I am here to save us all time by determining which of our most-played videogames would be more efficiently completed if you had a gun

This one's a toughie. The Dungeons & Dragons universe isn't all that impacted by firearms overall, given it's a world of magic anyway. Rules-wise, a commoner has about four hit points, meaning that the difference between getting stabbed by someone moderately proficient with a sword (around four damage) and getting shot with a gun (probably more) is that you're just kind of dead, anyway.

But you do have to start at level one in Baldur's Gate 3. Which means that it's a while before you get anything like a fireball (8d6 damage, or roughly eight shortsword's worth) which would outpace a standard pistol in terms of raw power creep. And act 1 takes somewhere around 30 hours to complete. It'd go faster with what is essentially the equivalent of a powerful magic item, in-universe, that's for certain. That damn phase spider wouldn't stand a chance.

However, I'd argue that act 3 would take way longer, simply because BG3's cast of absolute trash fires could not be trusted to responsibly handle having a gun in a populated area. Astarion, Karlach, Lae'zel, Minthara… god, Minsc? They would wind up shooting somebody they shouldn't, and it'd become a whole thing.

Thus I posit that Baldur's Gate 3 would take the exact amount of time to complete, with Act 1 and Act 3 balancing each other out.

Verdict: No hours saved, don't give Astarion a gun.

Alright, here's the problem: Yes, having a gun would definitely save you a lot of time. But I've sort of screwed Lincoln over here by giving him a handgun, rather than something a little meatier, like an assault rifle. It's an issue of size.

A lot of the bosses of DS3 are absolutely massive, or heavily armored—and I think a .45 would have trouble getting through to them. You couldn't even really make use of range, given most bosses are located past mandatory fog gates. The Soul of Cinder, though? That guy?

He's just a dude in armor. A tall dude in armour, but not one I think that can withstand an entire clip emptied into his chump body. And overall, the inclusion of a ranged option that's actually effective and still leaves you plenty of time to dodge-roll would likely make DS3 a heck of a lot easier. So much of Dark Souls combat is spacing and finding opportunities to get your hits in; having a gun negates much of that challenge.

I'm calling this an overall 70% reduction in playtime. That sounds about right.

Verdict: Roughly 70 hours saved.

God damnit, Josh has forced me to do research. Crusader Kings 2 is set in the middle ages, between 1066 and 1453 AD. From what I can see, the first firearm—the Chinese fire lance—was invented some time in the mid-10th century (900-1000 AD), and was basically a bunch of explosive shrapnel put in a bamboo tube at the end of a spear.

However, and crucially for Crusader Kings 2, firearms—the kind that were handheld—wouldn't emerge until around 1288 with the Heilongjiang hand cannon, and the first musket was apparently dated to the Ottoman Empire in 1465. So the advent of gunpowder is quietly brimming in the background.

But we're talking about a modern handgun here. Just one, but that might be all it takes.

The efficacy of this terribly irresponsible time-travelling jaunt entirely depends on if said handgun could be reverse-engineered and disseminated across troops—it's the time traveller problem. Just because you can go back in time, doesn't make you an expert on making penicillin. Similarly, putting a handgun into the palm of William the Conqueror does not mean he'd be able to suss out how to reproduce it at a mass scale.

If that happens, though? All bets are off. Not only would access to modern firearms in the Middle Ages completely and irrevocably change the course of warfare, we're talking about a game that spans centuries, here, and the rate of technological development rapidly increases the more advanced it becomes.

Basically, if you started a game in 1066 AD, you'd have a good chance of having machine guns within a few decades, at which point you'd probably crush every enemy in your path. Given your average game of Crusader Kings 2 runs about 50 hours, Josh would shave off around 30-40 hours of playtime per run. Good for him.

Verdict: Around 390 (30-40 per playthrough) hours saved if reverse-engineering efforts are successful.

While Elden Ring does kind of have a gun in the form of a Jar Cannon, it's big, unwieldy, and has a huge wind-up. Unlike a pistol, which you can just point and shoot at somebody. As with Dark Souls, the problem is the larger enemies—who sure, probably wouldn't like to get shot, but I defy you to look at a Runebear and tell me that a handgun is going to do anything to them.

But again, smaller, human-sized enemies? A cakewalk. Even your first meeting with Margit on the bridge to Stormveil Castle would be rendered a lot easier if you could just shoot the guy. And given Elden Ring's open-world structure, you'd be able to abuse the power of a straight-up gun a hell of a lot more, accessing late-game areas far sooner and likely being able to two-tap the higher-level chumps there for a bounty of runes.

This, however, is still a tough one to call. If you're willing to skip zones and have a good route planned—and, moreover, are willing to suffer the indignity of using a gun to powerlevel yourself—I'd say you could knock out a non-speedrunner pace run of Elden Ring in a cosy 30 hours, down from your average run of 100.

For Sean, who has played this game far too much, those savings are massive.

Verdict: Sean gets around 626 hours of his life back.

Metaphor: ReFantazio has a gunner class, yes—but Metaphor: ReFantazio doesn't have a gunner class for a significant portion of its runtime. You pick it up from Neuras, who doesn't show up until you're already on your way with a gauntlet runner, the Tournament for the Throne has begun, and the King's Magic is already keeping every potential successor protected.

But there is a moment before that, around four hours into the game, where main antagonist (and let's face it, hottie) Louis Guiabern is monologuing. A window of opportunity between him revealing his masterstroke to the people and the king's magic taking effect, where you could, uh. You know. Shoot him. With your gun.

Ah. Hm.

Look, he is super evil, and has world-ending plans, and is in no way a metaphor for any real-world ideologies in an otherwise very political game. Whether this also saves you time depends on whether you want to become the king without Louis being around or not, since the Tournament for the Throne would likely continue anyway.

Verdict: 159 hours saved if you don't want to become king after unceremoniously double-tapping the BBEG midway through his speech, less if you do.

What does starting with a gun even mean in—this is a deckbuilder. It's a roguelike. Okay, let's…. Let's try and think this one through.

One of the major challenges of any Slay the Spire 2 run is the fact that your starting deck of strikes and defends just plain sucks. They're worse than about every other card in the game, so your first few floors are spent finding ways to thin them out of your deck, replace them, transform them, or just get enough solid cards that your hand isn't full of them.

Having a gun in Slay the Spire 2, as I am choosing to interpret it, means replacing all of your strikes with the gun card, which I am choosing to believe does a lot more than a piddly six damage for one energy. Let's call it 20 damage. 20 damage feels like the amount of damage a gun deals. Who cares anymore.

This'd make your climb up the spire and your first win considerably easier, but you'd eventually be eschewing your gun in favor of cards that'd actually synergise well. Given most runs end in Act 1, however? Let's call it a clean 30 hours before you get your first Ascension 10 win.

However, the sheer rush of power that'd come from having a gun might actually keep you playing for longer.

Verdict: Phil saves around 190 hours if he exercises restraint, or loses 50 extra hours if he goes mad with power.