The Darkest Shore

The First Room

On ZFRR, the First Room of The Darkest Shore is the Beach, the shore of Heligoland where the crew lands from a rubber boat at the start of every game. The sea is red with blood, the sand is strewn with dead fish, the carcass of a whale lies on the shore and red cliffs close the beach in. Every player starts with 500 Jolts and the starting weapon chosen in their loadout.

Before wave 1, the beach is assaulted by a beach rush: a large swarm of zombies walks out of the sea, and wave 1 only begins once all of them are dead. Two mounted MG 42 turrets stand on the beach to hold it off.

The beach rush

The wave counter stays at 0 while the swarm comes out of the water; one guide counts more than thirty zombies. Once the last one dies, the game shows «Survived the beach» and wave 1 begins.

The MG 42 turrets

Two mounted machine guns, free to use, aimed at the sea. Clearing the rush without them earns the achievement I Got This.

M1A1 Carbine

500 Jolts, in a second weapon locker. The Beach station of the minecart is to its right.

Machine Pistol

500 Jolts, in a weapon locker. The door to the Beach Passage is to its left.

The Lebenblitz machine against the red rock of the beach, with the prompt to buy an automatic self-revive for 500 Jolts, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

Lebenblitz on the beach

The only Blitz of the beach, to the left of the minecart exit: 500 Jolts in solo, where it revives the player automatically (three times at most), and 1,500 Jolts in co-op, where it doubles the revive speed.

The Beach Passage door

750 Jolts, to the left of the Machine Pistol. It leads up a staircase to the Bluffs and the rest of the island; in a First Room game it stays shut.

The minecart station

The Beach stop of the minecart, called Strand on its lever. The carts only run once the power is on, so the station stays out of use while the doors are closed.

The Mystery Box

One of its locations is on the beach, but the Box starts the game on the Overlook, far behind the doors.

Wüstlings on the beach

The armoured brutes of Straub reach the beach in the later waves. When shot they charge, and their weak spot is the spine on their back.

The doors to the rest of the island are opened with Jolts, and the fog that brings the Meuchlers is tied to the areas past them: according to one detailed guide, it only starts rolling in once a door into the Bluffs or the U-Boat Pens is open. The game itself rewards a closed-doors game: the Deathraven Hunter character asks, among other challenges, to survive «a nice day at the beach», reaching wave 26 without opening any door.

The The Darkest Shore leaderboard has two categories, No Consumables, the reference, and With Consumables, each with boards for solo and for two, three and four players. Its rules:

Doors closed

Reach the highest wave you can without opening any door or barrier, and play every wave in full.

The Wüstling

If a Wüstling gets stuck in a spot where it cannot be hurt, the record is denied. If one gets stuck under the map and is not killed by the end of the wave, the record is denied too.

Wave 0

Letting the zombies of the beach rush despawn on wave 0 and respawn on wave 1 is allowed.

No self-downs

A player may not go down on purpose to block the zombies from part of the map, and glitches and exploits are not allowed.

Consumables

They are banned in the No Consumables category and allowed in the With Consumables category.

Video

The whole game must be recorded and the lobby shown before the map is launched. On the No Consumables boards, every player of a co-op game must record their own point of view.

Where to post it

A Twitch video must be saved as a highlight, since past broadcasts are not accepted; a YouTube video must be public or unlisted.

Overview

A tall sea stack rising from the fog beyond the cliffs, with the cranes of the harbour behind, official in-game view, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

The Darkest Shore is the third Nazi Zombies map of Call of Duty: WWII, after the Prologue and The Final Reich. It came with The Resistance, the first DLC pack of the game. The mission briefing: «A sea fortress and keystone to the power of the Nazi Kriegsmarine, this mist-shrouded island hides secrets both ancient and terrifying.»

GameWWII

Map packThe Resistance, first DLC pack

ReleaseJanuary 30, 2018 (PlayStation 4)March 1, 2018 (Xbox One, PC)

LocationHeligoland, a German island fortress in the North SeaApril 18 and 19, 1945

CharactersMarie Fischer, Drostan Hynd, Olivia Durant and Jefferson Potts

Players1 to 4

StartThe Beach, under a rush of zombies coming out of the sea

A few days after Mittelburg, Doctor Peter Straub has fled to Heligoland, where he stores his undead army in the U-Boat Pens. The crew paddles to the island in the fog with a party of Rangers to find the pommel of the Sword of Barbarossa before him. Only their boat reaches the shore: the second comes out of the fog covered in blood, the third empty, and the dead walk out of the water. Drostan, who worked on the island before the war, sums it up: «This damn island. This goddamn island!»

From the Beach, the map climbs through the Beach Passage to the Bluffs, then spreads out over the cliff-top Bunkers, the Overlook, the Artillery Bunker, Bunker 1 and Bunker 3, and down into the U-Boat Pens. A minecart links the Beach, Bunker 1 and the U-Boat Pens through tunnels under the island, where the hidden chamber of the goddess Nerthus waits.

Characters

The four playable characters are the crew of the previous maps, sent by Major Hank Rideau of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program. In the intro, Marie complains that «Rideau was wrong to send us out» so soon after the train wreck.

Marie Fischer

The German art historian whose brother Klaus was forced to work for Straub. She leads the hunt for the sword: «We need to find the rest of the sword before he does.»

Drostan Hynd

The Scottish smuggler, who knows Heligoland from his past work on the island for Himmler and hates it: «Poking out of the sea like Lucifer’s middle finger.»

Olivia Durant

The French Resistance fighter. She calms Drostan down in French as the zombies rise from the water.

Jefferson Potts

The American soldier, who brought the Tesla weapons of the team; they were ruined when their crate fell overboard during the landing.

Straub himself hides around the map, and the voice of Red Riding Hood, an officer of the island spying for the MFAA, is heard on the recorders hidden in the bunkers.

Enemies

Zombies

The undead soldiers of Straub. On this map the first of them walk out of the sea.

Pests

Small, fast zombies that leap at the players.

A Meuchler in close-up, with its metal helmet and long tongue, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

Meuchlers

The new enemy of the map, «the assassin»: a four-armed zombie with a long tongue and a metal helmet, halfway between the Wüstling and the Bomber. It comes with every fog after the first, flanks the players, hits for most of their health, and runs off if it is still alive when the fog lifts.

Bombers

Zombies carrying explosives. Four of them wait on the minecart tracks on the first ride of each wave.

Wüstlings

Brutes with a spiked metal claw, which charge when shot and fall fast when hit in the spine.

Brenners

The flamethrower zombies only appear in the main quest: one behind the Corpse Gate, one in the boss fight.

Treasure Zombies

Harmless Bombers carrying red bombs, which drop Jolts. They only appear once every area of the map is open.

Meistermeuchlers

Four Meuchlers with spikes and coloured batteries, each copying a special ability of the players: the final bosses of the main quest.

The main quest also brings Stukas, German dive bombers flying over the island, and German destroyers off the coast. Since the Days of Summer event of 2018, Drowned Zombies can also be met on the map.

Perks

The Blitz machines of WWII play the role of the perks. The Darkest Shore has six of them, and only Lebenblitz is on the beach.

Lebenblitz

500 Jolts in solo, 1,500 in co-op. On the beach, to the left of the minecart exit.

Kugelblitz

2,000 Jolts, more weapon damage and fire rate. On the path between Bunker 1 and Bunker 3, to the left of the MP-40.

Laufenblitz

2,000 Jolts, faster and endless sprint. In the Bunkers, to the right of the door to the Overlook.

Faustblitz

2,000 Jolts, double melee damage. In the Artillery Bunker, near the big gun.

Schildblitz

2,000 Jolts, an electric burst on reload. On the Bluffs, to the right of the door to Bunker 3.

Schnellblitz

3,000 Jolts, faster reloads. In the hallway between the Bluffs and the U-Boat Pens.

Armour is sold by the Geistschild machines, in the first room of the Bluffs, in the Artillery Bunker and in the hallway of the U-Boat Pens. None of them stands on the beach.

Weapons

Seventeen weapons hang in weapon lockers, from 500 Jolts on the beach to 1,600 for the FG 42 and the Lee Enfield. Two of them are in the First Room: the Machine Pistol and the M1A1 Carbine.

Machine Pistol menu render, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

M1A1 Carbine menu render, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

Weapon	Price	Where
Machine Pistol	500	Beach, to the right of the Beach Passage door
M1A1 Carbine	500	Beach, to the left of the minecart exit
Sawed-off Shotgun	500	Beach Passage
SVT-40	750	Bluffs, on the way to the Bunkers
Type 100	750	Bluffs, first room
Grease Gun	1,000	Bunker 3
Waffe 28	1,000	Bluffs, by the overlook
PPSh-41	1,000	Minecart tunnel, between Bunker 1 and the U-Boat Pens
M1928	1,000	U-Boat Pens
MP-40	1,000	Bunker 3
Combat Shotgun	1,000	Bunkers, near the Bluffs entrance
M1 Garand	1,250	Bunkers, to the right of the doorway to Bunker 1
M1941	1,500	Overlook
STG44	1,500	Overlook
BAR	1,500	Artillery Bunker
FG 42	1,600	Artillery Bunker, near the cannon
Lee Enfield	1,600	Bunker 1

Prices are in Jolts. The Mystery Box holds most of the other weapons of WWII, along with the Jack-in-the-Box, the Fliegerfaust and the Crossbow.

Ripsaw

The wonder weapon of the map, a buzzsaw fixed on the broken frame of a Tesla Gun. It is built from two parts and first works as a melee weapon; once upgraded it fires saw blades, and the Ubersprengen turns it into the R.I.P. Saw.

Pommel of Barbarossa

The reward of the main quest: a tactical thrown like a grenade, whose blast kills the zombies around it, then explodes a second time. It comes back by itself every ten to fifteen seconds.

Flak guns

Anti-aircraft guns of the cliff-top bunkers, used against the Stukas in the main quest.

The Ripsaw, from its two parts to the R.I.P. Saw

Power and the Ubersprengen

The power is turned on in two places: the main switch in the U-Boat Pens, and a second switch in the Artillery Bunker that sets the minecart running. The Ubersprengen, the Pack-a-Punch of WWII, sleeps under a broken lift in Bunker 3: its panel waits for three green batteries, the Elektroschnalle, picked up along the three minecart tracks.

The control panel of the broken lift in Bunker 3, with one battery in place and three empty slots, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

The Ubersprengen

Once the three batteries are in the panel, the lift rises with the machine. It upgrades weapons, and later refills their ammo.

The minecart

250 Jolts a ride between the Beach (Strand), the U-Boat Pens (U-Boot Höhle) and Bunker 1 (Graben). A lever by each station sets the destination.

Power, minecart and Ubersprengen, step by step

Easter egg: Making History

The main quest is called Making History. The crew opens the Corpse Gate of the U-Boat Pens with the head of Red Riding Hood, shoots down the Stukas, then follows two paths in any order: the rituals that open the chamber of Nerthus and yield the pommel of the sword, and the call for a British air raid, which needs the coastal gun to sink the German destroyers. It ends with a fight against four Meistermeuchlers across the island.

The Corpse Gate

A lock of Straub’s making in the U-Boat Pens: a headless body chained to a door, brought back to life to open it.

The veiled statue of Nerthus in her secret chamber, official in-game view, The Darkest Shore, Call of Duty WWII Zombies

The chamber of Nerthus

A secret room off the minecart tunnels, where three Meuchlers pray before the statue of the goddess.

The ending

The Royal Air Force bombs the island while the crew escapes by jumping onto Straub’s zeppelin, bound not for England but for Berlin.

Making History, step by step

Secrets

Dr. Straub

Straub watches the players from hidden spots around the map, and shooting him unlocks Still Lurking.

The Classic

A special PPSh-41 that joins the Mystery Box when the friendly Bomber of the main quest picks up 1,000 Jolts on its way.

The «HI» beam

A beam of the U-Boat Pens, shot sideways, spells «HI» and gives a single Jolt.

Hidden characters

Challenge sets of the map unlock new playable characters, among them a beach challenge played with every door closed.

Straub, The Classic and the hidden characters

Achievements

The Darkest Shore has ten achievements and trophies of its own, three of them silver on PlayStation: Making History for the main quest, Black Winds to Darker Lands for the pommel and This Damn Island for opening the whole island. I Got This is earned on the beach, by clearing the first rush without the turrets.

The ten achievements of The Darkest Shore

Trivia

The game files call the map mp_zombie_island.
Heligoland is a real German archipelago of the North Sea, a sea fortress during the Second World War that the Allies bombed many times.
Nerthus is a fertility goddess of Germanic paganism. The Meuchlers seem to worship her: Red Riding Hood hears them repeat «Mutter», «Mother».
The recordings of Red Riding Hood, audio files 23 to 33, speak of Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of Britain, and of a call for rescue from Berlin.
Straub’s line «I’m afraid the island defenses will be quite operational when your friends arrive» seems to echo Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi.
Before the release of The Resistance, on January 23, 2018, two of the map’s audio files were added by mistake to the menus of PlayStation 4 players.
In the intro, the Elektroschnalle on the crew’s belts start to beep as the boat reaches the shore, warning of the zombies.