History RealityIsUnrealistic / VideoGames

* People sometimes complain that the screechy noises Donkey Kong makes in VideoGame/MarioKart64 and various other N64-era Mario games, are not realistic gorilla sounds. In reality, Gorillas make quite a variety of sounds, including quite high-pitched ones, in addition to the stereotypical heavy grunting "ooga-booga" type noises.
* When any videogame features a shotgun that attempts to downplay, subvert, or avert ShortRangeShotgun, expect at least one person complaining about how powerful they are on a message board to profess [[SarcasmMode expert firearm knowledge]] and claim that "real" shotguns don't have that much range.

* Some players of the VideoGame/SherlockHolmes video games made by Frogwares have complained about Holmes taking measurements in imperial rather than metric units, believing it to be an oversight by American developers. However, the UK didn't adopt the metric system until the 1960s, the best part of a century after the games are set, so Holmes absolutely would have used imperial measurements. (Also, Frogwares is a Ukrainian developer, so it's fair to say that if anything the devs probably understand metric much better than either Americans ''or'' Brits - the latter of whom still use imperial in certain circumstances, unlike most of mainland Europe.)

** Gamers still resistant to the idea of female protagonists in WWII games should remember the 2000 shooter ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorUnderground'' which had you playing as a female French [=OSS=] agent named Manon Batiste, a character based on a ''real'' French woman named Hélène Deschamps Adams who was a historical consultant for the game and did covert work for the [=OSS=] in WWII, the forerunner for the modern [=CIA=]. Though female soldiers might be considered a bit of a historical stretch, female ''spies'' have been a celebrated part of human warfare since at least the Bronze Age.

** Gamers still resistant to the idea of female protagonists in WWII games should remember the 2000 shooter ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorUnderground'', a game which had you playing as a female French [=OSS=] agent who was based largely on a ''real'' French woman named [[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hélène_Deschamps_Adams Hélène Deschamps Adams]] who did covert work for the [=OSS=] in WWII, the forerunner for the modern [=CIA=]. Though female soldiers might be considered a bit of a historical stretch, female ''spies'' have been a celebrated part of human warfare since at least the Bronze Age.

* In almost any PlatformGame, the gravity, especially the 3D ones. The intuitive and forgiving jump arcs in most games would lead people to assume that the gravity in most games is close to that of Earth's, if not lighter. In actuality, most games have gravity at least 2-3 times stronger. It turns out that Earth's gravity of 9.8 meters per second is actually rather slow and makes for very clunky platforming when using video game JumpPhysics. For some context, ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey''[[note]]Assuming a world scale based around Mario's canon height of 5'5"[[/note]] is a modern example that's about as close as you can get to 9.8m/s^2... on the ''moon''.

* The [=PS5=] remaster of ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'' and its sequel, ''VideoGame/SpiderManMilesMorales'' recasted the face model of Peter from John Bubniak to Ben Jordan and many people complain that his face looks too young for the 23-year-old Peter Parker in the game compared to the original face, comparing him to Tom Holland who plays the character in the MCU and saying he looks 16, or younger than Miles. Thing is, Jordan ''was'' 23 when they scanned him into the games, as was John Bubniak. The game's engine unfortunately de-aged him slightly, but it also originally aged up Bubniak a bit. On top of that, 23-year-olds can still look pretty young. In fact, Tom Holland was 19 when he was first cast in the MCU and he hasn't aged much in the 6 years since ''Captain America: Civil War.'' Miles' actor, Nadji Jeter is also several years older than the character, making his face slightly older than it ''should'' be. So, people complaining about this have the wrong expectations on what a 23-year-old ''should'' look like.

* ''VideoGame/StellarBlade'': The game's trailers have been heavily criticized across twitter, for having such an unrealistically beautiful protagonist... Only for the game devs to show how Eve is the result of scanning Korean model Shin Jae-eun.

** A similar example is Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4''. When talking about Snake's fight against an M1 Abrams from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid 1''; Otacon points out how unlikely that was to have worked, and that only someone as epic as Snake would even think of using grenades to fight a tank. Notably, Snake doesn't even ''try'' to fight it with conventional weapons: he instead throws grenades into the interior and kills the operators. And that doesn't even destroy the tank: when you pass through the area later, the tank is gone, with the implication that it just ''drove away''. Later games in the series completely avoid tank battles.

* In the recent update of early access ghost hunting game ''VideoGame/Phasmophobia'', the developers changed the spirit box to function more like how real-world spirit boxes function (scanning lots of radio frequencies and grabbing snippets of audio together) using the voices of streamers and content creators associated with the game to get the snippets. This caused a wave of forum posts on steam claiming the new spirit box was "immersion breaking".

* Some felt that Cole Phelps of ''VideoGame/LANoire'' being charged for adultery as a crime was over the top, when in reality, adultery was indeed a crime in 1940's America.

* When ''VideoGame/TheSims4'' launched with Teens that were the same height as Young Adults, Adults, and Elders, the fanbase was outraged because TeensAreShort, as proven by the fact that they were [[TheyChangedItSoItSucks visibly shorter than their elders]] in ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' and ''VideoGame/TheSims3''. Of course, the lack of variable heights has been a contentious point in ''Sims'' fandom [[FranchiseOriginalSin for a long time]], but that consideration aside, in real life it's far from uncommon for a person to reach their full adult height by their mid-teens.

* In the recent update of early access ghost hunting game Phasmophobia, the developers changed the spirit box to function more like how real-world spirit boxes function (scanning lots of radio frequencies and grabbing snippets of audio together) using the voices of streamers and content creators associated with the game to get the snippets. This caused a wave of forum posts on steam claiming the new spirit box was "immersion breaking".