Vidya Weapons

Sounds about right.

Well, have to get used to it because the 80s nostalgia kinda respawned games with enegy weapons with such attribute. Except this

...

I'm making a game, how do I get the shotguns right?

The Sawn-off in max payne was one of the best weapons. The trick is that you automatically reload when you dodge, so you could take advantage of the high rate of fire dodging into enemies

needs to be loud as fuck, have a satisfying visual kick to it, have an extremely satisfying reload animation (go over/under if you're looking at a double-barrel, or a break action or something with big movements if you're not) and have a tight enough spread to be usable out to about fifty meters. think of doom's shotgun or super shotgun and what made those great

Most video games don't even have 50 meters of open space. If they do that's sniper distance

For reference, this is 50 meters from the target. Using overwatch only because the practice range has distance in meters marked off on the ground.

if my shotgun isn't at least going to make the enemy think twice even at that range then i won't use it, frankly. i'm not saying it needs to be 1:1 realistic but you can design the coolest fucking shotgun of all time, and if it falls off after ten feet like call of duty it'll be a meme weapon at best

I'm thinking 10 meters for a full-hit, 20 for effective damage, and at 50 you can reliably hit with one or two pellets. Depending on the style of game being able to hit with a pellet or two might still be enough for the enemy to care at that range, but if the spread is any tighter than that there's no meaningful distinction between shotguns and rifles because you simply don't engage at any greater distances.

You don't get that BOOM feeling with a nailgun.
Hell of a lot cooler than a sniper rifle.
Feels a lot better to use than a grenade launcher, plus I prefer straighter paths as opposed to arcs.
Minigun is too common.
Dedicated melee.

Akimbo rafficas were fucking disgusting. DMRs are p cool