The best Back 4 Blood weapons and guns

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

The Back 4 Blood best weapons options give you guns that can make a huge difference in how you play the game, enhancing your killing capability and ensuring that you remain the most lethal being on the battlefield, living or dead. However, it's a little more complicated than just picking one gun and sticking with it throughout the game, as you'll be forced to make difficult choices and won't always have the best weapon to hand.

Fortunately, we've put together this guide on the best guns in the game, how you can upgrade them, and what you should pick when it's time to make one of those tricky choices. Or you could just grab a baseball bat and turn as many undead heads into soup as you can before they overwhelm you. We don't judge.

Back 4 Blood best weapons and guns

The best Back 4 Blood weapons won't always be available to you while you play. Rather than choose your favourites and carry them in with you, players have to pick from a small selection of weapons and guns early on in their campaign and use them until they find something better, either found randomly or in the stores that appear in certain safehouses and checkpoints. This means the question is often not "what's the best weapon" as it is "what's the best weapon here."

Then there's rarity and attachments. Like in many loot-focused games, Back 4 Blood has weapon rarities that boost their stats and can potentially make a low-tier gun better than a high-tier, because the former has a purple sticky note on it while the other only has a green one.

On top of that, the card system further complicates things. Depending on what you pick for your deck, you might get huge advantages to SMGs, melee weapons, shotguns or more. You might even make sniper rifles viable. Anything's possible.

Still, that doesn't mean that there aren't certain guns you should keep an eye out for, especially if you're playing a more weapon-neutral deck or are still getting acquainted with the game. Here's some top-tier weapons you should be watching for as you go in.

Best Back 4 Blood LMG: M249

LMGs are very good in Back 4 Blood, and this is the best of them. The M249 is a powerhouse weapon that tears through the hordes with decent control, a good rate of fire and a vast magazine. Its downside is that the individual bullets don't have much punch, and picking out specific targets isn't easy, so it might struggle a bit on special infected. But when somebody falls face-first into a pile of crows and every Ridden in the district comes running, the M249 is your best friend.

Best Back 4 Blood Shotgun: AA12

Shotguns and zombies go together nicely, and the AA12 is the best shotgun among them, largely because of its automatic fire and large magazine. Combine that with the standard shotgun damage - that is to say, very, very high - and you can shred anything that gets relatively close. Obviously the range isn't great, but considering the majority of enemies are trying to bite you, it needn't be too much of an issue.

Best Back 4 Blood SMG: Vector

This SMG isn't much for damage, but its superb control and rate of fire effectively make it a laser that can be fired from the hip, incredibly versatile and deadly in the right hands. Like the M249 it's a horde clearer, but while it won't fire for as long or heavy as the M249, it's much faster and more accurate to make up for it.

Best Back 4 Blood Assault Rifle: M16

People are torn between this and the AK-47 as the best assault rifle right now, but we think the M16 comes out on top for its ease of use and tight control, rather than spraying fire everywhere. It's more of an all-rounder and kinder to new players, granting you accurate headshots at a distance for solid damage.

Back 4 Blood Weapon tier list (by weapon type)

While there's all manner of weapons available, as mentioned, and not all weapons of a type are equal, we have had more luck with some weapons types than others, especially for beginners. As a general rule, if you're stuck on what to pick and there's no factors like cards, attachments or rarity to consider, here's a general precis on how to pick your preferred personal perforator, listed best to worst.

LMGs
SMGs
Shotguns
Assault Rifles
Sniper Rifle

Of course, there will always be exceptions to this. Sometimes sniper rifles will be useful, sometimes a deck will favour assault rifles over shotguns, and the balancing in Back 4 Blood isn't at a point where one kind of gun clearer stands head-and-shoulders over the others. You can survive with anything, but if you pick well, it's a little easier.