AE4

"Fully automatic directed energy weapon."

- In-game description

The AE4 (referred to as dlcgun1 in the game files) is a directed energy assault rifle featured in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The AE4 and its variants were released on December 11 (in early access) for Season Pass owners on Xbox One and Xbox 360 and was released on January 13, 2015 for the other Season Pass owners on other platforms. The weapon is part of the first downloadable content pack for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare named Havoc available on January 27, 2015 on Xbox platforms. As of an update in February 2015, the AE4 is now available in Exo Survival.

Multiplayer
The AE4 is a very high-damage weapon, usually killing in three shots up close, or four shots at a distance. Its long range damage is the highest of all assault rifles in the game. Its range is decent, which is about twice the range of the Bal-27. Headshots give a bonus of 1.15x, allowing for a three-shot kill with the minimum damage.

The AE4 is a very accurate weapon. The recoil is low, and the sight is clean. Optical attachments are not necessary, but the ACOG Scope is useful to bolster the weapon's long range capabilities.

The AE4's biggest weakness is its abysmally slow rate of fire; 500 RPM, making it difficult to kill if the enemy is using a weapon with very high rate of fire. Additionally, the AE4 is incapable of surface penetration, and therefore cannot shoot through objects, offsetting its high damage. Furthermore, the shot limit is fairly low; the AE4 overheats at 20 bullets. Using the Widowmaker variant reduces the shot limit by two with and without the Heat Sink.

The biggest strength of the AE4 is its accuracy. The high accuracy plays well with the damage output it has, allowing players to easily land hard-hitting shots. Additionally, the AE4 is always a one-shot kill in Hardcore except on players using Exo Stim. Another strength is that it has unlimited ammo, making Scavenger utterly useless.

There are few attachments for the AE4, limited to optical attachments, the Foregrip, Stock, Quickdraw Grip the Parabolic Microphone, and the Heat Sink. Out of these attachments, it is recommended to use an optical attachment to get a visible hit point, and the Heat Sink to raise the shot count before overheating.

The Widowmaker variant is obtained by getting the Season Pass, or buying the downloadable content.

Exo Survival
The AE4 can be unlocked at round 14 in Exo Survival, and costs three upgrade points. Unlike its multiplayer variant, it cannot be equipped with a Heat Sink for unknown reasons.

It is a good weapon for players who do not want to worry too much about running out of ammo but want to be able to move relatively fast; a trait of the EM1 and EPM3, the other two directed energy weapons in the game with infinite reserve ammo, do not have. It is also good if the player would rather have the Light Exo than the Heavy Exo which the player must have in order to use the EM1 or EPM3. Some of its downsides are its inability to penetrate enemies and its low rate of fire, though these are a problem with the EM1 and EPM3 as well. Plus, at the point the player can buy the AE4, the EM1 could be had, as it is given to the player for free at the start for the Heavy Exo class. However, the EPM3 is unlocked a round later than the AE4.

Also, the IMR can be a good alternative to the AE4 because, although it does not have infinite ammo, it does print extra reserve ammo every few seconds; meanwhile the IMR also has the ability to penetrate enemies as well as high damage. Still, the AE4 is fully automatic and does not need to wait for reserve ammo to recharge.

Exo Zombies
The AE4 also appears in Exo Zombies. Unlike its multiplayer and Exo Survival counterpart, it does not have unlimited ammo. It has 70 shots per magazine, but never overheats.

It has one of the highest magazine capacities of the mode (close to the Pytaek's 125 rounds), and reloads quite fast, which make the use of Exo Reload optional. It is also accurate. However, the damage per shot is low, and the player is likely to burn through ammunition quickly. In addition, its penetration power is poor compared to other weapons. Overall, it is not an ideal weapon to use as the reserve ammo is very low, added on top of the rate of fire and relatively low damage per shot which could leave the player dependent on Full Reload or their other weapon after one or two rounds.

However, when upgraded, the AE4 becomes a powerful assault rifle. At Mk 4 upgrade, it gains an Auto Focus Sight which allow the player to be more accurate. At Mk 10 upgrade, the magazine capacity increases to 105 rounds (being higher that the Ameli's 100 rounds), and the reserve ammunition increases to 210 rounds, which give the player a total amount of available shots of 315, which is higher than the Bal-27's 275 (as it does not get ammunition upgrades). As such, a fully-upgraded AE4 is one of the - if not the - best assault rifles available in Exo Zombies, having a relatively high damage per shot, high accuracy, high magazine capacity and short reload time.

Attachments

 * Red Dot Sight
 * Hybrid Sight
 * Auto Focus Sight
 * Target Enhancer
 * Thermal Scope
 * ACOG Scope
 * Foregrip
 * Stock
 * Quickdraw Grip
 * Parabolic Microphone
 * Heat Sink
 * Extended Mags (in Exo Zombies only)

Exo Zombies Attachments

 * Auto Focus Sight (obtained at Mk 4 upgrade)
 * Stock (obtained at Mk 7 upgrade)
 * Extended Mags (obtained at Mk 10 upgrade)

Trivia

 * Before the Havoc update, the size of the vertical bar on the AE4's iron sights varied from console to console. On the Xbox One, PS4 and PC, the vertical bar was significantly shorter, when the true point of impact was in between the two horizontal bars. On the Xbox 360 and PS3, however, the vertical bar went up to the correct point of impact. The Havoc update corrected the iron sights on the Next Gen consoles.
 * The promo image for the default AE4 has a different back sight. This can be seen on the third person models of other variants of the AE4, but in first person, they all appear to have the same sights as the standard AE4.
 * Also, the promo image for the Widowmaker variant lacks the back sights.
 * The AE4 lacked the option to use the Thermal Scope before the release of the Havoc DLC.
 * The Royalty Camouflage was originally unlocked for the AE4 by default, but this was fixed in an update.
 * The weapon has an angled foregrip built into it.