• TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    This is something that somewhat bothers me about cowboy/ wild west games and even turn of the century like RDR1/2

    Where is my saber? Bruh. I’m a guy on horseback in the mid-late 1800s? and I don’t have a saber backup to my sidearm?

    It goes both ways. Cowboys had swords. Samurai had guns.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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      10 days ago

      Army cavalrymen of the period, at least. Actual cowboys often carried guns and knives for self-defence, both against their fellow man and wildlife, but swords are less useful in that 19th century civilian context. And less concealable, for those with less-than-legal intentions.

      But yeah, we get every other weapon in the Wild West and the kitchen sink in those games, an Army cavalry sabre should be matter of course at this point!

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      10 days ago

      There was also a brief window during which samurai could plausibly show up in the American frontier. The Meiji restoration that ended the samurai’s traditional role in society kicked off at the end of the 1860s. The first Japanese embassy to the United States was under the shogunate in 1860, following Perry’s expedition and the rapid adoption of Western sailing technology by Japan

      Since RDR2 is set in 1899, they could have added an elderly ex-samurai who left Japan after the end of the shogunate if they wanted