For those of us who aren’t firearms experts the guns and other weapons in games may seem like an afterthought. What makes a game gun true to the real thing? Could completely fictional weapons work in real life? How agitated can said fictional weapons make a historian?
All of this is answered by Jonathan Ferguson who has a rather impressive job title: “Keeper of Firearms & Artillery”.
Ferguson, according to his page on the Royal Armouries National Museum of Arms and Armour, has an extensive repertoire when it comes to the history of weapons.
“Having completed a first degree in Archaeology (BA, Exeter 1997-2000), Jonathan began his museum career as a volunteer at Coldharbour Mill Museum in Devon and received his postgraduate diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in 2002. Before joining the Armouries in 2009, he held posts at Colchester Museum, Imperial War Museum Duxford and the National War Museum of Scotland,” reads the description.
On top of this Ferguson has curated several exhibits, appeared in documentaries, written several books an more.
The YouTube channel for gaming publication GameSpot has been featuring Ferguson in a series of videos called “Firearms Expert Reacts To” in which said expert is presented the weaponry used in games both modern and vintage, and it’s these videos we are recommending to you today.
In the past, when we’ve recommended channels and other content on YouTube, we’ve provided a few sample videos to get you started.
We’re going to be doing things a bit differently today by just throwing you into the deep end with a 50+ video playlist which is embedded below and available on YouTube here.
To get started simply look around until you find a game you’re a fan of that you’d like to learn more about when it comes to weapons both real and fictional, and get watching.
At this point we’ve watched every single edition of this series and loved every minute of it. How the guns are explained is endlessly interesting and it’s refreshing to see a historian giving a functional look at fictional objects while still understanding “the rule of cool” and the fact that games will usually veer towards the bombastic.
Also, due to the position of the armoury, actual guns are used for demonstration purposes in many of the videos. They are never fired, however – these are museum pieces at the end of the day – but the handy inclusion of these really helps sell the differences or similarities between the real world and games.
Thanks to the success of these series of videos, the Royal Armouries has been publishing more videos on its own channel here, also featuring Ferguson.
These videos are much more focused on the real world and how these weapons of war had an impact on history.
There’s less suffering as Ferguson isn’t subject to ridiculous guns that break all laws of proper gunsmithery, but those who care about pure history and engineering will likely enjoy this content more. There’s also no optical sites in World War II era weapons, a particular pet peeve of the firearms expert.
You Should Be Watching is an occasional series of articles we do to highlight some of our favourite YouTube channels. See past articles here:
