Guns Sounded Like Toys in Games... Now I'm Scared to Play.

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]This is a real gunfire.

[00:00:03]And this is how it sounds in video games.

[00:00:07]Well, after spending a year in army where I shot real guns, that feels kind of fake. Like it's a toy and not a deadly weapon. So, today I'm going to create new sounds that will make firing every single bullet sound deadly in video games. I'll start with designing a sound completely from scratch. And once it got all three key elements, I'll test it in real [music] gameplay and show it to the judge, an absolute professional gamer who eats keycaps for breakfast and he is 100% sure I'm going to fail. Nah, bro. That's impossible, bro. Come on.

[00:00:42]Okay. Okay. All right.

[00:00:43]>> [laughter] >> Oh, yeah. That's That's That's how it will sound.

[00:00:47]>> [music] >> Have you ever wondered how sounds are made? You know, the sound of lightsaber or T-Rex?

[00:00:54]Because you can't just record them on your iPhone and call it a day, do you?

[00:00:58]Well, actually you can.

[00:01:02]But you'll have to edit it afterwards somehow. And that's where this thing kicks in. No, not this thing, but the program they're using. 99% of the songs you're listening to and sounds you hear in movies are made in one of these. It's called [music] DAW or digital audio workstation. Think of it like it's a working table where you chop things down, glue them together, make them longer or shorter. And since I'm making gun sounds, I can probably just find one online, put it in here and Okay, it doesn't work. But why? See, gun sounds you hear everywhere aren't actual gun sounds. It's the sound of this, this, and that carefully stacked on top of each other.

[00:01:51]And that's the magic of it. That's what they're giving Oscars for. Sofia and I are here to present the Academy Awards for the fine arts of sound editing and sound mixing. [music] >> So, to make my own sound, I used all these. And yes, of course, there's a stapler sound as well.

[00:02:07]It still doesn't sound real, and that's because of this. No, not the toilet itself, but the way it sounds. Just listen carefully. What makes it sound like I'm in the bathroom or in the closet or in a cave?

[00:02:21]People of the 20th century have been thinking about this, too, and they came up with a brilliant solution. A room with a microphone and a speaker.

[00:02:30]Um okay, no judging here. Here's how it worked. They took a normal speaker, put it into a very echoey room, then played sounds on that speaker, and recorded it at the same time. What you hear is basically sound waves reflecting from all the surfaces around and returning [music] back to your ears or the microphone. And yeah, if you want to brag to your friends, it's called I can add it to above our gunshots as a plugin, which is basically a tiny program that I can apply to individual [music] sounds. Since the player is in the hallway here, I'll make it sound like he's actually there.

[00:03:13]Sounds okay, but now it's time for something that gets overlooked by games and movies every single time. The way shooting guns actually feels in real life.

[00:03:24]After a single shot, your [music] ears get shocked by this mini explosion that's happening inside your very gun so much that you can't hear anything other than ringing and your own heart beating.

[00:03:34]And I'm saying this as someone who shot AK-47 every month for 1 year back when I was in military. And compared to all this, shooting in games feels so unserious. So, let's [music] fix it.

[00:03:49]That's it. Here's the before and after.

[00:04:02]Now, it's time to drop it into a real gameplay and [music] finally show it to the judge. And just to remind you, he is the one who claimed >> Nah, bro. That's impossible, bro. Come on.

[00:04:13]>> What's he going to say now?

[00:04:15]Okay, buddy. Oh, okay. This is immersive.

[00:04:20]I lost my hearing already. Great.

[00:04:25]Yeah, I can feel it. I'm already in there.

[00:04:30]Oh, [ __ ] Oh, yeah. That's That's That's how it will sound.

[00:04:38]Holy [ __ ] Poor guy got shot in the nuts.

[00:04:44]>> [laughter] >> Damn. I can hear my ears ringing. Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's that's pretty accurate. That's more accurate than like 95% of games out there, maybe even more.

[00:04:54]Good job.