Pearlescent

Pearlescent is a controversial purported rarity whereby White coloured weapons are produced with special manufacturer titles. They include red text quotes and do have the special properties. Some have otherwise low-quality statistics of white weapons of the appropriate level, but some of them are powerful. It is unconfirmed if they were intended by the developers or are a bug.

Many theorize that the controversial naming of Pearlescent guns is a product of one of two developer errors:

The most commonly accepted theory is that Pearlescent weapons were always intended to be of Dark Orange+ quality, but their names were accidentally given the same color as basic White weapons. This is supported by the small number of Pearlescent weapons, i.e. the game developers making a small number of mistakes. This theory is somewhat discredited, however, by the overall quality of most Pearlescent weapons. Despite the fact that they appear above Dark Orange weapons on the inventory screen, Pearlescent weapons are rarely superior to Dark Orange, or even Yellow weapons of comparable level. Coincidentally, their stats are very similar to most White weapons of comparable level, aside from Pearlescent weapons having a special attribute such as an extended magazine or powerful scope. This leads to the second theory.

The second theory is that Pearlescent weapons were always intended to be of White quality, but because they have the signature red flavor text and special attributes, the inventory screen automatically bumps them up to the top of the list by default, despite the fact that they are not actually superior to Dark Orange weapons. Many consider this theory to be quite valid, that the game developers inadvertently formatted the inventory screen so that inferior White weapons with red text were unintentionally placed above the most powerful weapons. In this case, the title of ‘Pearlescent’ would be defunct, and they would simply be considered White weapons of slightly higher quality. This theory is discredited, however, by the moderate amount of Green, Blue and Purple weapons that have red text and special attributes but still appear below Yellows weapons on the inventory screen, accurately displaying their overall quality.