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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Probably—but only as a playful thought experiment, not a tested speedrun result. In Harvey Randall’s October 1, 2026, PC Gamer article, colleagues consider what might happen if a protagonist in a long game that does not normally feature guns were handed a modern .45 handgun. A pistol could shorten some fights, but it would not automatically bypass bosses, progression systems, or a story that keeps going after a hypothetical early kill.
The premise has three limits: each game has an ending, guns are not a standard part of its runtime, and a handgun could plausibly affect play. Randall’s examples are arguments about game mechanics and narrative—not modified-game tests or verified completion times. The article’s “on average” verdict is comic editorial phrasing, not a measured statistical finding.
What would determine whether the gun saves time?
- Combat distance: A pistol may help more against human-sized opponents than against huge enemies or heavily armored bosses.
- Progression: A new attack might make early encounters easier, yet matter less once a character, deck, or build gains stronger options.
- Content and access: If the weapon lets the player bypass encounters or reach powerful areas sooner, it could change the route through the game.
- Story consequences: Killing or removing a character early does not necessarily end a political conflict or the larger plot.
Those variables differ from game to game, so the examples below are not directly comparable measurements.
How the hypothetical plays out in six games
Baldur’s Gate 3
A handgun might make some early combat faster. But later social and story consequences could complicate the run, potentially offsetting the time saved in fights. Randall’s take is that the effects could balance out.
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Dark Souls 3
A pistol sounds useful against human-sized enemies, but its advantage is less clear against enormous or heavily armored bosses. The thought experiment turns on how often a ranged attack would solve an encounter rather than merely change how it is fought.
Crusader Kings 2
This case is less about winning a single fight than about whether a modern weapon could be reverse-engineered and spread through medieval armies. If it could, the consequences might reshape the setting dramatically; if not, its impact could remain limited.
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Elden Ring
A gun could offer an easy ranged attack against ordinary foes, but the effect on large enemies is uncertain. If it also opened access to stronger areas earlier, it might alter progression as well as combat.
Metaphor: ReFantazio
The timing of the game’s gunner class matters: a hypothetical pistol could change the experience before that option becomes available. But removing a major character would not necessarily settle the wider political contest, so a faster route through one conflict might not finish the story.
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Slay the Spire 2
Here, the gun is imagined as a replacement for weak starting cards. That could help at the beginning of a run, though its usefulness might fade as the player’s deck develops.
Are these real estimates of how much time a gun saves?
No. The PC Gamer article offers speculative reasoning, not controlled comparisons or a dataset of completion times. Any playtime or completion-time figures in its examples should be treated as personal context or estimates, not evidence of an average time saved. Randall’s conclusion that a gun would save time “on average” is a joke, not a statistical result.
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Where the thought experiment comes from
Harvey Randall’s PC Gamer article, published October 1, 2026, frames the premise as a way to make long games shorter. Its six examples show why the answer depends on more than weapon strength: the gun has to matter against the enemies a game actually uses, fit into its progression, and change enough of the story to affect the ending.
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