The House of the Dead III departs from the original games in many ways: the most obvious being weaponry and story branching. The former is immediately apparent upon playing the Xbox version.

 

The shotgun used in the game no longer requires the traditional "shoot off-screen" reload, but rather reloads automatically. Reloading still takes time, but happens without prompt as soon as the gun needs it. The arcade version differs here, because there is the presence of light guns, allowing for similar speedy reloading. A reload is achieved by pumping the shotgun controller.