Recently I made a glock model for my game with a decent amount of polys. I know that while making models for game you should also make a low poly model and then use normal maps generated using the hp mesh. My question is do I really need to make the low poly model and play with the normal maps ? I’m really happy how the model looks like now and it doesn’t have a lot of vertices. I’m also afraid that normal map + low poly wouldn’t look that good as the high poly model. The other problem is that there is not that much i can do, to simplify the model.
I’d suggest first create high-poly model and then convert it to lowpoly model with Simplygon.
Hightpoly is not means to create a weapon model with 100x k poly. What that means is that the first create a 10.000k weapon model and then create LOD for different platforms. After that, you can use normal map to make your model more detailed:
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3K doesn’t look too bad. I assume this is for an FPS model?
If not, just make some LODs for it, and keep the 3K mesh for when you’re up close.
The whole “Make low-poly with normal map” thing is mostly for meshes made in programs like ZBrush that generate 10K-100K meshes, or mobile titles for lower end devices that choke up on more than 30K per frame.
I wanted to comment on this. Agree mostly with @FuzzyQuills - although my view is normal mapping is mostly used for adding surface detail to any model without having to have the detail in the actual mesh. This is for any model, but really benefits from real-time lighting - in motion.
I’ve seen a ton of normal mapped models created for still images - and I always think - why? Unless the model is moving, or the real-time lighting is moving - all that complex detail could be added into the base diffuse/albedo, spec, gloss and bump map.
Many artists love to sculpt and are great at it, but if the model is not going to be displayed with real-time lighting, all that time spent sculpting the high poly model, retopo-ing, and generating accurate normal maps to fit with a detailed supporting albedo is kinda wasteful - and could easily be out performed by modeling a mid/low poly model with the lighting info baked into the albedo, spec, gloss maps.
With that said - normal mapped models in real-time lit scenes look awesome - especially up close when the normal map is subtle rather than overly strong set to 100 which breaks the visual because it’s obnoxiously over-bumped.
I didn’t see where OP stated what type of lighting setup he was going to be using, what platform this is going to be for, nor what the poly count of the model is.
Oh - I see now blender is reading 7k triangles. I agree here with fuzzyquills - this isn’t a high poly model. It is a mid poly model. I remember a couple fps games over the past couple years that were running between 35k-60k polygons PER GUN with normal maps. I couldn’t believe such a high poly model was being used, but it was true. After seeing the screen shots - I guess they were treating the weapons as the ‘characters’ of the game within the FPS genre.
If not going for a real-time lighting setup - maybe to mobile - there is a lot of area to simplify the model to be normal mapped. All beveled edges that have more than 3 or 4 segments for the entire 90 degree angle could be reduced and pretty much all the detail circled could be normal mapped - unless the safety will be interacted with - and that could be faked.
I remember when I used to do stupid things like this. 
Admittedly, I realised how bad it looked a fair bit later.
Good post btw, and yea, OP should include which platform he/she is actually going for.
Oh and…
60K for an FPS model? You’ve got to be kidding me; Team Fortress 2 doesn’t even hit 10k per gun. Same with what little I’ve seen in CoD (don’t generally play it, if at all)
Overwatch might though, and even then, not 60k from looking at it.
Now, if someone said Gears of War, I might say yes; that game’s detail was ridiculous for an Xbox 360 title.
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Yeah - I can’t remember which two games were the ones that both quoted the poly counts (maybe triangles?) that were VERY surprising to me. I believe one was here on the forums, and my brain is hinting at Escape from Tarkov, but I can’t confidently say that was one of them.