Capcom is continuing its series of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate weapon updates this week with a look at the Light Bowgun, a combination of a crossbow and a gun that fires multiple types of ammunition.
Light Bowgun
As the name suggests quite clearly, it’s not a (cross) bow, it’s not a gun, and it’s not heavy. In fact, it is light, meaning you’ll be able to move around quickly to better position your shots. And, it is a Bowgun, a combination of a crossbow and a gun, which allows you to fire different types of ammunition, such as piercing, slicing, elemental and even healing shots to help out your fellow hunters.
Again, as you start the game, you will have one of each weapon type, including all of the Gunner class weapons, such as this one, the Heavy Bowgun and the Bow (we’ll get into more details on those in other blog entries, so stay tuned!). For now, here are some of the specific features of the Light Bowgun:
Rapid Fire – Certain Light Bowguns will allow certain types of ammo to be fired in rapid succession. This feature is especially good since it fires a number of shots in a row but only consumes ONE bullet from your inventory (how is that even possible?).
Silencer – There are a couple of attachments that you can add to your Bowgun, like the Long Barrel (Power Barrel on Heavy Bowguns) that increases damage and the Zoom Scope which grants you the ability of zooming in to make sure you hit your target. The Silencer, which is exclusive to the Light Bowgun, does exactly what you’d expect it to do: your shots go out a little quieter, allowing you to stay hidden for longer and go undetected from larger monsters.
Load all ammo types – This feature only gets unlocked later, but it’s definitely a selling point for this weapon type. Once you unlock the ability to Remove Limiter and you apply that optional upgrade, you can load all of your ammunition at once. That means you get to fire a couple of Normal shots, switch over to Poison shots, and maybe then to Tranq shots, and not even worry about having to reload every time you switch. This is great for Light Bowguns that can take a wide variety of ammo types and it is only limited to the quantities of each ammo type. The downside of this feature is that you won’t be able to use Rapid Fire and the weapon itself becomes a little heavier, and your evasive move becomes a roll instead of a back hop. You can always Reinstall Limiter and switch back to your old style… but you’ll need to pay the Smithy every time.
View screenshots of the Light Bowgun at the gallery.
