History Main / ShortRangeShotgun

** The chrome shotgun in particular has a tight enough spread that it can quite easily kill at longer ranges. Moreover, while shotguns do have much wider spread than the other weapons, especially when moving, it actually plays to their strengths thanks to how [[OneHitPolykill penetration rules]] work in the game - whereas the scoped rifles penetrate up to 15 infected, but only along a very thin line, and the assault rifles only penetrate through one or two before being stopped, buckshot goes through as many infected as there are within five meters, allowing for surprisingly quick clearing of large hordes. And much like in ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'', the effective pellet spread is purely horizontal, so no damage is lost above or below.
** Certain {{game mod}}s reduce the cone of fire of the shotguns to those of their real life inspirations. This makes them deadly at medium ranges and veritable special infected killers, but with the tradeoff that they're all but useless in a zombie rush unless they're aimed at a chokepoint.

** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7Biohazard'' plays this straight with its pump-action M37 shotgun, which has a rather large spread outside of point-blank range. You can find and repair a second shotgun, the M21, an over-under gun with half the capacity but a full choke, making it a lot more effective at longer distances.

* The pump shotgun in ''Videogame/TheLastOfUs''. Even though the range can be increased via upgrades, it's still only effective up close. At short-range, it's a one-shot kill against all enemies except armored humans (which require at least two shots to kill at close range) and Bloaters. At mid-range, it takes two or three shots to kill. Anything further away than that and it's useless. Because of this, the shotgun is most effective against Infected, since they are more likely to get close to you than non-Infected humans, and they can take more bullets from your handguns, so it helps to conserve ammo. The shotgun is especially effective against Clickers since it can kill them in one shot, which even the fully upgraded hunting rifle can't do. All of the above also applies to the [[SawedOffShotgun Shorty]], though its range of effectiveness is even less than the pump shotgun.

* ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' has two shotguns; the primary Reinbeck shotgun and the secondary Locomotive shotgun. The Reinbeck performs more like a real life shotgun where it can cause some serious damage at a medium range. The Locomotive can't hit anything beyond two feet and even in close range, it still requires a few shots to kill even lightly armored enemies. [[MemeticMutation "Buff the Loco"]] became the cry of many players and it wasn't until the sequel where the Locomotive returned and was given the buff it deserved.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowWarrior1997'' features the Riot Gun, a four-barreled gatling-shotgun with an insane amount of spread even over short distances.

** The original game's shotgun was depicted fairly realistically, with a reasonable range and a fairly tight purely horizontal spread that make it a very versatile gun capable of delivering decent damage to a single target in close-to-mid range or carpet multiple enemies from afar.