Darkest of Days is a first-person shooter that tells the story of Alexander Morris, a soldier fighting during Custer's Last Stand at Little Bighorn, who is suddenly dragged through time to become a post-22nd century agent for the corporation Kronotek, a corporation who strives to preserve and protect history and whose founder has disappeared leading to various disturbances in time causing various historical figures to be put into danger. Morris as well as fellow agent Dexter go through various time periods to ensure these figures survive, all the while battling a mysterious group called the Opposition. Since the game's main selling point is time travel, Morris goes to a myriad of historical locations, including the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War, the Battle of Tannenburg during the First World War, a WWII-era POW camp, and Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. All these locations come with a group of period weapons to use, though Morris is usually given a weapon from the 22nd Century to "even the odds"; information about these fictional weapons can be found here.
The following weapons appear in the video game Darkest of Days:
The first weapon that Morris gets is the "Colt Revolver", a Colt 1861 Navy. It is first used at the Little Bighorn battle and later used during the Antietam Campaign. While not packing the punch of the Civil War rifles, it is much faster to reload, achieved by having Morris break the Colt open on a invisible hinge to swap cylinders.
The Mauser C96 pistol appears during the World War I segments of the game. Similar to the Colt 1861 in the Civil War segments, the C96 is a faster firing and reloading counterpart to the slower bolt-action rifles in the World War I segments. It is shown as a standard Russian Army handgun, when in fact (contrary to the common appearance of the C96 in later Soviet films) was not as common compared to cheaper and more readily available Browning designed pistols such as the M1900 and M1911, not to mention the ubiquitous Nagant M1895. It has an anchronistic post-war short barrel from the 1920 Rework C96s. It also fires fully-automatically, a feature only present on the post-war Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer pistol and not the regular C96 depicted. Morris also reloads by jamming the stripper clip into the rear sight instead of the clip guide on the ejection port; he also loads a full ten rounds regardless of how many remain in the magazine.
The main German sidearm for the World War I and World War II segments is the Luger P08, referred to simply as the "Luger". It is based on the "Marine" model, but has an additional rear sight from the "Artillery" model.
The Henry 1860 rifle appears during the Antietam missions and the Little Bighorn segment. It is always seen with its leaf sight raised and is inaccurately loaded from a side gate, like the Winchester Model 1866 "Yellow Boy", rather than from the front of the magazine tube.
The Enfield Pattern 1853 appears during the Antietam missions, mounted with a bayonet and inaccurately referred to as the "Springfield Musket". Morris also fails to place a percussion cap on the nipple when reloading.
The Morgan James Rifle is used during the Antietam missions, wrapped in burlap sacking to camouflage it. The rifle in the game is almost twice as short as in real life, presumably to facilitate reusing the the Enfield's animations (and commit the same percussion cap error).
The Mauser Gewehr 1898 is seen in the hands of German troops in both the WWI and WWII time periods. It comes in two versions: a standard infantry version with iron sights, which appears only in the WWI levels, and a sniper version fitted with an ZF41 scope (anachronistic for the WWI levels, and inaccurate in general for the Gewehr 1898 as it was made for the Kar98k), which appears in the WWI levels alongside the infantry version, and is the only German rifle to appear in the WWII levels.
The Mosin Nagant Rifle appears during the WWI missions, simply referred to as the "Nagant" (although Nagant owns only some ideas for the magazine, and this separate name itself is associated with a revolver). This is actually modeled after the later M91/30, slightly different from the original model of the period.
Error creating thumbnail: File missingFull-length, Soviet Mosin Nagant M91/30 - 7.62x54mm RError creating thumbnail: File missingThe in-game model of the Mosin-Nagant.Error creating thumbnail: File missingWhile Dexter talks to Morris, Morris stares at his Mosin and wonders how the bayonet is supposed to work. Note that the rifle is fitted with a sword bayonet (that appears to be a German M98/05) instead of the correct spike bayonet. While there was a rare M1905 Modrakh sword bayonet for the Mosin, and German-captured Mosins were equipped with mounts for the M98/05, this is not the case either way.Error creating thumbnail: File missingMorris, having grabbed a Mosin for himself, prepares for a Russian attack in the woods.Error creating thumbnail: File missingHaving found no such attack, he begrudgingly reloads his rifle.
Submachine Guns
MP34
The Steyr MP34 submachine gun appears during the World War II segments in the hands of German troops, inaccurately depicted as a closed-bolt weapon. Strangely, instead of using its actual stick magazine, the in-game MP34 uses a Trommelmagazin 08 (a 32-round drum magazine for the MP18 and P08) inserted upside-down. It also somehow holds 50 rounds.
The standard German machine gun seen during the World War I and World War II segments appears to be a Maxim Gun, featuring a MG 08's sledge mount and a Maxim M1910/30's barrel jacket.
A fictional hybrid hand grenade can be found and used in missions set in World War 1 and World War 2. It appears to be a Model 24 with the head replaced with a Mills Bomb. It may have been done to make something similar to the Model 13/15 Kugelhandgranate
During the World War 1 Missions, Morris can run into some unusable German Krupp 21 cm Mörser 16 Howitzers. Their appearance during the Battle of Tannenberg is anachronistic, as they would not be introduced until two years later.
