I may be in the minority, but I find no starting weapon to be just fine. Everyone starting with a gun was unrealistic in the sense that in the event of the infection breaking out, not everyone who owned a gun would have access to it, and who owned a gun would be varied, not uniform. Now the same can also be said for starting with no weapon. Like other posters have said, we'd find SOMETHING to use (the empty jack bottle for instance. I'd carry that around and bash skulls if I had nothing else, or a tree branch, or that axe stuck in the chopping block). But if I had to pick one or the other, having no weapon heightens the sense of urgency, of vulnerability. It makes the first real challenge getting away from the coast. Some people have mentioned getting owned at the coast by people shooting the new spawns. I can't say I have encountered this problem once. I have been shot at inside Cherno after spawning close to it near the east, but I actively went into the city on the gamble that if I made it out, i'd have some nice gear to get going on, if I didn't, well i'd lost nothing. I got shot and some bandit got a bandage and painkillers. Lesson learned. Ideally the solution would be to make those static axes outside houses on the coast an item, not just a texture or whatever, as well as have a plank of wood near the wooden picket fences . The reloading hatchet made melee work so why not use the same concept but different skins? I don't play this to own. I play to role-play a person who finds themselves in this situation (oh and also happens to have intimate knowledge of firearms, and medicine :P). I don't expect to last, so when I do the gamble goes up, the risk/ reward becomes more blurred. Thus my mentality towards the game is facilitated by starting with nothing.