All-or-Nothing Reloads

In Real Life, reloading a gun is a moderately complex, multistep process. At the very least, reloading any magazine-fed gun involves removing and replacing the mag, during which you'd have trouble firing more than an already-chambered bullet. However, this is not the case in video games.

Your average video game will treat reloading a firearm as one continuous process represented by a single animation. Oftentimes, you'll only see any effect on your remaining ammunition if the animation is able to complete, regardless of what it shows you doing to your gun. This can lead to some obvious inconsistencies.

Stop reloading after throwing away your old magazine? Doesn't matter, you'll still have those discarded bullets ready to fire. Get knocked down by an explosion after inserting a new mag, but before the Dramatic Gun Cock? Too bad for you, the old mag has mysteriously teleported into your gun and you'll have to restart the entire process. It's almost like the physical act of reloading is merely a formality that's completely divorced from actually being able to shoot more.

Some games will take this a step further and make it so you can't stop reloading no matter how inconvenient it is. Get caught reloading while an alien-Nazi-zombie-terrorist is eating your face? Your character will refuse to stop and switch to his sidearm no matter what. This is particularly Egregious when reloading also makes you move more slowly or imparts some other penalty; apparently, the act is so sacred that it's impossible to run lest it be interrupted! Also note that this doesn't even avert some of the above inconsistencies if enemies can prevent you from reloading (by knocking you down, for example).

The reason for this usually lies somewhere between Rule of Fun and developer laziness. Making a "realistic" reload cycle is extra effort for what would probably be minimal gain. Furthermore, in more actiony shooters, the extra attention to detail may just distract from the action and arouse player ire over lost rounds.

Note that guns that load bullet-by-bullet, such as some shotguns, often avert this trope (or at least come close to averting it). Compare One Bullet Clips for other video game reloading oddities.

Examples of All-or-Nothing Reloads include:

Almost every FPS that features reloading features this trope.
- Except in cases where gun is loaded one round at a time, e.g., shotguns.
Handled interestingly in the more recent Call of Duty games. Most guns actually finish reloading a bit before the animation ends, meaning it's possible to interrupt the animation early to reload slightly faster - some guns in particular are considered reloaded before the animation even actually puts in a new magazine, like Modern Warfare's G3 and M14. It's still subject to other issues regarding this trope, though. Later games make the actual reload and the animation finish closer to each other, though it's still possible to shave noticeable amounts of time off of some reloads.
- It was done more realistically in Call of Duty 2 and World at War, at least with bolt action rifles. If you fire a shot or insert a clip and then melee attack or switch weapons before cycling the bolt, you'll have to cycle it the next time you ready that weapon again before you can actually fire. Unlike most games, you won't have to start the reload over from the beginning, but it strangely only applies to the manual bolt action weapons and not to other weapons that require bolt cycling after reloading.
Killing Floor uses the "can't stop reloading" variation. It's particularly annoying when somebody dies because you were caught in one of the lengthier animations. Two shotguns and the M32, which load one shell/grenade at a time, are the exceptions.
This happens in Counter-Strike, where the gun does not have its ammo replenished until the animation is completely finished, even if it shows that you already put in the new magazine.
America's Army 3 at least breaks it into halves. Reloads can be interrupted, but if you made it far enough to unload the old magazine, it doesn't have to be unloaded again on the next try. This is also how every round automatically begins with you loading an empty gun.
Left 4 Dead averts this, at least with melee attacks. While using the Melee "shove" attack, your character is still reloading, and can in fact complete the process of reloading any weapon while also repeatedly smashing a zombie's face with it.
- The aversion is that the moment you hit the Reload button, most weapons' ammo count is dropped to zero. You can still swap to other weapons, but when you swap back, that weapon will still be at 0 ammunition, and you'll need to start the reloading process over in order to fire it. The shotguns, however, are firmly of the "load one fire one" variety, will lose no ammo when reloaded and can be fired at any point in the reloading process, so long as there is at least one shell in the chamber. The pistols, meanwhile, will still have as many bullets as they had in them if you start a reload, switch to another weapon/item, then switch back to them.
- Done oddly with one of the Counter-Strike: Source weapons in the German version - the reload animation for the SG 552 finishes a full second before the bullet count is updated.
Weapons in Fallout 3 have a fairly quick, if complicated reloading process. This becomes more problematic if the weapon is damaged, causing frequent jams and re-reloads.
Later Resident Evil games have a rather strange version of this. You generally can't even walk during a reload; however, the ammo count is also updated as soon as you start the reload. So, start a reload then punch a zombie in the face? Your gun now is fully loaded. Even if your character hasn't even taken the old mag out yet.
One feature of the shotgun in the Half-Life games is that, should you completely expend all the shells in the tube and then reload all of them, Gordon will finish off the reloading process by pumping the shotgun (which is fairly realistic), adding just a bit more time to the reload than if reloading a partially-expended tube. Of course, though, you can interrupt this process by firing the shotgun when one shell is reloaded, so it doesn't quite avert this trope.
The original Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 suffered from this with any stripper-clip fed rifles, where you had to expend all shots in the magazine before you were able to load a clip, or at least 5 shots in the case of the G41 which would accept up to two 5 round stripper clips, despite there being nothing physically preventing you from removing individual rounds from the clip and feeding them one by one into the rifle. The sniper versions of the weapons averted this since they were incapable of accepting the stripper clips due to the scope blocking the area over the bolt. The sequel thankfully addressed this.