Gun Game in UEFN: Climb the Arsenal

Gun Game is the classic progression deathmatch from the Call of Duty world: every elimination promotes you to the next weapon, and the first player to win with the last weapon takes the match. It forces you to master every gun in the arsenal — including the ones you hate. This Game Modes entry breaks the format down and builds a compile-verified Verse device that advances a player's weapon tier on each elimination.

1. What it is

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Weapon Ladder

Gun Game is a progression free-for-all. Everyone starts with the same first weapon. Get an elimination, and you're instantly granted the next weapon in a fixed ladder — usually strongest-to-weirdest, ending on a melee or a joke gun. Keep climbing. The first player to score an elimination with the final weapon wins. (Some variants demote you on a melee/knife death — a built-in comeback rule.)

It's an arsenal tour disguised as a deathmatch: you can't just spam your favorite gun, you have to be good with all of them.

2. Type of game

3. The loop

Spawn with weapon N, get an elimination, get granted weapon N+1, repeat up the ladder; first to win with the final weapon takes it.

Every kill changes your tool, so the rhythm constantly resets — you're never settled, always adapting.

4. Why it's fun

• Forced mastery. You will get good with the sniper, the pistol, and that one gun you always avoid — there's no other way to climb.
• Constant comebacks. A player behind on the ladder can still surge; demotion variants make a single careless death swing the lead.
• Readable race. Everyone can see who's on which weapon tier — the leaderboard is the gameplay.
• Fast and fair. Same starting gun for everyone, quick respawns, tight map — no loot RNG, just skill.
• Nostalgia hook. It's a beloved CoD format; players arrive already knowing and loving the rules.

5. Who made the great ones

Gun Game is a Creative staple, and the CoD-flavored builds dominate:

• JesGran — Nuketown - Gun Game (code 6722-4469-6989): a faithful Black Ops Nuketown rebuild where each elimination swaps your weapon and the first to 20 kills (one with every gun) wins. One of the most-recognized Gun Game maps in Creative.
• Nuketown is the archetype — the small, two-building, center-vehicle layout is the Gun Game arena, copied endlessly because the constant-contact pacing suits the mode perfectly.
• Community builders keep dozens of themed Gun Game ladders in rotation; the craft is the weapon order and a tight arena.

6. Examples / variants

• Classic FFA — solo, full ladder, first to the final weapon.
• Team Gun Game — two teams share a ladder; the team that advances together wins.
• Demotion knife — get knifed and you drop a tier (the spicy comeback rule).
• Random swap — instead of a fixed ladder, each elim grants a random weapon (JesGran's Nuketown leans this way).

7. How to make it in UEFN / Verse

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Weapon Ladder

The devices you'll place

• Elimination Manager Device (elimination_manager_device) — fires EliminatedEvent and EliminationEvent when a player gets a kill; this is what drives progression.
• Item Granter Devices (item_granter_device) — one per rung of the ladder, each holding the weapon for that tier. GrantItem(Agent) hands the next gun to the promoting player.
• Player Spawn Pads — spread around a tight arena.

The Verse mechanic that ties it together

The elimination manager reports kills; the item granters hold the weapons. Verse owns the ladder: track each player's tier and grant the next weapon when they climb. The series pattern holds — subscribe to the event, react — on the Elimination Manager's EliminationEvent.

# elimination_manager_device fires when a tracked player gets eliminated:
#   EliminatedEvent : agent     - the victim
#   EliminationEvent: ?agent    - the eliminator (instigator), optional
EliminationManager.EliminationEvent.Subscribe(OnElimination)

Track each player's rung with a per-agent map, then grant from the matching granter in your ladder array — the [agent]int + []item_granter_device combo:

var Tier : [agent]int = map{}
@editable var Ladder : []item_granter_device = array{}
# climb:  if (Granter := Ladder[NewTier]) { Granter.GrantItem(Killer) }

The full, compile-verified progression engine

Drop this gun_game_device into your project, wire the @editable Elimination Manager and the ordered array of weapon granters, and it climbs each player up the ladder on every elimination, granting the next gun and announcing the win. Standalone creative_device.

How it works, line by line

1. @editable Ladder : []item_granter_device is an ordered array — one granter per weapon rung, dragged in from the Details panel.
2. OnBegin subscribes to EliminationEvent, which carries the eliminator.
3. The eliminator is ?agent (optional) — a storm/fall death has no killer. if (Killer := MaybeKiller?) unwraps it safely; this is the key Gun Game gotcha.
4. Tier : [agent]int keys each player's rung by agent; Tier[Killer] or 0 reads it (default 0), and the failable set is wrapped in if (...) {}.
5. if (Granter := Ladder[NewTier]) safely indexes the ladder (array indexing is failable) and GrantItem(Killer) hands over the next weapon. Reaching Ladder.Length wins.

Gotchas

• The eliminator is optional. EliminationEvent gives ?agent — always unwrap with MaybeKiller? or your handler crashes on a non-player death.
• Array indexing is failable. if (Granter := Ladder[NewTier]) guards the index so the final climb (past the last rung) doesn't fault — it just wins instead.
• Order the Ladder deliberately. The array order is the weapon progression. Put the satisfying guns early and the hard/joke gun last for a real climax.
• Disarm on grant. Configure each Item Granter to replace the inventory (grant-and-clear) so players don't hoard old tiers — otherwise the climb means nothing.
• Keep the arena tight. Gun Game needs constant contact; a big map stalls the ladder. Nuketown-sized is the sweet spot.

Recap

• Gun Game is a progression deathmatch: each elimination grants the next weapon; first to win with the final one takes the match.
• The fun is forced mastery of the whole arsenal, constant comebacks, and a leaderboard that is the gameplay.
• In UEFN the Elimination Manager drives progression and Item Granters (one per rung) hold the weapons.
• The Verse pattern is the series staple: subscribe to EliminationEvent, unwrap the ?agent killer, climb an [agent]int tier, grant from the ladder array.
• A deliberate weapon order and a tight arena make or break the mode.