From flintlock to full-auto, I’ve always been interested in the developmental history of firearms. As a fan of Forgotten Weapons, I’ve developed a soft spot for the real weird, old-school guns. Gunsmith Simulator was a game that catered to my interests, even if it’s another Eastern European budget sim.

As I often mention, I’ve a hesitant fondness for these Eurojank simulators. More & more, I feel like they are less “eccentric developers making a niche game they like” and more a “low-effort cash grab mainly using store bought assets”. Still, they are functional enough and the simplistic, but detailed task-based gameplay does scratch an itch for me. Just sitting down to complete a checklist, be it finishing two guns, polishing two cars, or restoring an old record player, has a simple catharsis to it. Gunsmith Simulator succeeds in that due in part to how detailed it is in mimicking gunsmithing work. You must tear a gun down part by part to fully do your job. These are handled with simple mouse clicks, but you can see how each part connects to each other and what function they serve. There’s even a little pop up in the corner that shows you the part name and a brief description of its purpose. While you are responsible for removing even the smallest screws, the game does let you cheat a little. Sometimes it will automatically remove springs or small screws when you pull out a larger part, but it’s rare. And you have to be methodical in your deconstruction, you can’t just pull off whatever part whenever. If it’s attached to something else that has to be unscrewed first, you can’t remove it.

Outside of the disassembly & assembly of firearms, you’ve got a whole shop of tools that cover every gunsmithing service. The paint booth is pretty self-explanatory. I would’ve preferred a few more paint patterns and sticker options. The cleaning bench and sandblaster are simple hold down the mouse button and wipe across the object mini-games. It’s still satisfying to see the rusted parts clean up. The woodworking bench lets you carve out new stocks for your gun projects. The oxidizing tank starts to lean too far over to tedious in the balance of gameplay & realism, but the worst offender is the CNC machine. You can create smaller parts at your CNC machine instead of buying them online, but you’re trading money for time. You pick the part you want to make, put in the metal block, push start, then wait a minute for it to carve it out. There’s no interactivity, you just watch the machine work. it feels like it’s wasting your time. If I had more than 2 parts to craft, I said the heck with it and just bought them. The last machine you unlock is a lathe for making barrels, but it is a rarely used tool that mostly collects dust.

There’s a light skill progression system to this game. As you complete orders, you unlock skill points that can be used to upgrade your effectivity at each tool bench. These stretch from unscrewing screws quicker, painting faster, or making the CNC machine go slightly, ever so slightly, quicker. The other progression system is weapon dependent, as you work on more and more of the same type of gun you become more proficient at it. That translates to being able to pull it apart quicker, but I admit I didn’t see a huge change in teardown time. The upgrades are shown as a cabinet full of certificates from real gunsmithing programs. I recognized one from when I thought about taking up the trade.

Like most job simulators, there’s not much in the way of a story. You inherit your business from your grandpa, a reoccurring trope in these games, and slowly build up your business. You get emails from gramps that unlock a new tool bench. It doesn’t take long to unlock all the tools, then you either accept jobs from customers or buy guns at auction and resell them. The types of guns available for sale are random, so if you’re looking for a particular firearm, it may take some time before it shows up. There’s also a site you can buy parts on for your repairs. I would’ve liked the game to allow me to buy all the parts for a gun and build it from scratch, instead of waiting for one to show up at auction.

The stars of the show are the firearms of course. There’s a decent smattering of guns you get to work. Luckily, they aren’t all just a bunch of boring, black, modern guns, but a mix of modern guns and a lot of WWII classics. All the big names are here, the M1 Garand, the M1911, Luger, Peacemaker, Makarov, etc. As someone who owns a Peacemaker, it felt neat that I could recognize all the parts and how to disassemble it, especially since I had to bumble through tearing down the other guns at first. Again, the models are good and very detailed. I’ve wanted a game that would let me just tinker with and shoot a bunch of historic guns, sort of a “Forgotten Weapons: the Game”. This game could be this, it’s still being updated with new guns occasionally added, but these simulator games can have a short shelf life where support can drop off at any time.

When you are done fixing your guns, you can take them out of your shop to the shooting range. The shooting is basic, but functional. You can switch between firing modes for guns that have that option. You don’t have any hands, your guns just float in the air. It helps showcase the guns and their reload animations. If you’re feeling spicy, you can run through a CQC course and try to get the top score or go clay shooting. All of these shooting ranges are just the icing on top, but the gunsmithing is still very much the main course here.

All in all, Gunsmith Simulator is another in the long list of respectable Eurojank job simulators. I came away understanding the layout of classic WWII firearms better and working on guns hooked me into doing “just one more job”. I just hope to see this game supported and more firearms added. If you are someone who enjoys classic firearms or mechanical type work, I can recommend this game, but probably at sale price.