Weapons and gear are the core progression system in Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone. This page covers everything the developer has actually confirmed about the arsenal at Early Access launch, the ammo and melee systems that sit alongside the firearms, and what is still unpublished.
How many weapons are there at launch
18 weapons, each with per-weapon attachments. That number comes from the launch content list in the game's own Early Access description, not from a third-party estimate.
Two additional weapon categories are called out separately:
- Compound bow — a distinct weapon type, not a reskin of a firearm
- Knives — includes melee options
The description lists the compound bow and knives as their own line item, which suggests they sit outside the 18 and behave differently in play. Treat the "18" as the firearm count until the developer clarifies.
Player reviews of the launch build consistently describe the firearms as falling into handguns, machine guns and shotguns. That breakdown is not published by the developer, so treat it as a description of what reviewers encountered rather than an official category list.
Ammo types: incendiary rounds
Ammo is not a single universal resource. The developer has publicly demonstrated incendiary ammunition — rounds that set enemies on fire.
What is confirmed about it:
- Incendiary rounds can be loaded into your guns, so it is an ammo selection rather than a separate weapon.
- The boxes are limited and are found scattered around different levels, not bought in unlimited quantity.
- It works in both VR and flat screen — this is not a VR-exclusive feature.
That last point matters for planning: because incendiary ammo is a scarce pickup rather than a purchase, it is a tool you spend on a problem, not a loadout you build around. The developer has not published how much is available per mission.
Reviewers also describe being able to unlock additional ammo types with in-game currency, but no list of ammo types has been published.
Melee and throwing: knives
Knives are described by the developer as an essential tool, and they are the one gear category where VR and non-VR genuinely diverge.
| Flat screen | VR | |
|---|---|---|
| Attack | A quick one-button melee attack | Stab, slash or throw with precision aiming |
| Throwing | Not the same mechanic | Throwing is a real, aimed action |
Two mechanics make knives different from a normal weapon slot:
- You can lose your knife. It is a physical object you have to pick back up, not an infinite melee button.
- Field knives become permanent unlocks. Find a bladed weapon out in a mission, get three kills with it, and it is unlocked for your collection back home — after which you can take it on any mission you want.
The Hive holds that blade collection alongside the gunwall. The distinction is worth noting: firearms are unlocked with currency, while blades are unlocked by using them.
A compound bow exists as its own weapon line, and official developer media has also shown arrows, but neither the bow's handling nor the arrow types have been documented in any detail.
Where weapons come from: the gunwall
Weapons are stored and unlocked on the gunwall inside the Hive, your home base. This is the single most important system to understand, because it means progression is tied to the base rather than to a shop menu buried in a pause screen.
What that implies in practice:
- You unlock by playing, not by paying. No store page mention of microtransactions for weapons has been published.
- Checking the gunwall after every contract is worth it. New entries appear as you progress through the three story missions and the challenge modes.
- The walls are the map. Because weapons live on a physical wall in a physical room, the base doubles as your loadout screen.
The gun bench: attachments, skins and gun sounds
The gun bench is a separate station from the gunwall and handles three things, per the launch content list:
| Bench function | What it does |
|---|---|
| Attachments | Per-weapon attachments are confirmed; the specific attachment list is not published |
| Skins | Cosmetic weapon appearance changes |
| Gun sounds | You can modify how a weapon sounds, including silenced and unsilenced variants |
The developer has confirmed that attachments can be swapped on the fly rather than only at the bench — in VR you bring a weapon up and change it in place; on flat screen the attachment panel is opened from the weapon. A suppressor is one confirmed attachment, and it is the one the game's own tutorial hands you first.
Changing gun sounds is unusual and worth flagging: it is a cosmetic feature that most shooters do not ship, and it suggests the developer is targeting the "action movie" feel the store page keeps returning to.
Buying gear: credits and the shop
Weapons and equipment are bought with an in-game currency referred to in-game as credits, earned by completing contracts and challenges. This is the reason replaying a contract with different gear is worth doing — the same three story missions are also your income.
Two details from player footage, neither published by the developer:
- The starting loadout is a handgun and throwing knives, so early contracts are handgun-only by design.
- The shop organises weapons into sections, at least one of which is labelled for large calibre weapons.
Unverified. The currency name and the section structure come from player footage and in-game dialogue, not from a developer post. We are flagging them rather than presenting them as published facts.
VR vs non-VR: how weapon handling differs
The developer's position is that this is one game built for both play styles, and that the real difference is more interaction in VR — not a different weapon set. Buying a headset later does not require buying the game again.
In practice the differences that are confirmed:
- Knives work differently in each version, as described above.
- Reloading in VR is a physical action — ammo is drawn from a chest rig, or you eject a magazine and bring the weapon to your chest. On flat screen this is button-driven.
- Slow motion has a visible charge meter in both versions (on your hand in VR, on screen in flat screen).
Custom music
Separately from the gun bench, the game includes a custom music feature: you can play your own MP3 files in-game through the gunman's smartphone. This is a real, confirmed feature, not a mod.
For a single-player game with repeatable challenge modes, this matters more than it sounds — it is the difference between grinding Last Stand with the stock soundtrack and grinding it with your own playlist.
What we still cannot tell you
This is where most weapon guides for this game would start inventing. We are not going to:
- The 18 weapon names. Not published. Any list you see elsewhere at this stage is either data-mined from a build or invented.
- Attachment lists per weapon. Only the existence of per-weapon attachments is confirmed.
- Damage, recoil, fire rate or TTK numbers. None of these are published.
- Which weapons are best. A tier list without numbers is a guess. We searched for a weapon tier list from every angle and none exists — see our tier list page for what we rank instead and why.
- Ammo type lists and per-mission ammo counts. Only incendiary rounds are documented, and only as a limited pickup.
待确认 — this section will be filled in from in-game testing and official patch notes, and the revision date at the top of the page will change when it is.
How to approach your loadout right now
Until the numbers exist, the practical advice is structural rather than statistical:
- Unlock breadth before depth. With 18 weapons and limited mission content, you will get more value from trying every weapon on the wall once than from perfecting attachments on one.
- Spend credits on the wall, not on one gun. A single weapon plus every attachment is worth less than three weapons plus their defaults, because the mission content rewards switching approaches.
- Learn blades in a challenge map. Knives are the only gear where the control scheme changes meaningfully between VR and flat screen, and a challenge map has no narrative fail state.
- Test attachments in the gun range first. The Hive's gun range exists precisely so you are not learning a new optic under fire.
- Save incendiary ammo for a room you cannot solve. It is a finite field pickup, not a loadout.
- Farm the three contracts with different gear. Credits come from contracts and challenges, and replaying with unfamiliar equipment is both practice and income.
Sources
Facts on this page come from these first-party sources unless marked otherwise:
- The game's own Steam store page and app-details data (launch content list, 18 weapons, compound bow, knives, gun bench functions, custom music).
- The developer's official video series, ANB_Seth on YouTube — specifically the shorts covering gun mods, incendiary ammo, knives and the VR/non-VR split.
- Player footage, where noted inline as unverified.
Related guides
- The Hive — every station in the base, including the gunwall and gun bench in context
- Stealth & Takedowns — knives, silent kills and the throwing techniques
- Tier List — what to unlock and play first, and why there is no weapon stat tier
- Challenge Modes — where to test weapons without a story fail state