History Main / UnusableEnemyEquipment

** In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', after you're weapon-stripped, the Gravity Gun, your only remaining weapon, gains a weapon-destroying effect itself... which means every weapon dropped by dying enemies is disintegrated before you can grab it to rebuild your arsenal. Not that you really need to, as [[EleventhHourSuperpower the supercharged Gravity Gun is extraordinarily destructive]]. The same thing happens at the beginning of ''Episode One'' when your gravity gun is supercharged again.[[note]]This effect is not tied to the weapon itself, but to the script that tells the game that the Gravity Gun is supercharged -- enemies killed by Alyx during the mentioned portion of ''Episode One'' also have their weapons disintegrate when dropped, even though she wields an ordinary pistol, and the same thing will happen if you use cheats to enable the supercharged Gravity Gun in any other level.[[/note]]

** The original ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' has an interesting example with the [[BeeBeeGun Hivehand]] weapon. Unlike every other weapon, the player can't retrieve it from the corpse of an enemy that wields it, because it's literally attached to them. There are two Hivehands that have been previously removed and the player can acquire, but other than that they can't be used.
** The ''Opposing Force'' ExpansionPack takes this a step further, as you eventually get to use ''multiple'' [[LivingWeapon live aliens]] as weapons.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/FarCry2''. There is nothing stopping you picking up the weapons dropped from dead mercs, but their weapons are so beaten up that they are liable to [[BreakableWeapons blow up in your face]] within an hour and leave you defenseless. The weapons you buy from the gun shop are much more durable just because they are new, so there is very little reason to use enemy equipment outside of the start of the game or the first few minutes of getting to the second half, where you simply haven't had the chance to buy anything from that area.
* The sequels, ''VideoGame/FarCry3'' and ''[[VideoGame/FarCry4 4]]'', also zig-zag this in a different way. ''3'' still has a pretty solid distinction between guns that are available in the first half of the game and those that show up in the second half, but otherwise allows guns to be acquired just from picking them up in any form. This means that near the end of the first half of the game, where you get a sneak-peek of the privateers with their better weapons, you can pick up their new guns and use them, but won't actually be able to buy attachments for them or switch them out for another gun and then grab them back later until you actually get to the second island. ''4'' is a bit more lenient, where the same deal of stronger enemies previewing the second half's weapons show up slightly earlier than the second half of the game, especially Longinus' or DLC missions... but if you pick up their guns there, they actually do get added to your inventory, complete with the ability to modify them, store them and get them back, and the like. There's even one particular case for a mission set at a brick factory that's been repurposed as a drug lab, where if you do Amita's version of the mission you go inside, promptly going on a drug trip where your character hallucinates himself fighting off enemies with a randomly-rotated selection of weapons - all of which, if you didn't have them already, are added to your real inventory after the mission, even ones that are supposed to be held over until the second half of the game.

* At one point in ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs'', some U.S. Army soldiers you face will be armed with assault rifles - except every one of them just so happens to be in an unreachable location, such as a high balcony. You can still kill them, but you physically can't get to where they drop their gun. Not every soldier has an assault rifle- some are only armed with pistols or revolvers (the same equipment the player will have at the time). It's strange how under-equipped many soldiers are - just being armed with handguns. [[HandWave Well, the military probably has some equipment shortages, since it's 20 years after the Cordyceps outbreak.]] Still, it is odd that these soldiers just so happen to be the only ones you encounter up-close.
** Even more annoying is how rarely firearm-toting enemies drop ammo. Sure, you might hand-wave it in a firefight (oops, guess you killed him right after he shot his last round), but what about the numerous mooks you dispatch before they can even shoot? Are you supposed to pretend they were just carrying guns for show?

* Justified in the final chapter of ''VideoGame/{{Deadlight}}'' when you're unable to claim an M16 from any of the fallen soldiers, yet a previous chapter has you find a usable shotgun on the body of one. In flashbacks Randall is shown to have only been familiar with a shotgun from his time as a Park Ranger, and had to be taught how to use a handgun by his buddy Ben after the outbreak began, meaning he simply doesn't know how to use an M16 and would have figured such a [[hectic time]] wasn't exactly the right time to grab one and try and use it.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', Zombie Pigmen's gold swords and Skeleton's bows would once never drop upon their deaths. The 1.2 patch made these items Rare Drops, with a chance for these weapons being enchanted.

** The ''VideoGame/BrutalDoom'' and ''Project Brutality'' mods subvert this. Killing mancubi and revenants with either explosive weapons (easier, but not guaranteed [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome due to the chance of your ordinance mauling said weapon in the process]]), or by killing them with the Chainsaw or your bare hands (Berserk-state only), allows the player to steal and use their weapons. However, they tend to be AwesomeButImpractical, because the only way to get more ammo is to kill more of them in the same specific manner in which you got the weapon in the first place.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has Bohr X, which can reduce the target's HPToOne from a very long distance. It's only wielded by Myson in the final level of the Azure Moon route, and cannot be learned by any controllable character under any circumstance.

* The original ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'' does this, where so long as a [[OurZombiesAreDifferent shibito]] is holding onto a weapon, be it some variety of gardening tool or a police revolver, there's no way for you to normally pry it out of their cold, undead hands -- one objective in a level even requires you to take out a specific shibito in a particular way to get him to actually ''drop'' his gun so you can take it, and beyond that your only means of acquiring a firearm is hoping you find one in the stage (Naoko's Type 26 revolver) or just starting with one (Akira's hunting rifle, Tamon's .38 revolver). In later games, this is averted, as you can take weapons from shibito at will, but with the caveat that you can only carry one weapon at a time, so unless you're completely unarmed before somehow taking out a shibito, that means giving up whatever you've already got to take their weapon - and some objectives or archive items do require you to give a gun to a shibito so you can take whatever necessary tool they were using before.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsBountyHunter'' has Jango Fett not attempting to pick any blaster pistols and most rifles but very much willing to pick up anything else an enemy has on hand. Somewhat justified in that Jango is already using a [[GunsAkimbo pair]] of AceCustom blaster pistols and has no reason to swap them out for commercially available weapons. He also doesn't pick up rocket launchers but he doesn't since he normally has JetPack he can fire the rocket he grabs from just fine but UniversalAmmunition is another trope.

* The Prawn's armaments in ''Film/DistrictNine'' are explicitly unusable by humans. It takes being infected by and turned into a prawn in order to even try to use their weapons, as Wikus found out the hard way.

* ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' lets you choose a set of weapons at mission start, but you can't use the weapons your enemies drop after you kill them. In ''VideoGame/GhostReconAdvancedWarfighter'', you can at least scavenge the ammo out of them if they're the same caliber as one of your weapons, while ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier'' lets you grab dropped enemy weapons as much as you want.

* Averted in the first ''Videogame/PlanetSide'', which let players loot other player's corpses to steal their weapons (which could then be stored in [[BagOfHolding personal storage lockers accessible from any base]]) regardless of empire, allowing a [[TheEmpire Terran Republic]] player to pick up a [[MegaCorp New Conglomerate]] [[ShortRangeShotgun Jackhammer]] and start blasting, for example. Players could also hack and steal enemy vehicles if they had the certification for it. Played straight in the sequel, where players cannot loot enemy (or ally) loadouts for their weapons or even ammo.

* Justified in the final chapter of ''VideoGame/{{Deadlight}}'' when you're unable to claim an M16 from any of the fallen soldiers, yet a previous chapter has you find a usable shotgun on the body of one. In flashbacks Randall is shown to have only been familiar with a shotgun from his time as a Park Ranger, and had to be taught how to use a handgun by his buddy Ben after the outbreak began, meaning he simply doesn't know how to use an M16 and would have figured such a [[StealthBasedMission hectic]] [[RunOrDie time]] wasn't exactly the right time to grab one and try and use it.

** A similar phenomenon persists to this day, as there are hundreds of different ammunition cartridges. Even the "ubiquitous" 9mm cartridge actually comes in more than half-a-dozen cartridge lengths that are completely incompatible with each other. Short of a few intentionally interchangeable ammo variants -- such as the .40 S&W being a low-recoil option for guns designed for the 10mm Auto cartridge --, rare is the gun that can fire anything but exactly what it was designed for. Even if you have exactly the same cartridge (in terms of dimensions and primer) it's possible to have varying powder loads. Weaker loads are problematic on semi-automatic or automatic weapons since they may not generate enough energy to cycle the weapon's action, leading to constant jams, while stronger loads can outright destroy a firearm (with [[EyeScream gnarly]] [[FacialHorror side]] [[{{Fingore}} effects]]), or put extra stress on the gun's components.