History Main / VideogameFlamethrowersSuck

* ''Steam Defense'' from [=MightySword=] Studio has an upgrade for human HeroUnit Vince Gear. It's the Flamethrower which allows Vince's assault rifle to temporarily change into flamethrower mode. This is a huge boost for Vince who's only earlier effective measure against bosses and tough units was a DifficultButAwesome grenade. Flamethrower mode had short range but it's attacks are extremely damaging and it affects all targets in the path of fire. Enemies that don't die from the initial shot will soon perish from the high continuous burning damage.

*** The [[VideoGame/DeadSpaceRemake 2023 remake]], however, makes the flamethrower a ''much'' better weapon once it's been upgraded. It still can't function in vacuum, but it proves very ammo-efficient and capable of burning down even the toughest of Necromorphs fairly quickly. Additionally, its secondary fire creates a wall of flame that will stop enemies from reaching you for several seconds, more than enough time for you to blast them down from a safe distance. Finally, the new "peeling" system that makes the game's {{gorn}} more realistic means that setting an enemy on fire with even a short burst will cause their flesh to start melting off, weakening them enough that just one or two hits from anything else will kill them, making it a great companion to the rest of your arsenal.

*** The [[VideoGame/DeadSpaceRemake 2023 remake]], however, makes the flamethrower a ''much'' better weapon once it's been upgraded. It still can't function in vacuum, but it proves very ammo-efficient and capable of burning down even the toughest of Necromorphs fairly quickly. Additionally, its secondary fire creates a wall of flame that will stop enemies from reaching you for several seconds, more than enough time for you to blast them down from a safe distance.

* ''VideoGame/{{Forsaken}}'' has the pyrolite, which despite having a short range, has absolutely devastating damage capaple of making quick work of enemies and even some bosses. To balance it out, the weapon isn't very common and is typically tucked away in secret areas.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'':
** The Pyro has a much better flamethrower than its classic counterpart (its incredibly short range is also justified: it blasts propane and not gasoline). It has afterburn damage, a DamageOverTime that can finish off your enemies even if they escape the Pyro's range. It also provides a way to rebound projectiles, put out burning teammates, and push enemies off cliffs or into corners with its compressed air blast secondary fire. Plus, you can [[ArrowsOnFire light arrows]] for your friendly neighborhood sniper if he's using a bow. The Backburner has a more expensive compression blast in exchange for instant Critical Hits when attacking enemies from behind. Or, by equipping the Degreaser, some of the direct and afterburn damage can be traded for super-fast weapon switching. The weapon switching is handy for using the Axtinguisher, which deals guaranteed [[CriticalHit Crits]] to any burning enemy. All three flamethrowers are the core weapon of the Pyro class.
** Played straight in 6v6 competitive play, where the Pyro is considered a MasterOfNone. Quick reflexes and the rather unusual manner used to decide how much damage is done[[note]]It's based on how long the fire-particles are out before colliding. Since they gain no velocity from the Pyro even when he's moving, other players can take less damage by just running in the opposite direction ''even if the distance between them stays the same.''.[[/note]] makes direct damage rather unreliable, while attentive Medics reliably make the afterburn moot (the latter has even started being true for non-competitive play with the number of ways to put out fire).
** On the other hand, in 9v9 Highlander competitive play, the Pyro is an ''incredibly'' powerful asset in defense; an Ubercharged Pyro on defense can stop an enemy Uber dead in its tracks, reflect/defuse explosives away from Engineer buildings, and not least to keep Spies away.

* The 2019 remake of ''VideoGame/{{Resident Evil 2|Remake}}'' finally gives the franchise an awesome example with the Chemical Flamethrower. It's still the go-to weapon to wipe out the Ivy monsters (who in this game, are not as easy to dodge as they were in the original), but it also turns zombies into toast and is invaluable against bosses as well. The major downside to it is that it [[{{Pun}} burns]] through fuel pretty quickly, but there is a regulator upgrade available that reduces the fuel consumption by half.

* In ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'', where a flamethrower can be found in a NewGamePlus. It has infinite ammo and does good damage, but sadly has difficulty stunning enemies and only decent range. It's not a ''bad'' weapon, but an average NewGamePlus player will have the Infinite Submachine Gun as well, which is just so, so much better in every way.

* ''VideoGame/AxiomVerge'' has a quite awesome flamethrower, doing heavy damage, having a large spread and being one of the few weapons you get that can shoot through walls.

* ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'s'' AerosolFlamethrower has an extremely short range, but also deals a ton of damage. It also fires rapidly, making it ideal for dealing with large groups of weaker enemies. The secondary fire, where Caleb ignites the tip of the can and either throws it like a MolotovCocktail or leaves it on the ground as a time bomb, is absolutely devastating when applied correctly but costs 48 ammo per use and can risk a lot of self-damage if you mess up and there's no water nearby. There are few better ways to deal with [[DeadWeight Bloated Butchers]] than this weapon, especially groups of them.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' goes into both sections of this page, due to Dragon Tanks of the Chinese Army in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals''. Utterly devastating in all against anything they can get in range of except aircraft and tanks (they can moderately damage the latter though), two or three will tear down even the strongest structures in the game in seconds. For area defense, they can spray fire into a rolling wall of flame. While their frailty increases as the games go on, so does their utility - once garrison clearance comes into play, flame tanks instantly incinerate all occupants of garrisonable buildings. Then probably destroy the building as well so it can never be used again (which is something the equivalent units on the other side cannot do).

** ''Project Brutality'' has both the Mancubus Flame Cannon and the SecondaryFire of the Heavy Plasma Rifle. The Mancubus Flame Cannon can shoot both flame shots that travel just like how a Mancubus does as well as function as a flamethrower. It also can act as a acid launcher to serve as area denial/trap to lead in foes at the cost of much less range. The Heavy Plasma Rifle's SecondaryFire shoots a short-range burst of plasma that Doomguy spreads by swinging the gun from side to side, useful to clear space in front of you as well as dealing great damage up close.

* The Master Blaster in ''VideoGame/Ashes2063'' has two firing modes -- launching a gravity-prone gob of napalm that explodes with SplashDamage and has great range, or squirting it out in a short-ranged cloud of fire with no risk of self-injury -- and both deal solid, consistent, ammo-efficient damage. In ''Afterglow'', the second workbench upgrade[[note]]the first is just a magazine size increase[[/note]] replaces the nozzle with a high-pressure variant that dramatically increases the range of both firing modes, making the gobs easier to aim and the spray usable against more ranged enemies. It also helps that [[spoiler:the tough and strong PlantMooks in [[ThatOneLevel the Biodome]]]] are ''very'' weak to fire.

* Unlike the 1999 and 2010 ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' games, the second installment makes the flamethrower quite useful. It's just as great against Facehuggers as it was the previous installment, but Aliens will also light up and drop dead fairly quickly now. It does burn fuel rather fast, but its high capacity of 600 units helps balance that out.
** The flamethrower in the game for the Jaguar was pretty solid as well. It fires bursts of flame instead of a stream so it's got the same range as all your other guns and while it does the same damage per shot as the starting shotgun it also fires much faster making it great at taking out enemy xenomorphs even in larger numbers.
* Averted heavily in ''Artic Combat'', the local flamethrower fires out what seems to be a stream of [[BuffySpeak orange stuff]] that bursts into fire on contact with something. Its range is enough for most close quarter battles, it can completely blind an opponent and does more damage than most guns.

* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': Marisa's flamethrower is one of the worst shot types in ''Double Dealing Character''. It has unimpressive power (unless you're very close to the enemy, which you usually won't be in a BulletHell game) and is the only forward-focus shot that can't even reach the top of the screen. And using it forces you to fight Benben, who's hard to hit without homing shots.

* In the campaign for ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRenegade'', the flamethrower is one of the single most useful weapons against enemy troops. It has a surprisingly long range, deals good damage to pretty much anything (whether infantry, vehicle, or smaller structure), inflicts damage over time, and best of all, it stunlocks ''every kind of infantry in the game'' except flamethrower troopers; even a passing wash of flame will stop the toughest infantry in their tracks and make them flail about while on fire. The only thing it isn't really effective against is the aforementioned flamethrower soldiers - but the converse upside is that they show up often enough that you won't ever be hurting for flamethrower ammo, either, while not being common enough to keep the flamethrower from being a good first response to any situation. The flamethrower will be your go-to close-range weapon for the first half of the campaign until laser weapons (which combine the longer range of every other gun with the flamethrower's ability to stunlock/set things on fire) become available, and even then it will remain very useful for the rest of the game. It's also even ''more'' effective against Tiberium mutants, where they take extra damage from fire weapons. The game also includes a version which instead uses Tiberium gas, which is much the same with even better damage, stunlocking flame troopers (but not chemical troopers, who are immune to it, or Tiberium mutants, which are [[ReviveKillsZombie healed by it]]), and getting a similar longer-range upgrade with weapons firing Tiberium shards, but at the cost of there being a chance that any enemy you kill with it will [[ArtisticLicenseBiology instantly mutate into a Visceroid]] which you will then have to use up ammo for a different weapon to kill, and becoming almost useless with all the other Tiberium-based weapons introduced near the end game thanks to the aforementioned Tiberium mutants becoming commonplace.

[[quoteright:309:[[VideoGame/Alien3 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alien_3_2.png]]]]

Below: dumpster fire.]]

* 'VideoGame/RisingStorm'', gives the US Marines and Army an M2 Flamethrower. While still a short ranged weapon, it has far more reach than most video game flamethrowers, often able to instantly kill targets 20 meters away. The flame effect is quite wide as well, making it very forgiving to fire from the hip. The flame also deflects off of surfaces, which makes the flamethrower one of the best choices in clearing out bunkers, since it can kill enemies inside cover without being able to directly see them.

** Earth Defense Force 2017 seems to openly mock the idea of video game flamethrowers by giving you a welding torch as a weapon. Its own stats page lists its range as nonexistent and its damage as "negligible."

** Earth Defense Force 2017 even seems to mock the idea by giving you a cutting torch as a weapon. Its own stats page lists its range as nonexistent and its damage as "negligible."

* In ''VideoGame/TeamFortressClassic'' the Pyro flamethrower is visibly an oversized gas torch, using an off-the-shelf propane canister for ammo and producing a clean purple flame at the nozzle. It also has such a short range that the Pyro's official purpose is to ambush opponents in tight spaces and rely more on the distraction of needing to put themselves out than raw damage. Its usefulness is boosted largely by features unique to this game: its effectiveness in weeding out enemy Spies (flames glow the color of the victim's real team, even for Spies in disguise, and is the only weapon to remain FriendlyFireproof even if friendly fire is enabled) and its alt-fire blast of compressed air that puts out teammates, deflects large projectiles, and can even blow opponents off ledges. As an example of how important that last feature is, one of the alternate flamethrowers gains the ability to deal triple damage [[BackStab from behind]] in exchange for the airblast consuming 250% as much ammo, and it's ''still'' not widely considered an acceptable tradeoff.

[[folder:RPGs]]

** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' and its UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube remake have a flamethrower only available to Chris, which he gets instead of the [[DiskOneNuke Grenade Launcher]]. It has only enough fuel for 7 seconds of firing, can never be reloaded, has pitiful range, low damage, and can only be used in the underground caves. Adding insult to injury in the 2002 remake, if the player cheats it into their inventory, they'll find it has absolutely ''no effect'' on zombies: not only was it not coded to do any damage but can't even be used to burn their corpses.

** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' and its UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube remake have a flamethrower only available to Chris, which he gets instead of the [[DiskOneNuke Grenade Launcher]]. It has only enough fuel for 7 seconds of firing, can never be reloaded, has pitiful range, low damage, and can only be used in the underground caves. Adding insult to injury in the 2002 Remake, if gamers decide to cheat it into their inventory, they'll find it has absolutely ''no effect'' on zombies: not only was it not coded to do any damage but can't even be used to burn their corpses.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' follows suit with the flamethrower that Leon finds. It's even ''worse'' than the one above, since it has even less ammo and is found so late in the game that it is completely outclassed by the other weapons you carry. Again, Leon gets this instead of the Spark Shot that Claire finds which is a LethalJokeItem that sucks against most monsters but absolutely ''slaughters'' the G Virus mutations of [[MadScientist William Birkin]] and the [[ImplacableMan Tyrant T-103]]. [[NotCompletelyUseless It's at least effective]] against the Ivy creatures that would otherwise soak up a ton of valuable ammunition (such as the upgraded magnum that outclasses the Spark Shot), but said creatures are also [[MightyGlacier fairly easy to just dodge]] and not waste ammo on to begin with... worse, the flamethrower's range is ridiculously short - as in, not only is it just barely outside of the Ivies' melee attack range, it's outranged completely by their ZombiePukeAttack!
** To make matters worse, RE and [=RE2=] also feature a grenade launcher (called the Bazooka in the original) which had flame rounds which, while rare, were still more abundant than fuel for the flamethrower. This weapon outclasses the flamethrower in ''every possible aspect''[[note]]Higher range, higher damage output, stopping power, and the weapon can also use other kinds of ammo[[/note]] and is only available to Jill and Claire, the characters who ''don't'' find flamethrowers.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilOutbreak'' has a flame thrower which can be made by David by combining the Insect Spray with the Lighter. Unfortunately you find said items in levels where they are of use, and by making the overall shoddy flamethrower, you lose the ability to kill insect-type enemies in one shot and reach hidden caches of items.