History Main / OneBulletClips

* In ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life}}'', 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 actually reloads faster if you have shells already loaded, and its reload cycle can be interrupted between shells (both essential anti-zombie features).
** ''Half-Life'' does accurately handle the chambered round in one case: when reloading a non-empty Glock 17, the slide does not retract, whereas it does if the gun is emptied prior to reloading it. This is not the case for the USP from ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}'', however. ''[=HL2=]'' does, however, show Gordon pumping the shotgun if you allow him to fully reload it from empty.

** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zags]] this with the pistol, the first time you pull it out, the slide gets pulled out, every other time the safety gets flipped. No extra bullet on the reload though.

* Curiously present in ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' despite the fact that you can't reload. Let's say one of the players has an Enforcer with 10 rounds left. They kill off an opponent who drops another Enforcer, with 30 rounds. The player picks this second Enforcer up, goes GunsAkimbo, then fires 20 shots. What happens at the 21st (or 22nd) shot? The first Enforcer should technically be empty (having fired all the 10 rounds it contained), thus it would be appropriate for it to make a faint "click" and be discarded, but instead, both pistols continue to fire alternatively, as if the FPS Elves took the time to equally distribute the rounds between the two guns. This does not apply to any other gun in the game, since only the Enforcer can be wielded GunsAkimbo style.

* Every gun in ''Videogame/QuantumOfSolace'' follows this trope except for the Golden Gun, which you don't get reloads for, and any weapon fed with loose ammo, such as the pump-action shotgun, the [=LTK=] revolver, and the Revolver Grenade Launcher. Interestingly, the last two examples will have you eject ALL the rounds in the weapon (spent ones get dumped, unfired ones go back to ammo pool) and then reload the chambers individually. Interestingly enough, guns picked up from [=NPCs=] will always have a random number of rounds missing from the magazine, completely regardless of whether or not they have actually fired any shots, implying that enemies just walk around with half-loaded guns all the time.

* Also, many {{third person shooter}}s, such as ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' and ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''.

* ''SilentStorm'' and the other games based on the same engine.

* Averted in, of all places, ''[[Franchise/DieHard Die Hard Arcade]]'' (or ''Dynamite Deka''), where every firearm has a set amount of ammo - and if enemies fire said guns at you, they'll be down that many rounds when you get your hands on them.

** The ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' trilogy neatly sidesteps the whole issue by having no reload function, your character instead only reloads after emptying a weapon.

In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars: The Pit'', this is played straight with ballistic weapons but averted for energy ones, which use up a whole Energy Backpack or Fuel Cell regardless of how many shots you have left.

* ''VideoGame/{{SiN}}'' and its sequel, ''Episodes'', play this one straight, but even more maddening is the fact that the shotgun in ''[=SiN=]: Episodes'', which uses a magazine, will always be pumped after reloading no matter what (ejecting a shell). Since it also is pumped automatically after firing a shot also, Blade is in essence ejecting an unused cartridge with every reload.

* Revolvers, shotguns with tube magazines, and rifles with internal magazines can be partially reloaded in real life, taking out spent shells and just putting in the needed ones. Of course, none of these usually use clips.
** Depends on the Revolver, Rifle, and, in some rare cases, Semi-automatic pistols. Military Bolt Action Rifles (like the US, UK, and German Bolt Action Rifles of WWII) relied on Stripper Clips for quick reloads. Set the Clip on top of the action, force the rounds into the internal magazine, pull out the clip, and close the bolt. There are several models of Revolvers that use Moon Clips (Full, Half, and in one model, a two round clip) to make reloading faster, by forcing all casings out more reliably and loading more in faster than singly (some variants of the Smith & Wesson Model 27 packed 8 rounds of .357 magnum). This is more common with Revolvers that fire rimless cartridges like the .45 [=ACP=] or 9mm. The Mauser C96, A.K.A. the "Broomhandle" Mauser, was one of the first Semi-automatic pistol and used internal magazine that was loaded by a 10 round Stripper Clip.

* Reloading in ''{{Mafia}}'' wastes any ammo remaining in the current magazine.

* Averted in, of all places, ''[[Franchise/DieHard Die Hard Arcade]]'' (or ''DynamiteDeka''), where every firearm has a set amount of ammo - and if enemies fire said guns at you, they'll be down that many rounds when you get your hands on them.

** Left 4 Dead actually averted this before the first patch, as reloading magazine-loaded weapons early would result in the rest of the magazine being lost. This granted a huge advantage to the shotguns, and was quickly patched out.

* In ''Day of Defeat'' and its Source rerelease, reloading makes you loose all the unspent ammo in the magazine. Since you only carry two or three magazines in the first place, you soon learn NOT to do that.
* ''FrontlinesFuelOfWar'' gives you 3 magazines. Reloading will just drop the mag, wasting any bullets still left in it, which makes [[DamnYouMuscleMemory it really annoying if you play a lot of games where this trope comes into play.]]

** A strange example is the AK-101 with two magazines taped together, used by the MEC Assault and Medic classes in ''Battlefield 2'' - its reload animation always consists of taking the magazines out, flipping them over, and inserting the one that had been upside-down. This somehow simultaneously gives you a full magazine even if you've already fired from the one you're now loading ''and'' counts as dropping the other magazine and losing all the ammo left in it.

** ''Future Soldier'' instead plays this straight, .

* ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' had the Automag, which is the only weapon in the game that needed a reload every few shots. In fact, even the Automag avoids this trope, because while you have to reload every magazine, you can't reload manually - the only way to do it is firing the remaining bullets or switching it out. Additionally, you can't see the amount of bullets left in the magazine (though you can hear the gun clicking in the last five shots). Originally, ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'''s Enforcer was also meant to work like this, though all that remains of this is the animation in the game files.[[note]]A certain mod for [=UT=], Oldskool Amp'd, has the Automag's reload much more manageable via a key and an ammo counter.[[/note]]

** Conversely, you have a limited number of clips/magazines in the WW2 mod ''RedOrchestra'', and you reload by removing the entire thing. If you run out and you're the only one on your team with that kind of weapon, you'll have to dump it for a replacement from dead soldiers.
** ''VideoGame/RedOrchestra'' [[AvertedTrope averts]] this trope, not just with tracking magazines and not individual rounds, but there is no bullet counter at all, even for loaded magazines. When reloading an SMG magazine for instance, the only information it gives you is how heavy it feels ("heavy" means fully/almost fully loaded, while "very light" means only a few bullets left). It's like ''{{Trespasser}}'', but without the voices.

* In a break from its predecessors, ''VideoGame/{{X-COM Enemy Unknown 2012}}'' does not track magazines as separate items, instead allowing soldiers to reload their weapons at will.

* ''VideoGame/CryOfFear'' any magazine-based weapon loses all bullets in the mag when reloaded. Of course, Simon is a disturbed teenager, not a soldier. Given his already remarkable proficiency with the weapons, he can be forgiven for not thinking of simply saving the magazines and manually topping them up from each other.

* The PC series ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'' gives you limited ammunition, and you find yourself losing any bullets left in a discarded magazine. The exceptions to this rule are the ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany'' spinoffs and ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}''. Battlefield 4 went back to the old system that wasn't used in Battlefield 3.

* Part of the premise of ''VideoGame/{{Receiver}}'' is that the gun mechanics are simulated in complete detail. Thus, reloading means taking the magazine out, holstering the gun, adding individual bullets to the magazine, unholstering the gun, reinserting the magazine, and, if necessary, racking the slide. Every one of these steps has a dedicated keypress.[[note]]In the default controls: e, ~, repeated z (once per bullet), ~ again, z again, and r. If unsure whether there's already a bullet in the chamber, hold t for the last step to check.[[/note]]

* In the original 80's version of ''CastleWolfenstein'' (the non-3D one), the character only wielded one pistol, and did not store any extra bullet magazines. Thus if he came across enemy bullets, he only reloaded if they had more bullets then he currently had.

* ''{{ARMA}}: Armed Assault'' keeps track of the amount of ammunition in each magazine in your inventory, only throwing away magazines if they are completely depleted. If you have multiple semi-depleted magazines, they are sorted in order of decreasing bullets.
** The sequel ''{{ARMA}} 2'' and its expansion ''Operation Arrowhead'' continue this behavior, militantly so. However, it should be noted that the U.S. M1014 shotgun and clip-fed weapons are some of the few that do NOT work "properly" as identified in the trope definition. In the real world these weapons use integral magazines, loaded one round at a time or with stripper clips. Tactical doctrine for the M1014 calls for the soldier to load additional shells at any opportunity, while the others in the real world typically can't be reloaded until the internal magazine is emptied. ''ARMA 2'' breaks this, where you are never able to load single rounds and never prevented from reloading, and instead mime reloading with an invisible magazine, which somehow replaces every round currently in the weapon with a fresh one. The game's other shotguns are more correct in this regard, since they actually do use magazines.

** Whenever you reload mid-mag you lose any bullets you had left and get a note saying how many you lost if it's a significant amount. Especially annoying when you're using a minigun, and you reload it after taking two shots because that's what you always do in shooters, and promptly lose half of the precious ammo you started the level with. However, to compensate for [[ViolationOfCommonSense inverting the usual rule about reloading]], the game has a ''GearsOfWar''-esque tactical reload that cuts down reload speed to about a third.
** Ammo Boxes contain a certain number of charges before they're used up. Minigun ammo requires a full box to get one clip for their magazines. There are also scattered Ammo that are exclusive for one type of weapon, which is a godsend for minigun users since they no longer have to use up a whole box (whereas one box can fill up for at least two other players) and for Flamethrowers, since they get more ammo overall.

* ''JaggedAlliance 2'' works similarly, except that when the squad isn't in contact with the enemy, reloading a partially full weapon transfers rounds from the new magazine until the weapon is full. This allows partial magazines to be consolidated between battles.

* Likewise the first two ''{{X-COM}}'' games, in which every magazine is a separate inventory item, and the number of bullets in each is tracked realistically.

* Averted to an almost ridiculous extent by ''7.62 High Calibre''. If you have a box of bullets, but no spare magazine, it takes significantly longer to reload your gun as you have to insert the bullets into the existing magazine one at a time. Because many guns require a magazine to function, losing all of your magazines makes that gun useless; a major part of properly using a gun is purchasing spare mags or looting them from bodies, which makes magazine availability a big choice in determining what gun to use (do you use the one that's very good but only has one mag, or the one that's pretty crappy but you've got an entire backpack full of loaded mags for speedy reloading?). Revolvers take longer to reload the more bullets you've fired (no speedloaders). Swapping a half-empty magazine for a full magazine doesn't give you a chambered round, but you also don't lose the half-empty magazine (you can refill it later). Guns that are reloaded one round at a time (bolt-action rifles and shotguns) take longer to reload the more rounds you're reloading at one time. The ''only'' exception to the realism rule here is that, if you tape together two magazines, the game treats them as a double-capacity magazine instead of two separate magazines with a speedier reload time.

* The PC series ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'' gives you limited ammunition, and you find yourself losing any bullets left in a discarded magazine. The exceptions to this rule are the ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany'' spinoffs and ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}''.

* ''AlienSwarm'' averts this:

*** However, ''New Vegas'' also averts the trope with revolvers that have loading gates (like the .357 and [[ICallItVera Lucky]]), lever-action guns, and shotguns; you'll reload exactly as many bullets as you've fired, be it one, three or four, or the gun's entire magazine capacity.

Another thing that is rarely simulated is chambered rounds; usually when a magazine-fed closed-bolt weapon is reloaded without being empty, a round will remain in the chamber from the previous magazine. This will mean after reloading you'll have a full magazine plus an "extra" round in the chamber; generally in a game the chambered round is ignored to allow for a DramaticGunCock which would be pointless in reality since save for empty reloads the gun will never have ''stopped'' being cocked.[[note]]Note that in RealLife, loading a full magazine into a weapon with a round in the chamber can potentially damage the weapon, and as such is usually not advised. Then again, military forces typically do this anyway; every extra bullet counts.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' had the Automag, which is the only weapon in the game that needed a reload every few shots. In fact, even the Automag avoids this trope, because while you have to reload every magazine, you can't reload manually - the only way to do it is firing the remaining bullets or switching it out. Additionally, you can't see the amount of bullets left in the magazine (though you can hear the gun clicking in the last five shots). Originally, ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'''s Enforcer was also meant to work like this, though all that remains of this is the animation in the game files.[[hottip:*:A certain mod for [=UT=], Oldskool Amp'd, has the Automag's reload much more manageable via a key and an ammo counter.]]

* Part of the premise of ''VideoGame/{{Receiver}}'' is that the gun mechanics are simulated in complete detail. Thus, reloading means taking the magazine out, holstering the gun, adding individual bullets to the magazine, unholstering the gun, reinserting the magazine, and, if necessary, racking the slide. Every one of these steps has a dedicated keypress.[[hottip:*:In the default controls: e, ~, repeated z (once per bullet), ~ again, z again, and r. If unsure whether there's already a bullet in the chamber, hold t for the last step to check.]]

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' eliminated the instant reloads (largely because of how easy they'd made the previous game's [[HumongousMecha Shagohod]] boss) and required the actual reload animation play out; this showed him taking out the old magazine and tucking it away for later. However, almost all weapons have a DramaticGunCock which usually ejects a non-spent round, which is never deducted from the player's total, and all weapons that aren't single-shot follow this trope to the letter.

* The first three ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' games account for already-chambered bullets when reloading - do a quick reload and your weapon will have an extra bullet. ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' does away with this, due to the DramaticGunCock at the end of every reload.

* Averted in ''EternalDarkness'': when revolvers (the most common firearm) are reloaded, only the spent shells are dropped, and each bullet is reloaded one at a time (you can even stop before the revolver is full by letting go of the reload button or moving). Weapons like shotguns and single-shot rifles also avert this trope; however, in the one level where a character acquires magazine-loading weapons, this trope is played completely straight.
* The revolver, double-barrel/pump-action shotguns, and hunting rifle in ''AlanWake'' all have to be reloaded one shell at a time, which will slow Alan down if you have him trying to run from the Taken. Reloading can also be stopped if you have to let loose a round or two to get some breathing space, or find a Safe Haven.
* When reloading an empty unscoped rifle in Cryostasis the protagonist is shown using a speedloader to reload. However when you try to reload a non-empty rifle the protagonist takes the required amount of bullets from the next ammo pouch and loads them in manually.
* ''Deadlight'' has only a revolver and a pump-action shotgun available to Randall, who has to reload both one round at a time.

** Unfortunately for those who prefer more firearm simulation, compared to its predecessors, later ''RainbowSix'' games fall prey to the RealityIsUnrealistic trope as far [[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4255750.html as weapon effects are concerned]].

* ''OPERATION 7'', a tactical MMO FPS, deals with this realistically like the ''RainbowSix'' series. Since there's no way to consolidate partial magazines at any time, you could wind up with mags that are a third-full or worse.

** Due note, however, that heat sinks would actually have more trouble cooling down in the [[SpaceIsCold vacuum of space]]- depending on whether the heated weapon is hotter than the environment, and whether the clips are insulated in some fashion. In the [[MassEffect1 original]], weapons should be unable to cool down in the vacuum of space because there is nowhere for the heat to transfer unless it's giving off a considerable amount of radiation.

* Almost all {{FPS}} games except the ones near the classic end of [[FacklerScaleOfFPSRealism FPS realism scale]] (with no reloading) and a handful near the realistic end of the scale. ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life}}'', ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Doom}} 3'', ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', the ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' series, ''[[FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]]'', the list goes on. The classic exception is any game featuring the M1 Garand; this is TruthInTelevision to an extent, as the weapon is tricky to unload while under fire and typically US soldiers were instructed to fire off the rest of the en-bloc clip rather than do so.
** One of the more common examples are pistols with what are known as "magic slides" - contrary to real-world pistol operation, where the slide only locks back when the last round in a magazine is fired, most games with pistols whose slides move on their own ''at all'' will magically lock back at the start of a reload, even if you had only fired a single bullet from the previous magazine.
* Particularly aggravating in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' - the game actively encourages the player to abuse this trope, by increasing the reload time of every weapon in the game when empty (except [for some reason] ''United Offensive's'' Gewehr 43 and [justifiably] ''World at War'''s M1 Garand). There is an additional step involved in reloading if the chamber is empty (you have to pull the charging handle/slide back and release it to chamber a new round), on the other hand, you aren't considered to have an extra bullet to fire since you now have a chambered round and a full magazine... many games ignore this fact and have only one animation for reloading any given weapon, typically showing the player character rack the charging handle after inserting the new magazine (even if there's still a round in the chamber, which would eject a perfectly good bullet from the gun in real life) or, worse, simply replacing the magazine and leaving the 'chamber a new round' step out entirely.

* Similar to the Call of Duty one above, ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' applied a similar mechanic to the Auto Shotgun. If you had just one round in the gun before you started to reload, you performed the standard animation. If you reloaded from empty, your character took an extra second to cock the gun. Justified in that you need to chamber a round in the gun before firing and the "auto" part took over. 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, but the animation can be interrupted to fire the gun, eliminating the drawback.

** It was mentioned in an Ubercharged article that [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum all the classes have a miniature ammo factory somewhere on them that automatically converts ammo]], even those baseball bats, bottles, and ''dead fish''.
*** But you can't get ammo or metal from dropped hats, even though they were crafted out of enough metal to build 36+ guns.

* The Firearms mod for Half-Life averts this. Partially-empty magazines are still partially empty if the player reloads them. Shotgun reloads can be interrupted after each shell. Most guns retain a round in the chamber if reloaded while there is still 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 (revolvers; 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 bullets, the character would place a thumb over the remaining four 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. The mod's motto, after all, was that ''it's all about the guns''. Its successor, ''Firearms: Source'', has done away with certain features such as magazine merging which was not seen as adding anything to gameplay.

* In ''{{Quake}} Live'', picking up weapons gives a set amount. For example, picking up a rocket launcher gives 10 ammo, and a lightning gun gives 100. This also applies to weapons dropped by players, no matter how much ammo the player had before he/she dropped the weapon.

* ''SiN'' and its sequel, ''Episodes'', play this one straight, but even more maddening is the fact that the shotgun in SiN: Episodes, which uses a magazine, will always be pumped after reloading no matter what (ejecting a shell). Since it also is pumped automatically after firing a shot also, Blade is in essence ejecting an unused cartridge with every reload.

** Also averted in previous ''Rainbow Six'' games, where you start each level with X magazines, each holding Y bullets - all tracked individually. You never just drop a mag unless it's empty, instead you put it back in your pocket. 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.
* ''PerfectDark'' has it with all guns, but especially amusing is the sight of a full clip being loaded into a revolver no matter how many bullets are left. The Jackal sniper rifle in ''Zero'' and the shotgun in both games avoid this by being single-shot and loading one round at a time, respectively.
* ''{{Homefront}}'' plays it straight.
* ''CryOfFear'' any magazine-based weapon loses all bullets in the mag when reloaded. Of course, Simon is a disturbed teenager, not a soldier. Given his already remarkable proficiency with the weapons, he can be forgiven for not thinking of simply saving the magazines and manually topping them up from each other.

** ''[[VideoGame/{{Borderlands2}} Borderlands 2]]'' also does this, but has more exceptions. In addition to the... unorthodox weapons with magazines that look like [=CDs=], and the countless belt fed things, there's also every Tediore weapon - they're so cheaply made that you reload them by ''throwing'' them, and after they explode your storage deck builds a new one for you, but you still lose any ammo that was in it, because that's what fueled the explosion.
* ''VideoGame/{{Far Cry 2}}'' plays the trope straight, bar one weapon. The double barrel shotgun (AKA the Caravan Shotgun) in the DLC reloads both shell but only because the character fires both shells at once (something shotguns of that type are indeed capable of doing, but's it's not a good idea in real life), making a literal one bullet/shell clip. Far Cry 1, the spinoffs and 3, however, play it completly straight.

* Averted in ''[[VideoGame/{{Reciever}} Reciever]]''. You know exactly how many bullets you don't have loaded into magazines (but you have to count each round, as they are nicely lined up along the top of your screen when you are reloading your gun). You also know how many rounds you have left in your magazines (but only if you count them). Of course you know how many bullets you have left in your gun as well (as long as you keep count). So when that flying tazer drone is coming at you, you have no excuse for not killing it, right? Wait, what? You forgot to check whether the Glock was set to full auto? You missed with every shot? You emptied your last magazine? Damn.

* Averted in ''[[VideoGame/{{Reciever}} Reciever]]''. You know exactly how many bullets you don't have loaded into magazines (but you have to count each round, as they are nicely lined up along the top of your screen when you are reloading your gun). You also know how many rounds you have left in your magazines (but only if you count them). Of course you know how many bullets you have left in your gun as well (as long as you keep count). So when that flying tazer drone is coming at you, you have no excuse for not killing it, right? Wait, what? You forgot to check whether the Glock was set to full auto? You missed with every shot? You emptied your last clip? Damn.

* Averted to an almost ridiculous extent by ''7.62 High Calibre''. If you have a box of bullets, but no magazine, it takes significantly longer to reload your gun as you have to insert the bullets into the existing magazine one at a time. Revolvers take longer to reload the more bullets you've fired (no speedloaders). Swapping a half-empty magazine for a full magazine doesn't give you a chambered round, but you also don't lose the half-empty magazine (you can refill it later). Guns that are reloaded one round at a time (bolt-action rifles and shotguns) take longer to reload the more rounds you're reloading at one time. The ''only'' exception to the realism rule here is that, if you tape together two magazines, the game treats them as a double-capacity magazine instead of two separate magazines with a speedier reload time.
** Each gun also requires its own model of magazine that takes up inventory space, with some magazines (like the ammo boxes for machine guns or drum mags) taking up large amounts of space. The magazines all need to be individually filled with ammo, which is [[CaptainObvious best done before combat]].