Outriders: Does your secondary weapon matter?

At any given time, Outriders allows you to have three weapons equipped. These three slots are dedicated to two primary weapons and one secondary weapon, which is always a pistol. 

While there are three slots available, most players generally stick with their two primaries since they deal more damage and offer variety in the way of weapon types. However, secondary pistols are still found throughout the world in loot drops, making them somewhat viable in inventory management. 

Even with this, is there ever a reason to pull out your secondary weapon aside from complete desperation in Outriders?

Using your secondary weapon in Outriders

On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be much use for pistols in Outriders. They come in three different varieties, being standard, automatic and revolver. While each type has strengths and weaknesses, they simply can’t match up to most primary weapons when it comes to overall damage. 

One of the better early-game pistols in Outriders. (Picture: Square Enix)

Sure, a revolver pistol might feature higher damage than an assault rifle but you’re shooting that revolver slower and need to reload it far more often. Still, it could be beneficial to have a shotgun-type weapon in your back pocket if a sticky situation arises. 

And in that lies the only true need for a secondary in Outriders. The biggest feature of the pistol class is that you never need ammo for it. You have an infinite amount of pistol ammo, so you can fire them into the sky and there’s no penalty. For this reason, they do come in handy on the off chance that you can’t find one of the plentiful ammo restocking crates. 

• Read more: Outriders: What is the best weapon type to use?

Since they never run out of ammo and can sometimes have decent stats, it’s worth keeping your secondary slot up to date with the most current weaponry you loot in Outriders. While we don’t recommend prioritizing the secondary slot, keeping an eye on it -- just in case -- does you no harm. Also, the pistols are nifty if you ever need to finish off an enemy quickly and don’t want to reload your primary weapons.