Rachel, 3dprintingindustry.com’s Editor, knows that the issues related to 3D printed guns fascinate me and that I like to write about the relationship between consumer 3D printing and video games. I especially like guns in video games because they are the kind that cannot physically hurt anyone. So, no surprise that this story landed in my inbox!
Although I never had and do not want a gun, and although I no longer have time to play video games, I just love the fact that the new episode of Activision’s shooter, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, will feature 3D printing.
How will it feature 3D printing? No, they will not let you download a 3D printable automatic rifle (that would be illegal in Australia), nor will they let you 3D print your favourite multiplayer character. They do not want to bring their virtual stuff into your physical world as much as they want to bring 3D printing into their virtual world. Which means they have invented a whole new type of 3D printer, one that can only (for now) exist in futuristic war video games: a 3D printing gun.
The new Call of Duty will be set in 2054 and the games’s developer, Sledgehammer Games, envisioned an “automatic-automatic rifle”, one that 3D prints bullets on the fly. The 3D Printer Rifle is not (necessarily) 3D printed (even though by 2054 it could be argued that all guns will likely be 3D printed) but it is a 3D printer in and of itself: it automatically, additively manufactures its ammo in the weapon’s chamber.
Judging from Game Informer’s exclusive images, the 3D Printer Rifle will make the bullets out of “liquid matter” so it is likely to be an evolution of DLP: using a laser would seem improbable for 3D printing explosives but hey: anything is possible in the virtual, imaginary world of tomorrow.
