal if he needs to fight beyond his SentryGun's effective range.
*** Actually, the pistol do suffer from bullet spread quitte heavily, making it unsuitable for long rage fight and it's damage, while not laughable, is pretty poor compared to the shotgun from close to mid-range. And since 7 out the 9 classes in the game are primarly focused on close-range fights, thanks to the bullet spread mechanic of the game, your shotgun is in fact a pretty good option, putting you at an advantage in direct combat against Medics, Snipers and Spies alike.
*** The shotgun is in fact the secondary weapon for half of the cast: The Soldier, the Heavy, the Pyro all wield a shotgun on top of their regular weapon. And while it isn't nearly as flashy or as powerful as their primary, all of them do benefit from it: The Soldier's Rocket Launcher can empty his clip rather quickly, and it's often a better idea to switch to your shotgun to finish off your foe, the time it takes for the Heavy to wind up his minigun can be used instead to land two to three shotgun shot, and without it, the Pyro can no longer hit anything that stands in more than two feets away from him.

*** Actually, the pisto do suffer from bullet spread quitte heavily, making it unsuitable for long rage fight and it's damage, while not laughable, is pretty poor compared to the shotgun from close to mid-range.
And since 7 out the 9 classes in the game are primarly focused on close-range fight, thanks to the bullet spread mechanic of the game, your shotgun is in fact a pretty good option, putting you at an advantage in direct combat against Medic, Sniper and Spies alike.