One of the most immersion breaking things about video game shotguns is that fact looking down the sights reduces the spread in turn increasing the range
Games were nvr immersion much, like you be shot in the leg, and you walking fine and dandy anyway You take health dmg, but you recover ur hp over time It's just a game, there was no immersion to begin in
@@Vonmoonlight _Back in my day_ health regeneration didn't exist. You had to go looking for health packages. In CoD1 we even had a mod that made you walk slower when you got hit in the legs, or force prone for a second.
@@jesperburns same for halo, shield was just icing, health was still a huge part of it Idk why they had to remove it, all games with HP Regen over time kinda made the intensity not as intense, esp the feeling of seeing a health pack at the struggling moment, it was like a pillar of hope
However, I like a little health regeneration in some games like 7 days to die, where it can be natural and not a strong regen(like, in a survival game, 1 hp per minute)
No, the slow reload is fairly realistic. Most combat shotguns are issued with special gear, a lot of guys end up carrying shells loose in a dump pouch. And even when shotguns are issued with proper pouches, those pouches focus on retaining the ammunition over speed.
@@ALovelyBunchOfDragonballz TBH, it depends on what he means by "weird". I have seen games get it both wrong and right so I can't say I know which one the OP thinks is the weird one.
I've yet seen a videogame do a reload, on a pump, semi auto, or fully auto, correctly.... 1. in real life you do not pump a loaded shotgun, there is no need to. 2. To fully load a shotgun you need to chamber a round into the barrel, and then fill up the feeder tube. So you load a shell... pump... then load the rest, after.
@@Threesixtyci For 2 - If you prefer, you can put any number of shells in the tube, work the action to chamber one, then top up the tube. It's pure preference. Believe it or not, the pump action in brutal doom can do both ways and also gets #1 correct. I have seen games get #1 right over the years. #2 is more rare though.
One of my favourite shotgun exaggerations is Half-Life's shotgun being able to fire 2 shells at once. It's either in rapid succession or the the magazine tube below the barrel becomes another barrel when firing.
the doubleshot is 100% a leftover from when the shotgun model was something like the quake 2 super shotgun or something that they just left in because it served the gameplay well
As someone who grew up shooting shotguns, I’ve always been kind of amused at how laughably short range they are in most games usually due to their insane spread.
The longer the barrel the tighter the spread, that is why Double Barelled Shotguns are capable to shoot medium range, but take aa sawn off, shorter barrel spread is larger and, decreasing the range
@@aaronhumphrey3514 That is the thing they put in the game wrong. Pump action shotguns have medium range and game devs overlook that detail, and most shotguns just tickle the enemy in medium range...
i feel that shotguns are always held back by needing to be distinct alongside regular rifles, and how most games are fairly close ranged, aka shotgun's perfect range. To make shotguns fulfil a different job than mid range generalist, they pull the range back hard so rifles and shotguns cover different zones of usefulness. Which is why i think it'd be interesting if instead, you just gave everyone a shotgun, except customized for different ranges and jobs. Slugs for range, different gauges for weight and speed, barrel length, semi auto or auto, etc
One of the reasons why Shotguns have been falling out of use in modern day warfare too is the rise of available body armor. So whilst the shotgun is devestating against soft targets, its projectiles lack the speed to punch through protections as well as rifle rounds. More games could do something with that. EDIT: Its lack of penetrative capability is also part of why its so often recommended for home defence, as you are much less likely to hurt something on the other side of what you are shooting.
In the modern battlefield, most skirmishes occur at ~500 metres or more, unless in an urban environment, which would definitely reduce shotgun capability. What's more, is the problems with shotguns. Shotguns with with the internal tube magazines need to have shells loaded one at a time, whilst magazine fed have a higher chance of failed cycling. This is mostly because the large shells require larger magazines, and the only way for them to have as much ammunition per mag as an assault rifle is to have drum magazines, which are harder to carry and jam more frequently.
Thats probably why Tarkov has them more realistic. Sure, all their guns are fairly realistic, but firefights can take place at much longer ranges, the maps are more open for the most part, so weapons can enjoy their full effective range. And its not just shotguns that AAA shooters like to nerf. They force the entire game into such a CQC range that even assault rifles and snipers have to be heavily nerfed in terms of range, usually by increasing bullet drop and making bullets slower. Battlefield 3 was especially egregious essentially halving bullet velocity, but also adding huge meteor-like tracers to all bullets so you could even see the bullet sailing through the air at a leisurely speed. It looked hideous, and shooting someone at 50 meters was a pain because people could essentially dodge your bullets. I prefer Tarkov by a mile.
I personally think the reason why shotguns wandered away so far initially from reality is that the engagement ranges in video games, up until recently, have been in the shotgun's standard ranges. Render distance has been short for a very long amount of time.
It depends what you mean by recently. Off the top of my head Day of defeat featured very long range ww2 gunplay with rifles being the primary focus two decades ago (2003). Counter strike also in 2000. Im sure there are older examples but they don’t come to mind. Point is that render distance hasn’t really been a limiting factor in shooters since the turn of the century.
@@evilded2 Day of Defeat was still having maximum engagement distances within realistic shotgun ranges, along with the original Counter Strike. It's only been within the last 5 or so years that we've really gotten the engagement distances far enough out that we can start having shotguns (and everything else) have realistic ranges while still being a 'short' range option. How many games still have excessive bullet drop in their rifles?
Not to mention that when programming shotguns each pellet tends to be done as an individual projectile fired in a simultaneous group, meaning you get 800% accuracy for a point blank hit.
And it's 800% if they are based on the real buckshot. Depending of the caliber, more pellets might be fired for each round. I've seen games with some 12 gauge firing 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and even 12 pellets.
@@LipColt 12 gauge is incredibly versatile. A 2 3/4 inch shell can hold 8-9 pellets of 00 buck. A 3 inch shell can hold 12. But there are a bunch of different types of buckshot. 0, 00, 000, 1, 2, 3, 4 are all types of buckshot. I believe it’s pretty standard for a 2 3/4 inch shell of number 4 buck to hold about 21-24 pellets
Ah my old trusted friend. Sure the dualies are cool, the fancy guns are nice but I got through mkost of that game with a shotgun, the basic Assault rifle and the fly kick to solve my supernatural problem
I would like to point out that in Battlefield 3 and 4 the shotgun actually had good range. It was nowhere near "real" but they were useable well outside knife range unlike many FPS games.
You can use them in DMR range if you use a slug, I used to snipe with them somewhat often when I got annoyed at someone. You can do quite a bit of damage on them at 20-50 ft. range with buckshot too.
"So many games get the shotgun wrong ... but I think we as players have always known that." Me, a Brit, whose entire gun knowledge comes from games: "Er ... yesss. Of course!"
Sandstorm has the best representations of many gun related things. Just shows that if you try hard enough you can make the game realistic but fun at the same time, without going into full sim territory.
Firearms and history have always been things I've been super fascinated in. It's has an influence in a lot of the games I've played as well as the videos I've made at GameSpot. If you look through the back catalogue of the videos I've produced, many of them have circled those subjects. That was a big reason I wanted to make the previous season of this show! As well as working with JF on our Expert Reacts videos of course. Weapons and video games have far reaching connections, and I'm lucky that I've been able to explore them here and beyond. But of course there is so much more to video games, so GameSpot will always be bringing that world to you first and foremost! I'm just the lucky gun nerd who gets to talk about a bit of both :)
They missed the biggest inaccuracy imo, shotguns irl have some of the least penetrative power and against any sort of armor are typically going to be stopped, unlike rifles which will go through most soft armor. Despite them being OP in games, they are underpowered IRL when going against someone wearing body armor.
I think Rising Storm 1 & 2 deserve some credit for having the most realistic shotguns I've ever seen depicted in a videogame. Lethal out to 50+ yard with buckshot, or even further if you can get a pellet to hit an enemies vitals like the heart or head. It also introduces various size shot shells. And the inverse being that within 5 meters, the spread is so little and the rate of fire is so low that it's actually kind of a difficult CQC weapon, and you can easily miss at point blank range if you panic.
Rising storm on the trenchgun got it more right than wrong. Shot spread is not insane at close ranges, and effective out to 50 meters. Which is what 00 buck does while being vary dangerous with low hit probability out to 100. And it also had #4 buck. Which is more smaller pellets but less range. So ya, they got it the most right of anything I have played to date.
When adjusted to range, shotguns in games are kinda realistic, because maps are just so much smaller so that get that aspect right. Devastating up close, which they also are in real life, and sub-optimal at longer ranges, it just so happens that in most games 50m is already quite long
Yeah, if the maps were 1000 yards long, the shotgun could have better range. It would be over powered if people could snipe with buck shot in a 50m map
@Clark yeah. The reality is so much different than in games. In reality one bullet from a rifle 200 yards away will take someone out of the fight, even if they have body armor on (depending on the firearm). And a real warzone could be miles across. Idk that would be hard to put into a game
I'm really loving the crossover between the gaming industry and firearms education. As a gun owner this appears to be a really good doorway to understanding the subject for people who otherwise may not be exposed to this information. And with any luck developers will take notice and start working on weapon realism
It depends on what you want from a game. I don't want real gun simulation, I play games for fun and the real world often gets in the way of game convenience and fantasy. Weapon realism involves one hit perma-deaths.
@@Safetytrousers yeah, I think games are usually better when they don't care that much about realism. From the micromissiles of new dooms to c4 jumping in battlefield.
@@Safetytrousers Well, you can certainly fudge things for sake of gameplay, but extra details or practical design can really help to nail immersion for lots of folks. If anything, I believe Shrimpanzy is really referring to games that *try* for realism/immersion, but miss some details. CoD can still be the arcady shooter it is, but ensuring that it doesn't have entirely unrealistic weapons (Vanguard) or anachronistic weapons (Black Ops I) can really help keep their whole playerbase immersed-gun nerd or not.
the issue with shotguns is that most games take place with relatively short combat distances, which are where shotguns excel. Meaning rifles' longer range become a bit meaningless. Shotguns instead get their range axed so rifles still have a purpose.
@@comradenikolai322 I agree that if it doesn't inhibit gameplay convenience then a gun should be as realistic as possible if it is meant to be like a real world gun. People need to be more accurate in what they say.
As the legendary Clint Smith said: pistols put holes in people, rifles put holes through people, and shotguns, at the right range with the right load, take a chunk of meat off people and throw it on the ground. Also, sad to not see RS2: Vietnam mentioned for its believable depiction of shotguns. And ballistics in general, which is a large part of the reason the shotguns can work the way they do.
@@bigshotstupig I think that's older double barrels Newer hammerless ones have 1 trigger I don't think it would be fun to have to pull 4 separate triggers on Derringers
It's interesting how the shotgun tropes evolved over time. older games generally had the shotguns as a devastating top tier weapon, while some of the modern games now have the shotgun as more of specialist weapon that can further developed into fitting particular niches. The reason this is interesting is the shift in how weapons in video games are seen, as originally these served as artistic devices, and so their aesthetics and function were made to fit the artistic direction of the game, e.g. doom, where the shotgun was more of a way of fitting in with theme of absolute carnage. However a trend in modern games is more emphasis on immersion through agency, rather than enviroment, and thus more emphasis is put on how players chose their character builds and methods of solving challenges, to which the shotgun fits neatly as they have the advantage of chosing from a lot of ammo types, which is why more modern games have shotguns be specialized weapons that can trade between various advantages.
How shotguns went from devastating to niche specialist weapons is a mirror of real life (In Military Use!), how they went from very effective in trenches against bolt-action rifles, to eventually becoming glorified breaching tools today in the age of mobile advanced warfare. Only talking in a military manner of course. So art imitates life in this case.
@@TARINunit9 retro shotguns are often lie in the power workhorse of your arsenal to clear out most of the engagements from small to upper-medium threats. And it's a bad retro shooter if it has bad shotgun because you need that power to clear out room after room after corridor of bloodthirsty uglies.
Probably has something to do with making shotguns fun to use in-game while not being too powerful compared to other things. Either that or various hardware limitations from older games which just became standard for most games long after such limitations became irrelevant.
When someone tells me: "What comes first to mind when you think of a shotgun?" I usually answer with: Terminator 2. Arnold Schwarzenegger twisting that 1887 shotgun single handedly.
It’s really why I liked RDR2. I was shot gun sniping and the pump shotgun was my favorite. Slugs were perfect way to reach out a bit more if I wasn’t carrying a rifle and 00buck carried far enough without too much spread and was devastating up close.
RDR2 has the most satisfying gunplay. I've fired a lot of the weapons in real life and they got the feel as close as they could on a controller. I absolutely LOVE the fact that you can one-shot enemies in the torso with a shotgun. I'm dying for Rockstar to make a PS5 version of RDR2 so they can use the haptic feedback & adaptive triggers to make the guns feel even better.
@@colbunkmust Both sides used battle gas during ww1. Also the shotgun bann request had more to do with the fact that the wounds were so severe that it was impossible for medics to save patients shot by shotguns. The triangular bayonet was banned for the same reason, too hard to stich.
@@imyourmaster77 it's funny cause in general tf2 has the most unrealistic weapons, but the shotgun, aside from damage and some visual stuff, is actually fairly accurate.
I always said, in Battlefield 3 and 4 that the shotguns felt about right. I own a collection of firearms myself, and while I'm not as good of a shot in real life as I might be in the virtual world, I can tell you that no game has ever come quite as close since then, not even following Battlefield games. The chokes in particular in BF4 allowed some wide versatility and modification to one's shot pattern. I recall being frequently labeled a hacker in some Operation Locker lobbies because of the range at which I'd one-shot someone with the M870.
@@fabe61 Bruh, Sandstorm had a nerf but the original and DOI have much more realistic shotguns than like 95% other games. With 2000+ hours combined in those games and with real life shotgun shooting experience, i kinda do know what im talking about. No need to discuss further, just saying.
Would love to see GameSpot continue to expand on this idea of experts in a field with video game knowledge reacting and explaining things in video games. Like a cyber security expert reacting to hacking stuff in games or a surgeon/doctor reacting to wounds in games.
Eh, honestly not a fan of those. Unless Gamespot did them quite differently, those usually end up being the expert going "wow" "that wouldn't happen" "interesting". Reason why I prefer Gamespot and Jonathan specifically is because he has both a deep understanding of firearms and is knowledgeable of game development, at least in the sense that he can explain why differences had to be made.
Games like films gloss over what actual wounds, blood flow and maiming look like, most people really would not want to see it (and games have technical restrictions). And actual surgery and treatment takes far longer than what is convenient in a game. And nobody fully regains health from being at death's door a moment before, and nobody respawns from actual death. Real hacking too takes often days or weeks of work.
8:35 It's a bit like gunshot wounds in movies vs real life. It's really common for GSWs to be bloodless in the actual bullet contact, with the bleeding being delayed by instinctive muscular constriction. But people are sceptical when a movie replicates that, because they're used to blood splatter. The same with muzzle flashes. Movie goers expect a muzzle flash to every round fired.
I mean, grew up with remington sluggers, a rifled foster slug through a smoothbore, the rifling was actually on the slug itself that imparted enough spin the shots were reasonably accurate to 80 yards. But modern shotguns have fully rifled sabot slugs available that can be accurate to 200 yards.
I am SO GLAD that this is a series! Anything to get me closer to understanding the design philosophies of video games is always a good thing. Thank you for making this, GameSpot!
Honestly, the original shotgun in DOOM is pretty realistic. It's a workhorse weapon that has surprising range, able to take out an imp in 1 or 2 shots from medium-long range.
I played H3VR and it's crazy just _how_ much range you can get on a shotgun in reality when compared to the literal sneezing-distance range that shotguns have in most video games.
H3VR also kinda passively taught me lil bit about how shotgun loads work when i was tryna use dragonsbreath on the semi auto spas 12 and i had to manually cycle it everytime lol
One of my favorite weapons I customized in Deathloop was a shotgun that behaved like a proper, real shotgun. I gave it mods that gave it more range and accuracy than most of the game's rifles, resulting in a shotgun that actually mimicked its real-world counterpart
Love rs2's shotguns, they're so incredibly satisfying to use. Have nailed 80m shots with them in the past. Tarkov and Insurgency: Sandstorm also do them pretty well. I love when games make them just as viable as any other gun for most situations Edit - and I just finished the video and realized that those 2 we're already mentioned
"When people saw them off for nefarious reasons" I personally would like to be able to saw it off so that it can fit in the right corner of my stairway better for home defense purposes.
Something that needs to be done more in Video Games is shotguns being used in artificial atmospheres like space-ships. A shotguns poor ability to pierce armor would actually be rather useful if you want to defend your ship without either blowing a hole in important equipment or letting all your air into space. As well, ship crews would likely not be wearing as much armor as front-line infantry, meaning that a boarding party wouldn't be so worried about piercing body armor.
I don't know how much testing has been done with firing a shotgun in a space ship, but have you ever tried shooting one inside a vehicle? I don't think it's a good idea.
@@timbrwolf1121 I haven't, and I don't plan to because you're right, best case scenario I get hot brass on my nice seats. However a vehicle is a much tighter space than most space-opera star-ships. Space ships in video-games like halo or mass effect tend to range from indoor corridors to open spaces maybe the area of a football field.
Halo Combat Evolved got the shotgun right (maybe not the reload) but the pellets from that shotgun travel through the air physically until they hit a wall, spreading more as they travel (granted yes without bullet drop) but still, Halo CE did the shotgun very good
At videogame map ranges, bullet drop is pointless to model. As are physical projetiles. At the 300m or less distances, there's no reason for a bullet to not be hitscan because it effectively IS that IRL.
Not that Bad Company 2 is particularly realistic, but I did always like that buckshot doesn't literally disappear over long range. if you aim high enough you can get hit markers cross map
@Ally I never said that WW1 is still happening I was talking about how the Germans said using Shotguns was inhumane when they were using mustard gas in WW1
I think the problem is that ranges in general get scaled down - be it artillery in an RTS or shotguns in a FPS, the scales of battles get shrunk to fit into small maps so the ranges get equally scaled down to keep some variety/balance.
This is cool! I’d love to see one on magnums in games. The image of a magnum started for me in Resident evil, never named anything but “magnum” or in the lone case of the first game “colt python”. But in all games when you find one you just know it’s always a 1 shot destroyer at any range. Perfect kinda weapon for the series probably! Looking forward to more!
It's funny, I've taken new shooters to the range a few times, and they're always amazed by how far away a shotgun can remain effective. People who've grown up on Call of Duty can't believe it when a load of buckshot connects with a small target 50 meters away.
A video about grenade launchers would be cool, as they are in a similar place of being either OP, or nerfed to to point of being unrealistic. I like Enlisteds shotguns. They have a really tight spread, and can reach out as far as you can shoot. But the tight spread means hipfire shots aren't garanteed up close. It requires some of that finesse the video talks about. And while it can get hits at long range, it won't necessarily get kills. Its a good harassment tool at range, because you don't have to be as precise as the rifles. But most of the time you're better off with a submachine gun. The shotgun is nasty when you can get into the rhythm of it though!
This was interesting, but I would have appreciated more examples of how shotguns behave in the real world. What is the effective range and spread of a standard 870? How does it fair against body armor? Is it humanly possible to fire 20 slug rounds without your shoulder falling off?
Body armor will stop pretty much all shotgun loads but your ribs will still break, as for being able to fire 20 slug rounds without causing serious damage to your shoulder depending on experience, your size, and your build you can easily fire more than than and just have a slightly sore shoulder later.
@@Jayzgrouse Your rib's won't break unless you have soft armor (kevlar, nylon, etc). A plate will dissipate the force over your torso making it mostly harmless. Even with soft armor it's not a given to break your ribs as often they're heavily padded just for that reason.
I have shot a hundred slugs in one day (shooting class) out of a Mossberg 500. Sore shoulder for a week, but under combat stress, you wouldn't notice. As for armour, as clint smith would say: trusting armour is trusting your ennemy to be a good enough shot to hit it... Armour covers your vital organs, that's it... So even if you survive, you still have a very good chance to get incapacitated! Which is the first goal of shooting someone in the first place. Standard range? There is no standard barrel! Back to my Mossberg 500 smooth bore barrel which would be equivalent, I can reliably hit a human silouhette at 100 meters without being the best shot. I would say half of that for buckshot. After that, the buckshot is still very dangerous but is inconsistent and you multiply the chances of hitting something else. Every type of ammo is very different too...
I remember from the "Short-Range Shotgun" page of TVTropes that the AA12 of one of the Modern Warfare titles has among the worst ranges of any video game shotty: If your opponent has the perk that extends the range of a knife lunge, that attack would have a longer range.
One of my gaming buddies used to say that if shotguns worked in games like they did IRL, then no one would ever use anything else. Not sure if I agree, but I've always been a shotgun advocate because I dig versatility. It always pains me to see folding stocks left in their storage position. That's just incompetent. That's an example of the bad habits of movies spreading into video games. No one seems to understand how insulting it is. That goes beyond shotguns, though. It applies to any type of gun that has a folding or collapsible stock. And then there's the M26 modular shotgun system. It's also depicted wrong in video games and movies. It's always being used like a pump-action with a sideways foregrip. In reality, it's straight-pull bolt-action and you're not supposed to hold the charging handle like a foregrip. It's intended to be held with the support hand grasping the front of the mag and the support arm pulling the gun back into the shoulder. The thumb of the support hand should wrap around the foregrip. Worthy of note is that it's left-right convertible.
Shotguns could be balanced differently. For one: In a modern setting you can expect at least regular infantry to be equiped with body armour. I'm no expert on firearms and ballistics but I'm guessing that a 8mm ball of lead will fare rather poorly against a military ballistic vest. So, shotguns, when firing shot, could be coded to do only negligible damage on torso hits, requiring hits to head, neck or extremeties to do damage.
@@Bird_Dog00 there's finickies you can do with person multipliers and hitboxes example, you could code the upper and lower torsos to have different damage. a hit to the upper chest will not stop someone without firing a large number of rounds, a hit to the stomach might stop someone in a pittance of hits. If we were to split the human into say, nine hitboxes... Head: can have light or intermediate armor. Face: Can have light armor. Neck: Can have light or intermediate armor. Thorax: Can have light, intermediate, or heavy armor. Stomach: Can have light or intermediate armor. Upper arms/legs: can have light, intermediate, or heavy armor. Lower arms/legs: can have light armor
No one takes shotguns seriously in Arma3. In that game, you're either too close to too many enemies or too far away. By far away, I mean, beyond 200 meters. Also, almost everyone is wearing level 3 armor or greater. They're only effective against unarmored targets in small groups while conducting clandestine missions, typically, at night. That game also offers slugs and fletchette, but those are ineffective against armor. The most common munitions used are: 9x19mm, 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39 or 51mm, 6.5x39mm, 12.7x99mm, and 40mm.
@@erickolb8581 A 12-gauge slug can bust the engine block of a Mack truck. Even against an armored humanoid, at the very least, there's still going to be major blunt impact trauma.
So my take away is. First games need the shotgun type. But then also need shotgun sub categories. Allowing them to cover the diverse range of different shotguns & ammo.
Well the only way you can really do realistic shotguns is in a realistic shooter. You don't want shotguns 1 tapping people from 50 meters when it takes rifles anywhere from 3 to 5 shots in most games
@@parkeralan19 yet I see you didn't bring up the argument for snipers doing basically that, one shot at any range with the same fire rate as shotguns. Realistic or not shotguns still need to have more range and less spread than what games are currently portraying.
I have never heard that saying before in my life and shotguns are, generally, not actually as preferable for a home defense weapon due to how much collateral damage they can cause. Even the FBI recommends an AR-15 or a handgun for home defense over a shotgun.
Interestingly enough, Warframe gets shotguns pretty close (as close as a game about Space Ninjas can get, anyways). Because the game is PvE, Shotguns can have the realistic range and not have to worry about game balance, which is why the Tigris Prime hits like a 10 ton truck from 50m away
With only 3 weapons slots, FEARs shotgun was just too good to drop. Excellent power, decent range, plentiful ammo and a high ammo carrying capacity all in a game that centers around CQC. You'd be nuts to ditch the shotgun.
00 Buckshot is basically like shooting someone with several 9mm bullets simultaneously, and is lethal at a surprisingly long range. I can fully understand why most games utterly nerf the shotgun's damage stats for balance reasons.
@Gamespot It's not only a "cultural trope" but also an optimization issue : When you shoot with a rifle, that generally produces one (expensive) raycast. Doing the same with a shotgun will produce a dozens of these raycast. A way of optimizing this issue is to limit the distance at which you raycast, or to use a conecast with limited range. It's quite probable early video games willingly reduced the shoot distance to better optimize old video games
shotguns dont raycast: they either produce a projectile or hitscan. rays have to bounce off mirrors or filter into specular minirays on impact, a shotgun "pellet" just flies and connects with something. modern hardware has a problem modelling 8 scans or even 8 projectiles. heck, max payne 1 on the pcs it run could render as manny as 70 projectiles during bullet time.
I think a gun that was much easier to hit targets with at range, while doing slightly less damage then at point blank, would be far more interesting then game shotguns
I mean thats pretty much how bolt actions function in games. Sure, they're often still 1 hit kills in the head in pretty much any game (and often even 1 hit to the chest if its a more fast paced shooter) but they're definitely a lot weaker in extreme CQC than other options
Great to see some footage of Hunt: Showdown in this video, but I have a bit of news! That footage is actually outdated! Ever since Johnathan's first video on Hunt, the team at Crytek actually went through the game and changed a bunch of animations based on his feedback (as well as making a gif showing off how one of the weapons actually functions). Would be great if that game got a revisit. Beyond that, super happy to see this show finally airing, this is fantastic!
assuming the game uses projectiles instead of hitscan i think the ideal balance setup for shotguns is to have the spread be somewhat narrow, give them damage falloff over velocity, and velocity falloff over time along with a bit of drop; for damage you can keep them realistic by tying base damage to pellet count, and tying pellet count to velocity/damage falloff; lastly give only a few rounds in reserve, and in mag. this combination of things lets you tweak the effectiveness at range of certain shotguns in a way that makes sense ie no4 buck has more pellets, and more falloff than say 000 buck which has fewer pellets with higher damage and lower falloff; by exploiting real world equivelants like this you can achieve interesting balance in that a smaller shot will make the spread matter less at distance while larger shot gives more damage per pellet, but lower consistency. just food for thought.
Thank you for this video. I was recently talking about how shotguns are extremely nerfed in video games. I find it ridiculous how we allow quick scoping 1 hit snipers with .1 second scope in times or ump shooting 2miles but the shotgun is stuck pumping a shell after smacking someone in the upper chest at 5 meters trying to give a follow up shot.
@@fnutek3720 no it doesn’t. Most people run around with a 1 shot weapon quick scoping close to far range. Who cares if someone gets 1 tap from a shotgun from 15-25m.
@@fnutek3720 if you have ever shot a shotgun you will notice how none of the bullets explode out of the barrel of the gun in a cone like spread. The spread of a shotgun is pretty tight.
I may not be an expert but i think that hunt showdown's shotguns are the most realistic ones in terms of range, power and details. I've never seen a game with such approach on shotguns
@@simonenulli3098 Yep, Tarkov can definitely compete in terms of realism with almost any game. It's just insane how detailed everything there is, down to loading bullets into chamber separately if you so desire.
As the proud owner of an actual SPAS 12 it is the very last shotgun I’d want to carry into a combat situation. It’s very cool looking and a lot of fun to show off at the range, but it’s overly complicated and cumbersome to anyone but a highly trained operator. Just loading it is an ordeal compared to a standard Winchester, Remington or Mossberg pump action. Definitely not what I’d have brought to deal with velociraptors.
Insurgency and tarkov do it best, they really capture the feel and utility of shotguns without artificially changing their stats to make them fit into the roles that typical video games put them in
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Fortnite actually has a couple shotguns that do pretty good in terms of "realism". While still not as powerful as a real shotgun would be, the ranger shotgun has an impressive effective range compared to most other games.
This series does have a bunch more episodes that came before this that a lot of people enjoyed. In fact doing Expert Reacts videos with him came as an offshoot of this series!
I have fond memories of 007: Nightfire on the PS2 nailing the Spas-12 as it had a toggle fire mode to change it between Automatic mode (which was balanced by being weaker) and pump mode which had a higher damage stat but slow to follow up. Such an excellent shooter of its time and ahead of its time in many ways with some of those game design decisions.
Pre-nerf shotguns of Payday 2 were just ilegal amout of fun. They had *really* long range, many diffrent ammo types to play with, and on death they send enemies flying into the sky. Well, they still do most of that, but nerfs limited their effective range really needlesly harshly. They are still super fun to use, but feeling of "I'm a anihilator of everything in 20m" is not the same as "I'm a anihilator of everything in 50m" :P . Part of that fun is really bizzare desing decision to make shoties in game have their damge calculated just on fact of hiting, NOT per pellet. So no matter if you hit with all or just 1, damage is the same. Needless to say, this makes aiming super forgiving.
Interesting take... I for one never bothered with the shotgun in Fallout 4. its range was stupidly short, to the point that I'd do more damage at what I considered a safe distance with a pipe rifle. IRL, I know how far buckshot will change somebody's attitude, so I found the virtual shottie would just pull me out of the immersion.
Explosive is a pretty fun legendary effect for shotguns in FO4. Particularly the combat shotgun. Pretty sure there was a wounding too, that caused a bleed effect. There's also a "never reload" effect that isn't terrible, IIRC. But yes, range was awful for all shotguns. And those effects are just as good on a pipe rifle. Also, kneecapping pipe rifle for when things tried to disagree with you about the range of engagement. With a silencer on it, for good measure.
@monochromaticspider9303 Energy Shotguns are also an option. Institute, Laser Plasma Gun and Laser Musket can have a much higher range then the Shell using shotguns. As for Never Ending, on a Combat Shotgun it is fine, but on a Double-Barrel Shotgun it is insane, not having to reload after every 2 shots means you can make optimal use of the weapons bizarrely high maximum fire rate of 181, only a handful of weapons can have a fire rate that is higher.
![KAYTRANADA - Witchy (feat. Childish Gambino) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jGK3YVmGZ3Y/mqdefault.jpg)
One of the most immersion breaking things about video game shotguns is that fact looking down the sights reduces the spread in turn increasing the range
Games were nvr immersion much, like you be shot in the leg, and you walking fine and dandy anyway
You take health dmg, but you recover ur hp over time
It's just a game, there was no immersion to begin in
@@Vonmoonlight _Back in my day_ health regeneration didn't exist. You had to go looking for health packages.
In CoD1 we even had a mod that made you walk slower when you got hit in the legs, or force prone for a second.
@@jesperburns same for halo, shield was just icing, health was still a huge part of it
Idk why they had to remove it, all games with HP Regen over time kinda made the intensity not as intense, esp the feeling of seeing a health pack at the struggling moment, it was like a pillar of hope
Oh yeah, doom really made me enjoy no health regeneration.
However, I like a little health regeneration in some games like 7 days to die, where it can be natural and not a strong regen(like, in a survival game, 1 hp per minute)
How shotguns are wrong in games:
-They only have an effective range of 3 feet
-reload is weird
-recoil is too low
No, the slow reload is fairly realistic. Most combat shotguns are issued with special gear, a lot of guys end up carrying shells loose in a dump pouch.
And even when shotguns are issued with proper pouches, those pouches focus on retaining the ammunition over speed.
@@ALovelyBunchOfDragonballz TBH, it depends on what he means by "weird". I have seen games get it both wrong and right so I can't say I know which one the OP thinks is the weird one.
I've yet seen a videogame do a reload, on a pump, semi auto, or fully auto, correctly....
1. in real life you do not pump a loaded shotgun, there is no need to.
2. To fully load a shotgun you need to chamber a round into the barrel, and then fill up the feeder tube. So you load a shell... pump... then load the rest, after.
@@Threesixtyci For 2 - If you prefer, you can put any number of shells in the tube, work the action to chamber one, then top up the tube. It's pure preference.
Believe it or not, the pump action in brutal doom can do both ways and also gets #1 correct.
I have seen games get #1 right over the years. #2 is more rare though.
Idk... every game I've played has always ended in a pump animation regardless of how many you shot between reloads.
One of my favourite shotgun exaggerations is Half-Life's shotgun being able to fire 2 shells at once. It's either in rapid succession or the the magazine tube below the barrel becomes another barrel when firing.
Perfect Dark did that with their shotgun having a single shot or a two shot burst.
Bottom of the so-called "barrel" are just magazine tube, not another pew-pew barrel
Turok Rage Wars had a shotgun with a secondary fire mode that pumped it four times to do a 4 round burst.
Like a super soaker. The more you pump it the more it shoots.
the doubleshot is 100% a leftover from when the shotgun model was something like the quake 2 super shotgun or something that they just left in because it served the gameplay well
As someone who grew up shooting shotguns, I’ve always been kind of amused at how laughably short range they are in most games usually due to their insane spread.
The longer the barrel the tighter the spread, that is why Double Barelled Shotguns are capable to shoot medium range, but take aa sawn off, shorter barrel spread is larger and, decreasing the range
@@rafaelskit3895 Well yeah, but in most games shotguns all act like they’re sawed-offs.
@@aaronhumphrey3514 That is the thing they put in the game wrong.
Pump action shotguns have medium range and game devs overlook that detail, and most shotguns just tickle the enemy in medium range...
@@rafaelskit3895 action type does not determine range my dude.
@@themashedavenger5461 My dude, i used pump action shotguns AS AN EXAMPLE. Because Their barrel is significantly long
i feel that shotguns are always held back by needing to be distinct alongside regular rifles, and how most games are fairly close ranged, aka shotgun's perfect range. To make shotguns fulfil a different job than mid range generalist, they pull the range back hard so rifles and shotguns cover different zones of usefulness.
Which is why i think it'd be interesting if instead, you just gave everyone a shotgun, except customized for different ranges and jobs. Slugs for range, different gauges for weight and speed, barrel length, semi auto or auto, etc
One of the reasons why Shotguns have been falling out of use in modern day warfare too is the rise of available body armor.
So whilst the shotgun is devestating against soft targets, its projectiles lack the speed to punch through protections as well as rifle rounds.
More games could do something with that.
EDIT: Its lack of penetrative capability is also part of why its so often recommended for home defence, as you are much less likely to hurt something on the other side of what you are shooting.
In the modern battlefield, most skirmishes occur at ~500 metres or more, unless in an urban environment, which would definitely reduce shotgun capability. What's more, is the problems with shotguns. Shotguns with with the internal tube magazines need to have shells loaded one at a time, whilst magazine fed have a higher chance of failed cycling. This is mostly because the large shells require larger magazines, and the only way for them to have as much ammunition per mag as an assault rifle is to have drum magazines, which are harder to carry and jam more frequently.
Call of duty black ops 2 has a long range shotgun
@Ally Hunting, home defense, police work, prison guards, riot control, etc.
Thats probably why Tarkov has them more realistic. Sure, all their guns are fairly realistic, but firefights can take place at much longer ranges, the maps are more open for the most part, so weapons can enjoy their full effective range.
And its not just shotguns that AAA shooters like to nerf. They force the entire game into such a CQC range that even assault rifles and snipers have to be heavily nerfed in terms of range, usually by increasing bullet drop and making bullets slower. Battlefield 3 was especially egregious essentially halving bullet velocity, but also adding huge meteor-like tracers to all bullets so you could even see the bullet sailing through the air at a leisurely speed. It looked hideous, and shooting someone at 50 meters was a pain because people could essentially dodge your bullets.
I prefer Tarkov by a mile.
I personally think the reason why shotguns wandered away so far initially from reality is that the engagement ranges in video games, up until recently, have been in the shotgun's standard ranges. Render distance has been short for a very long amount of time.
Nope
@@TheAdatto Are you going to say what is wrong with what the OP said, or are you just going to say that the OP is wrong without giving any evidence?
It depends what you mean by recently. Off the top of my head Day of defeat featured very long range ww2 gunplay with rifles being the primary focus two decades ago (2003). Counter strike also in 2000. Im sure there are older examples but they don’t come to mind.
Point is that render distance hasn’t really been a limiting factor in shooters since the turn of the century.
@@evilded2 Day of Defeat was still having maximum engagement distances within realistic shotgun ranges, along with the original Counter Strike. It's only been within the last 5 or so years that we've really gotten the engagement distances far enough out that we can start having shotguns (and everything else) have realistic ranges while still being a 'short' range option.
How many games still have excessive bullet drop in their rifles?
@@jeffbenton6183 it's probably more due to a trade of of ease of use with traditional guns like rifles
Not to mention that when programming shotguns each pellet tends to be done as an individual projectile fired in a simultaneous group, meaning you get 800% accuracy for a point blank hit.
And it's 800% if they are based on the real buckshot. Depending of the caliber, more pellets might be fired for each round. I've seen games with some 12 gauge firing 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and even 12 pellets.
@@LipColt what about birdshot
@@LipColt 12 gauge is incredibly versatile. A 2 3/4 inch shell can hold 8-9 pellets of 00 buck. A 3 inch shell can hold 12. But there are a bunch of different types of buckshot. 0, 00, 000, 1, 2, 3, 4 are all types of buckshot. I believe it’s pretty standard for a 2 3/4 inch shell of number 4 buck to hold about 21-24 pellets
I prefer to slam someone with an 8 gauge elephant rifle, thank you
@@georgepoggington4896 I usually use a 37mm anti tank rifle in aphe apcr and airburst 500m oh yeah there’s also a hedp
They forgot to say it so I’ll say it for him: “This is Johnathan Ferguson keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armories Museum in the UK.”
Also owner of amazing hair
This video has a disturbing lack of F.E.A.R. shotgun.
Verily
Or my other favorite game from Monolith Bloods double barrel.
And HL1/2's cursed shotty, with its ability to fire 2 shells at once
@@ksgfordays8863 underrated comment
Ah my old trusted friend. Sure the dualies are cool, the fancy guns are nice but I got through mkost of that game with a shotgun, the basic Assault rifle and the fly kick to solve my supernatural problem
I would like to point out that in Battlefield 3 and 4 the shotgun actually had good range. It was nowhere near "real" but they were useable well outside knife range unlike many FPS games.
You can use them in DMR range if you use a slug, I used to snipe with them somewhat often when I got annoyed at someone. You can do quite a bit of damage on them at 20-50 ft. range with buckshot too.
Bf 3 and 4 did shotguns very well for sure, still keeping them balanced within the sandbox, but making them versatile outside of a few feet.
And cause of that most of the servers banned this type of weapon
Bad company 2 was even better
i miss bf 4
"So many games get the shotgun wrong ... but I think we as players have always known that."
Me, a Brit, whose entire gun knowledge comes from games: "Er ... yesss. Of course!"
The irony is, that shotguns are the one class of weapon you can easily legally obtain in Britain.
@Alex Luca they nerfed the shotgun and pistol from halo 1 only to bring about the battle rifle
British people learn a lot about the world through media, like what the sun looks like.
@@ytpmvdeluxe Shotgun/pistol #1 combo for OG Halo. Every version of both after was a shadow in comparison.
Me, an American, whose entire gun knowledge comes from dodging and weaving through multiple firefights and battlefields just to get to class: “...”
Insurgency sandstorm has hands down the best representation of shotguns I've ever seen in a game
over appreciated game
Sandstorm has the best representations of many gun related things. Just shows that if you try hard enough you can make the game realistic but fun at the same time, without going into full sim territory.
@@DragonnRider Care to elaborate?
@@TheTeletrap there's simply no fun value or anything that makes me feel like there's a reason to play the game at all.
@@DragonnRider tactical shooters aren’t my cup of tea as well, but that’s all subjective, my friend.
Gamespot has become a legit guntube channel by now
They do that better than actually reviewing the games so I'm not complaining
Yeah it’s great
I guess it's Gunspot now
Firearms and history have always been things I've been super fascinated in. It's has an influence in a lot of the games I've played as well as the videos I've made at GameSpot. If you look through the back catalogue of the videos I've produced, many of them have circled those subjects. That was a big reason I wanted to make the previous season of this show!
As well as working with JF on our Expert Reacts videos of course.
Weapons and video games have far reaching connections, and I'm lucky that I've been able to explore them here and beyond.
But of course there is so much more to video games, so GameSpot will always be bringing that world to you first and foremost!
I'm just the lucky gun nerd who gets to talk about a bit of both :)
And we're not complaining
They missed the biggest inaccuracy imo, shotguns irl have some of the least penetrative power and against any sort of armor are typically going to be stopped, unlike rifles which will go through most soft armor. Despite them being OP in games, they are underpowered IRL when going against someone wearing body armor.
They are not underpowered at all, they transfer energy very differently. They have a totally different role...
In overwatch, armor was specifically designed around shotguns and other low damage high pellet count guns
They'll still pulverize your insides due to the force of getting smacked by 6-24 or so pellets in varying ammounts or sizes straight to the chest
@@Baconator5642 not to mention slugs lol
slugs exist tho
I think Rising Storm 1 & 2 deserve some credit for having the most realistic shotguns I've ever seen depicted in a videogame. Lethal out to 50+ yard with buckshot, or even further if you can get a pellet to hit an enemies vitals like the heart or head. It also introduces various size shot shells.
And the inverse being that within 5 meters, the spread is so little and the rate of fire is so low that it's actually kind of a difficult CQC weapon, and you can easily miss at point blank range if you panic.
Rising storm on the trenchgun got it more right than wrong. Shot spread is not insane at close ranges, and effective out to 50 meters. Which is what 00 buck does while being vary dangerous with low hit probability out to 100. And it also had #4 buck. Which is more smaller pellets but less range. So ya, they got it the most right of anything I have played to date.
Well sir/madam ever heard of escape from tarkov?
Insurgency also nails it
Gun club vr is proud
Phantom Forces also does justice, in fact the shotguns are one of the most hated types of gun in the game.
When adjusted to range, shotguns in games are kinda realistic, because maps are just so much smaller so that get that aspect right.
Devastating up close, which they also are in real life, and sub-optimal at longer ranges, it just so happens that in most games 50m is already quite long
Yeah, if the maps were 1000 yards long, the shotgun could have better range. It would be over powered if people could snipe with buck shot in a 50m map
@Clark yeah. The reality is so much different than in games. In reality one bullet from a rifle 200 yards away will take someone out of the fight, even if they have body armor on (depending on the firearm).
And a real warzone could be miles across. Idk that would be hard to put into a game
@Clark just make body armor negate shotgun damage at range.
Ever see a man shoot a clay pidgeon at 200yrd?
@@daelinblack6681
Can he use a punt gun?
I'm really loving the crossover between the gaming industry and firearms education. As a gun owner this appears to be a really good doorway to understanding the subject for people who otherwise may not be exposed to this information. And with any luck developers will take notice and start working on weapon realism
It depends on what you want from a game. I don't want real gun simulation, I play games for fun and the real world often gets in the way of game convenience and fantasy. Weapon realism involves one hit perma-deaths.
@@Safetytrousers yeah, I think games are usually better when they don't care that much about realism. From the micromissiles of new dooms to c4 jumping in battlefield.
@@Safetytrousers Well, you can certainly fudge things for sake of gameplay, but extra details or practical design can really help to nail immersion for lots of folks.
If anything, I believe Shrimpanzy is really referring to games that *try* for realism/immersion, but miss some details. CoD can still be the arcady shooter it is, but ensuring that it doesn't have entirely unrealistic weapons (Vanguard) or anachronistic weapons (Black Ops I) can really help keep their whole playerbase immersed-gun nerd or not.
the issue with shotguns is that most games take place with relatively short combat distances, which are where shotguns excel. Meaning rifles' longer range become a bit meaningless. Shotguns instead get their range axed so rifles still have a purpose.
@@comradenikolai322 I agree that if it doesn't inhibit gameplay convenience then a gun should be as realistic as possible if it is meant to be like a real world gun.
People need to be more accurate in what they say.
TF2’s cartoon unconventional shotguns, that favor precision over damage will always have to be my favorite.
me too
Honestly if more games had weapons like the Widowmaker shotties would be used a lot more
Surprisingly Realistic
As the legendary Clint Smith said: pistols put holes in people, rifles put holes through people, and shotguns, at the right range with the right load, take a chunk of meat off people and throw it on the ground.
Also, sad to not see RS2: Vietnam mentioned for its believable depiction of shotguns. And ballistics in general, which is a large part of the reason the shotguns can work the way they do.
Yoo... I just mentioned it in my comment.
RS2 shotguns are great, shooting a helicopter pilot using a double barreled hunting shotgun at 600m is the good stuff.
I heard this in his voice....
Oh god, the mention of the double barrel from RS2 gives me shivers. That thing, while realistic, was ridiculously frustrating.
Or Insurgency Sandstorm. As for RS2, it's not mentioned, but you can see it at 11:03
people forget that the doom super shotgun shoots 2 shells instead of 1 at a time
Pull both triggers at the same time.
@@TheSixteen60 people forget that DB's have 2 triggers lol
@@bigshotstupig I wonder where that other trigger is put
@@bigshotstupig
Not all
@@bigshotstupig I think that's older double barrels
Newer hammerless ones have 1 trigger
I don't think it would be fun to have to pull 4 separate triggers on Derringers
It's interesting how the shotgun tropes evolved over time. older games generally had the shotguns as a devastating top tier weapon, while some of the modern games now have the shotgun as more of specialist weapon that can further developed into fitting particular niches. The reason this is interesting is the shift in how weapons in video games are seen, as originally these served as artistic devices, and so their aesthetics and function were made to fit the artistic direction of the game, e.g. doom, where the shotgun was more of a way of fitting in with theme of absolute carnage. However a trend in modern games is more emphasis on immersion through agency, rather than enviroment, and thus more emphasis is put on how players chose their character builds and methods of solving challenges, to which the shotgun fits neatly as they have the advantage of chosing from a lot of ammo types, which is why more modern games have shotguns be specialized weapons that can trade between various advantages.
Retro shotguns were never top-tier. They were mid-tier with plentiful ammo, for when you wanted to save your ammo for the REAL top-tier guns
How shotguns went from devastating to niche specialist weapons is a mirror of real life (In Military Use!), how they went from very effective in trenches against bolt-action rifles, to eventually becoming glorified breaching tools today in the age of mobile advanced warfare. Only talking in a military manner of course. So art imitates life in this case.
@@TARINunit9 retro shotguns are often lie in the power workhorse of your arsenal to clear out most of the engagements from small to upper-medium threats. And it's a bad retro shooter if it has bad shotgun because you need that power to clear out room after room after corridor of bloodthirsty uglies.
Gamespot: “shotguns have too short range in video games!”
Payday: I gotcha fam
Yep, 00 buckshot and regular slugs give the shotgun an effective extended range between 30 and 100 yards. Battlefield 4 gets shotguns pretty right.
So did Insurgency Sandstorm
I’ve headshotted enemies from across the fields on Panzer Storm in BF5 with a Browning Auto-5 loaded with slugs.
It was a wondrous sensation
Payday 2 gets them right too.
I mean the normal buckshot dies off fairly quickly
@@ultimateqmazing2537 Well, minus the Judge with HE Rounds sending shield officers up into the ceiling.
Probably has something to do with making shotguns fun to use in-game while not being too powerful compared to other things. Either that or various hardware limitations from older games which just became standard for most games long after such limitations became irrelevant.
Like with every weapon, you need balance. They mention it in their every other video.
When someone tells me: "What comes first to mind when you think of a shotgun?"
I usually answer with: Terminator 2. Arnold Schwarzenegger twisting that 1887 shotgun single handedly.
That’s such a badass scene.
Me too or the double barrel they shot Ricky with in boyz n the hood
It’s really why I liked RDR2. I was shot gun sniping and the pump shotgun was my favorite. Slugs were perfect way to reach out a bit more if I wasn’t carrying a rifle and 00buck carried far enough without too much spread and was devastating up close.
I wish you could slamfire the winchester 1897 in rdr2
RDR2 has the most satisfying gunplay. I've fired a lot of the weapons in real life and they got the feel as close as they could on a controller.
I absolutely LOVE the fact that you can one-shot enemies in the torso with a shotgun. I'm dying for Rockstar to make a PS5 version of RDR2 so they can use the haptic feedback & adaptive triggers to make the guns feel even better.
Germany: “That firearm is an unfair advantage. Stop using it!”
Keep in mind this is after the Germans started the use of poison gas on the battlefield. I wonder why the US chose to ignore them...
Ahahahahah they cry a lot:):)
@@joe125ful
Meanwhile Hans and a squad of Flamenwerfers boil the brits and Americans in their trenches
@@colbunkmust Both sides used battle gas during ww1. Also the shotgun bann request had more to do with the fact that the wounds were so severe that it was impossible for medics to save patients shot by shotguns. The triangular bayonet was banned for the same reason, too hard to stich.
Gun op plz nerf.
The funny thing is that the shotgun in TF2 is perfectly viable at mid-range. It just really lacks at long range due to the immense spread.
How is that funny
It relies on rng, i did 128 damage crit to my opponent at long range
@@imyourmaster77 get off the internet
that is not funny
@@imyourmaster77 it's funny cause in general tf2 has the most unrealistic weapons, but the shotgun, aside from damage and some visual stuff, is actually fairly accurate.
I always said, in Battlefield 3 and 4 that the shotguns felt about right. I own a collection of firearms myself, and while I'm not as good of a shot in real life as I might be in the virtual world, I can tell you that no game has ever come quite as close since then, not even following Battlefield games. The chokes in particular in BF4 allowed some wide versatility and modification to one's shot pattern. I recall being frequently labeled a hacker in some Operation Locker lobbies because of the range at which I'd one-shot someone with the M870.
Try eft. Very accurate ballistics
I was just about mention BF3. Something about putting a long range scope on a 870 was just so perfect. 🖖🗽
You should try Insurgency...
@@jtukko Insurgency’s buckshot shotguns do not reflect the medium range capabilities they outline here.
@@fabe61 Bruh, Sandstorm had a nerf but the original and DOI have much more realistic shotguns than like 95% other games. With 2000+ hours combined in those games and with real life shotgun shooting experience, i kinda do know what im talking about. No need to discuss further, just saying.
Germens: shot guns are too inhuman!
Also germens: *funny gas*
Hey hey hey
NOT funny
@@nolesy34 cope
@@nova1726 coping is a pipe im trying to compliment
Would love to see GameSpot continue to expand on this idea of experts in a field with video game knowledge reacting and explaining things in video games. Like a cyber security expert reacting to hacking stuff in games or a surgeon/doctor reacting to wounds in games.
Gamology did both of those. I'd check them out if you wanna see more of that kind of stuff.
Eh, honestly not a fan of those. Unless Gamespot did them quite differently, those usually end up being the expert going "wow" "that wouldn't happen" "interesting".
Reason why I prefer Gamespot and Jonathan specifically is because he has both a deep understanding of firearms and is knowledgeable of game development, at least in the sense that he can explain why differences had to be made.
Games like films gloss over what actual wounds, blood flow and maiming look like, most people really would not want to see it (and games have technical restrictions).
And actual surgery and treatment takes far longer than what is convenient in a game. And nobody fully regains health from being at death's door a moment before, and nobody respawns from actual death.
Real hacking too takes often days or weeks of work.
just search IGN expert reacts
The cyber security expert reacts already exists if you’re interested: ruclips.net/video/BZU_KrlaGJk/видео.html
8:35 It's a bit like gunshot wounds in movies vs real life. It's really common for GSWs to be bloodless in the actual bullet contact, with the bleeding being delayed by instinctive muscular constriction. But people are sceptical when a movie replicates that, because they're used to blood splatter. The same with muzzle flashes. Movie goers expect a muzzle flash to every round fired.
Finally Jonathan in high definition
He's not being recorded through a webcam this time
@@lonewolf-grs Exactly! Finally getting the royal treatment =)
We are going to try and get him a better camera soon! So watch this space!
Wicked!
In 4K even!
I mean, grew up with remington sluggers, a rifled foster slug through a smoothbore, the rifling was actually on the slug itself that imparted enough spin the shots were reasonably accurate to 80 yards. But modern shotguns have fully rifled sabot slugs available that can be accurate to 200 yards.
I am SO GLAD that this is a series! Anything to get me closer to understanding the design philosophies of video games is always a good thing. Thank you for making this, GameSpot!
aye nice periphery pfp; They're a great band!
@@Masochistickoala Yes! They are one of my favorites!
@@TorqueBow Remain Indoors, and play video games
Honestly, the original shotgun in DOOM is pretty realistic. It's a workhorse weapon that has surprising range, able to take out an imp in 1 or 2 shots from medium-long range.
I played H3VR and it's crazy just _how_ much range you can get on a shotgun in reality when compared to the literal sneezing-distance range that shotguns have in most video games.
H3VR also kinda passively taught me lil bit about how shotgun loads work when i was tryna use dragonsbreath on the semi auto spas 12 and i had to manually cycle it everytime lol
Ew durry
Kermit sewerside
One of my favorite weapons I customized in Deathloop was a shotgun that behaved like a proper, real shotgun. I gave it mods that gave it more range and accuracy than most of the game's rifles, resulting in a shotgun that actually mimicked its real-world counterpart
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam apparently got the shotguns right then. As you can regularly nail people to the wall from over 60m away.
Love rs2's shotguns, they're so incredibly satisfying to use. Have nailed 80m shots with them in the past.
Tarkov and Insurgency: Sandstorm also do them pretty well. I love when games make them just as viable as any other gun for most situations
Edit - and I just finished the video and realized that those 2 we're already mentioned
Can get shots easily 100+ meters out and even 200+ if you're lucky
"When people saw them off for nefarious reasons"
I personally would like to be able to saw it off so that it can fit in the right corner of my stairway better for home defense purposes.
Something that needs to be done more in Video Games is shotguns being used in artificial atmospheres like space-ships. A shotguns poor ability to pierce armor would actually be rather useful if you want to defend your ship without either blowing a hole in important equipment or letting all your air into space. As well, ship crews would likely not be wearing as much armor as front-line infantry, meaning that a boarding party wouldn't be so worried about piercing body armor.
I don't know how much testing has been done with firing a shotgun in a space ship, but have you ever tried shooting one inside a vehicle? I don't think it's a good idea.
@@timbrwolf1121 I haven't, and I don't plan to because you're right, best case scenario I get hot brass on my nice seats. However a vehicle is a much tighter space than most space-opera star-ships. Space ships in video-games like halo or mass effect tend to range from indoor corridors to open spaces maybe the area of a football field.
@@morethanjustasloth5528 Oh yeah in a large space I could see it. I was thinking like ISS
@@timbrwolf1121 I don't know why you would think the ISS, there isn't any video game spacecraft I can think of similar to it.
Ah yes a shooting game where I have to be carefull to not shoot things, sounds really fun.
Halo Combat Evolved got the shotgun right (maybe not the reload) but the pellets from that shotgun travel through the air physically until they hit a wall, spreading more as they travel (granted yes without bullet drop) but still, Halo CE did the shotgun very good
Agreed
At videogame map ranges, bullet drop is pointless to model. As are physical projetiles. At the 300m or less distances, there's no reason for a bullet to not be hitscan because it effectively IS that IRL.
10:47 "A single 8.5mm pellet finding its way into your helmet can send you back to the respawn screen."
Did you mean Inventory Tetris Screen?
Something I like about Rising Storm is how they handle their shotguns.
0:54 what a transition re-load , nice
2:15 persons nails on the re-load, not nice 😀
Americans: "so you had to go to a museum for shotgun facts? We just go in our backyards"!
I remember the first time I was taken clay pigeon shooting.
My jaw almost dropped when I sore the actual range they had.
Shotguns are like confetti when you shoot at somebody far in video games
Not that Bad Company 2 is particularly realistic, but I did always like that buckshot doesn't literally disappear over long range. if you aim high enough you can get hit markers cross map
Legend has it that if a Brit touches a gun without blue gloves they're instantly teleported to prison
Germans: No fair! Shotguns are inhumane!
also Germans: *uses mustard gas*
@Ally WW1
@Ally I never said that WW1 is still happening I was talking about how the Germans said using Shotguns was inhumane when they were using mustard gas in WW1
@Ally if you knew anything about WW1, you would’ve known that I was talking about WW1, not my fault that you don’t know anything about WW1.
I think the problem is that ranges in general get scaled down - be it artillery in an RTS or shotguns in a FPS, the scales of battles get shrunk to fit into small maps so the ranges get equally scaled down to keep some variety/balance.
This is cool! I’d love to see one on magnums in games. The image of a magnum started for me in Resident evil, never named anything but “magnum” or in the lone case of the first game “colt python”. But in all games when you find one you just know it’s always a 1 shot destroyer at any range. Perfect kinda weapon for the series probably! Looking forward to more!
We previously did an episode on the revolver which might be of interest to you!
@@IrregularDave I’ll be sure to take a look, thanks!
@@solidpat221 Pretty sure we have another episode about a certain powerful pistol in the pipeline too 👀
@@IrregularDave I really would like to see an episode on weapon modifications. If possible featuring Sir Ferguson as well.
@@christophermorris5971 i wonder if it's a certain avian from an arid region
It's funny, I've taken new shooters to the range a few times, and they're always amazed by how far away a shotgun can remain effective. People who've grown up on Call of Duty can't believe it when a load of buckshot connects with a small target 50 meters away.
A video about grenade launchers would be cool, as they are in a similar place of being either OP, or nerfed to to point of being unrealistic.
I like Enlisteds shotguns. They have a really tight spread, and can reach out as far as you can shoot. But the tight spread means hipfire shots aren't garanteed up close. It requires some of that finesse the video talks about. And while it can get hits at long range, it won't necessarily get kills. Its a good harassment tool at range, because you don't have to be as precise as the rifles. But most of the time you're better off with a submachine gun. The shotgun is nasty when you can get into the rhythm of it though!
4:23 that sound though! Oooooh *shivers with joy and trepidation.
This was interesting, but I would have appreciated more examples of how shotguns behave in the real world. What is the effective range and spread of a standard 870? How does it fair against body armor? Is it humanly possible to fire 20 slug rounds without your shoulder falling off?
Body armor will stop pretty much all shotgun loads but your ribs will still break, as for being able to fire 20 slug rounds without causing serious damage to your shoulder depending on experience, your size, and your build you can easily fire more than than and just have a slightly sore shoulder later.
Like most shotguns... Range
It depends on choke, barrel length, shot type.
As a rough rule the spread is 1 inch per yard down range.
@@Jayzgrouse
Your rib's won't break unless you have soft armor (kevlar, nylon, etc). A plate will dissipate the force over your torso making it mostly harmless. Even with soft armor it's not a given to break your ribs as often they're heavily padded just for that reason.
I have shot a hundred slugs in one day (shooting class) out of a Mossberg 500. Sore shoulder for a week, but under combat stress, you wouldn't notice. As for armour, as clint smith would say: trusting armour is trusting your ennemy to be a good enough shot to hit it... Armour covers your vital organs, that's it... So even if you survive, you still have a very good chance to get incapacitated! Which is the first goal of shooting someone in the first place. Standard range? There is no standard barrel! Back to my Mossberg 500 smooth bore barrel which would be equivalent, I can reliably hit a human silouhette at 100 meters without being the best shot. I would say half of that for buckshot. After that, the buckshot is still very dangerous but is inconsistent and you multiply the chances of hitting something else. Every type of ammo is very different too...
3 slug rounds and my shoulder is done for the day. But I'm not super experienced. It takes some getting used to.
I definitely find it funny how after 10 meters in most games the buckshot apparently gets vaporized because it doesn't do damage
Using shotguns in games are super satisfying
Too right! I guess that’s one of the reasons they have been so popular throughout the years
Specially double barrel one in Doom!
Bam to the demons face:)
I remember from the "Short-Range Shotgun" page of TVTropes that the AA12 of one of the Modern Warfare titles has among the worst ranges of any video game shotty: If your opponent has the perk that extends the range of a knife lunge, that attack would have a longer range.
One of my gaming buddies used to say that if shotguns worked in games like they did IRL, then no one would ever use anything else. Not sure if I agree, but I've always been a shotgun advocate because I dig versatility. It always pains me to see folding stocks left in their storage position. That's just incompetent. That's an example of the bad habits of movies spreading into video games. No one seems to understand how insulting it is. That goes beyond shotguns, though. It applies to any type of gun that has a folding or collapsible stock.
And then there's the M26 modular shotgun system. It's also depicted wrong in video games and movies. It's always being used like a pump-action with a sideways foregrip. In reality, it's straight-pull bolt-action and you're not supposed to hold the charging handle like a foregrip. It's intended to be held with the support hand grasping the front of the mag and the support arm pulling the gun back into the shoulder. The thumb of the support hand should wrap around the foregrip. Worthy of note is that it's left-right convertible.
Shotguns could be balanced differently.
For one: In a modern setting you can expect at least regular infantry to be equiped with body armour.
I'm no expert on firearms and ballistics but I'm guessing that a 8mm ball of lead will fare rather poorly against a military ballistic vest.
So, shotguns, when firing shot, could be coded to do only negligible damage on torso hits, requiring hits to head, neck or extremeties to do damage.
@@Bird_Dog00
there's finickies you can do with person multipliers and hitboxes
example, you could code the upper and lower torsos to have different damage. a hit to the upper chest will not stop someone without firing a large number of rounds, a hit to the stomach might stop someone in a pittance of hits.
If we were to split the human into say, nine hitboxes...
Head: can have light or intermediate armor.
Face: Can have light armor.
Neck: Can have light or intermediate armor.
Thorax: Can have light, intermediate, or heavy armor.
Stomach: Can have light or intermediate armor.
Upper arms/legs: can have light, intermediate, or heavy armor.
Lower arms/legs: can have light armor
No one takes shotguns seriously in Arma3. In that game, you're either too close to too many enemies or too far away. By far away, I mean, beyond 200 meters. Also, almost everyone is wearing level 3 armor or greater. They're only effective against unarmored targets in small groups while conducting clandestine missions, typically, at night. That game also offers slugs and fletchette, but those are ineffective against armor. The most common munitions used are: 9x19mm, 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39 or 51mm, 6.5x39mm, 12.7x99mm, and 40mm.
@@erickolb8581 A 12-gauge slug can bust the engine block of a Mack truck. Even against an armored humanoid, at the very least, there's still going to be major blunt impact trauma.
Great video, Dave. A personal favourite of mine is the AA12 shotgun with the FRAG-12 explosive shells. Makes for big booms!
Who else has done clay shooting and seen how good shotguns are
I love how in the introduction you spoke about unrealistic shotguns in video games and showed footage from h3vr.
So my take away is. First games need the shotgun type. But then also need shotgun sub categories. Allowing them to cover the diverse range of different shotguns & ammo.
Halo Combat Evolved proved that having a shotgun function like it would in real life could work.
It really annoys me how short of a distance shotguns do damage in video games. Irl they go MUCH farther.
Well the only way you can really do realistic shotguns is in a realistic shooter. You don't want shotguns 1 tapping people from 50 meters when it takes rifles anywhere from 3 to 5 shots in most games
@@parkeralan19 yet I see you didn't bring up the argument for snipers doing basically that, one shot at any range with the same fire rate as shotguns. Realistic or not shotguns still need to have more range and less spread than what games are currently portraying.
He's right. The real shotguns were the tropes we already knew about along the way.
A common saying in the defensive training community is, "shotguns are rifles inside the house".
Yup, even birdshot patterns like a slug under ten yards, no need to worry about spread if you're aiming center of mass.
I have never heard that saying before in my life and shotguns are, generally, not actually as preferable for a home defense weapon due to how much collateral damage they can cause. Even the FBI recommends an AR-15 or a handgun for home defense over a shotgun.
Shotguns are your best friend in Resident Evil. There are few games who make it as satisfying to use as those games.
Interestingly enough, Warframe gets shotguns pretty close (as close as a game about Space Ninjas can get, anyways). Because the game is PvE, Shotguns can have the realistic range and not have to worry about game balance, which is why the Tigris Prime hits like a 10 ton truck from 50m away
Ah yes, the game that made me love shotguns. The Hek and the Corinth carried me through the standard star chart and steel path respectively.
FEAR's SPAS 12 will always be the coolest representation of a shotgun in a videogame, hands down.
With only 3 weapons slots, FEARs shotgun was just too good to drop. Excellent power, decent range, plentiful ammo and a high ammo carrying capacity all in a game that centers around CQC. You'd be nuts to ditch the shotgun.
Somewhere in a parallel universe, people talk about the "Barrel Gun" and why it's not called a "shotgun" because all guns that work have been shot
I'm pretty sure the "shot" refers to the pellets and not the ability of the gun itself to work. 00 buckshot and birdshot, for example
What?
@@DoxSteele The video itself has this explanation. Perhaps the OP didn't watch it all.
@@Rafael_R Oh, didn't realize that. I'm not even sure if I finished the video myself, I just know the things I know, I guess
00 Buckshot is basically like shooting someone with several 9mm bullets simultaneously, and is lethal at a surprisingly long range. I can fully understand why most games utterly nerf the shotgun's damage stats for balance reasons.
@Gamespot It's not only a "cultural trope" but also an optimization issue :
When you shoot with a rifle, that generally produces one (expensive) raycast.
Doing the same with a shotgun will produce a dozens of these raycast.
A way of optimizing this issue is to limit the distance at which you raycast, or to use a conecast with limited range.
It's quite probable early video games willingly reduced the shoot distance to better optimize old video games
shotguns dont raycast: they either produce a projectile or hitscan. rays have to bounce off mirrors or filter into specular minirays on impact, a shotgun "pellet" just flies and connects with something.
modern hardware has a problem modelling 8 scans or even 8 projectiles. heck, max payne 1 on the pcs it run could render as manny as 70 projectiles during bullet time.
3:02 That same german empire also introduced chemical warfare
Both sides used chemical warfare
I think a gun that was much easier to hit targets with at range, while doing slightly less damage then at point blank, would be far more interesting then game shotguns
I mean thats pretty much how bolt actions function in games. Sure, they're often still 1 hit kills in the head in pretty much any game (and often even 1 hit to the chest if its a more fast paced shooter) but they're definitely a lot weaker in extreme CQC than other options
The best way I've ever heard video game shotguns described was in one Zero Punctuation review where he said it "sounded like God slaming his car door"
Great to see some footage of Hunt: Showdown in this video, but I have a bit of news! That footage is actually outdated! Ever since Johnathan's first video on Hunt, the team at Crytek actually went through the game and changed a bunch of animations based on his feedback (as well as making a gif showing off how one of the weapons actually functions). Would be great if that game got a revisit.
Beyond that, super happy to see this show finally airing, this is fantastic!
Mad respect to that team for that
One game that got the shotgun right was halo CE. The range on that thing was amazing and it was used to take out flood.
I really thought they were going to go more in depth with all the types of shotguns in siege
assuming the game uses projectiles instead of hitscan i think the ideal balance setup for shotguns is to have the spread be somewhat narrow, give them damage falloff over velocity, and velocity falloff over time along with a bit of drop; for damage you can keep them realistic by tying base damage to pellet count, and tying pellet count to velocity/damage falloff;
lastly give only a few rounds in reserve, and in mag.
this combination of things lets you tweak the effectiveness at range of certain shotguns in a way that makes sense ie no4 buck has more pellets, and more falloff than say 000 buck which has fewer pellets with higher damage and lower falloff;
by exploiting real world equivelants like this you can achieve interesting balance in that a smaller shot will make the spread matter less at distance while larger shot gives more damage per pellet, but lower consistency.
just food for thought.
Thank you for this video. I was recently talking about how shotguns are extremely nerfed in video games. I find it ridiculous how we allow quick scoping 1 hit snipers with .1 second scope in times or ump shooting 2miles but the shotgun is stuck pumping a shell after smacking someone in the upper chest at 5 meters trying to give a follow up shot.
Its for balance in most games. And it makes sense
@@fnutek3720 no it doesn’t. Most people run around with a 1 shot weapon quick scoping close to far range. Who cares if someone gets 1 tap from a shotgun from 15-25m.
@@Ollen1982 What game are we talking here? Cause a shotgun has a wider spread and a shotgun shoots faster usually intgames.
@@fnutek3720 did you pay attention to the video? I am quoting the same thing. The inaccuracy of shotguns in a vast majority of video games.
@@fnutek3720 if you have ever shot a shotgun you will notice how none of the bullets explode out of the barrel of the gun in a cone like spread. The spread of a shotgun is pretty tight.
Jonathan Ferguson really carries this whole channel at this point
I may not be an expert but i think that hunt showdown's shotguns are the most realistic ones in terms of range, power and details. I've never seen a game with such approach on shotguns
Maybe only like escape from tarkov can compete
What about half life 2 for L4D?
@@simonenulli3098 Yep, Tarkov can definitely compete in terms of realism with almost any game. It's just insane how detailed everything there is, down to loading bullets into chamber separately if you so desire.
Tarkov easily beats Hunt.
As the proud owner of an actual SPAS 12 it is the very last shotgun I’d want to carry into a combat situation. It’s very cool looking and a lot of fun to show off at the range, but it’s overly complicated and cumbersome to anyone but a highly trained operator. Just loading it is an ordeal compared to a standard Winchester, Remington or Mossberg pump action.
Definitely not what I’d have brought to deal with velociraptors.
Insurgency and tarkov do it best, they really capture the feel and utility of shotguns without artificially changing their stats to make them fit into the roles that typical video games put them in
The 725 is a good wxample of what shotguns should be in cod lolol
So THAT'S where the term "Riding Shotgun" comes from! Sick!
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Fortnite actually has a couple shotguns that do pretty good in terms of "realism". While still not as powerful as a real shotgun would be, the ranger shotgun has an impressive effective range compared to most other games.
Don't forget that one bug from the earlier seasons of fortnite where you could essentially snipe someone with a shotgun
Shotgun: Total War
Thank you, I'll be here all week
They will do anything now just to get Jonathan in they know he brings in the views XD
And we will still watch anything with Jonathan in it :P
This series does have a bunch more episodes that came before this that a lot of people enjoyed.
In fact doing Expert Reacts videos with him came as an offshoot of this series!
Most shotguns in games shoot BB when you're at 20 m
Recoil man, recoil! Real life 12 gauges HURT if you shoot it too much. And also, getting back on target isn’t nearly as easy.
I have fond memories of 007: Nightfire on the PS2 nailing the Spas-12 as it had a toggle fire mode to change it between Automatic mode (which was balanced by being weaker) and pump mode which had a higher damage stat but slow to follow up.
Such an excellent shooter of its time and ahead of its time in many ways with some of those game design decisions.
Pre-nerf shotguns of Payday 2 were just ilegal amout of fun. They had *really* long range, many diffrent ammo types to play with, and on death they send enemies flying into the sky. Well, they still do most of that, but nerfs limited their effective range really needlesly harshly. They are still super fun to use, but feeling of "I'm a anihilator of everything in 20m" is not the same as "I'm a anihilator of everything in 50m" :P .
Part of that fun is really bizzare desing decision to make shoties in game have their damge calculated just on fact of hiting, NOT per pellet. So no matter if you hit with all or just 1, damage is the same. Needless to say, this makes aiming super forgiving.
Is this applicable to the PS3 version of this game which I'm currently playing?
@@yuris6125 Probably. Overkill stoped updating consloe version in 2019, but core mechanics should be the same as on PC.
im glad this video popped up at my recommended page, found something to watch while eating
Interesting take... I for one never bothered with the shotgun in Fallout 4. its range was stupidly short, to the point that I'd do more damage at what I considered a safe distance with a pipe rifle. IRL, I know how far buckshot will change somebody's attitude, so I found the virtual shottie would just pull me out of the immersion.
Explosive is a pretty fun legendary effect for shotguns in FO4. Particularly the combat shotgun. Pretty sure there was a wounding too, that caused a bleed effect. There's also a "never reload" effect that isn't terrible, IIRC. But yes, range was awful for all shotguns. And those effects are just as good on a pipe rifle. Also, kneecapping pipe rifle for when things tried to disagree with you about the range of engagement. With a silencer on it, for good measure.
@monochromaticspider9303 Energy Shotguns are also an option. Institute, Laser Plasma Gun and Laser Musket can have a much higher range then the Shell using shotguns. As for Never Ending, on a Combat Shotgun it is fine, but on a Double-Barrel Shotgun it is insane, not having to reload after every 2 shots means you can make optimal use of the weapons bizarrely high maximum fire rate of 181, only a handful of weapons can have a fire rate that is higher.
"Shotguns? ... What like, guns that fire shot?"
"Oh you must be the brains of the operation, Yes, guns that fire shot"
Loving this series so far!