| “ | If you put your heart into it, the weapon never fails. | „ |
— Tokarev | ||
Nikolai Tokarev (Russian: Николай Токарев) is a character who first appears in Metro Exodus. He is the Spartan Order's weapons expert who joins Artyom's crew aboard the Aurora armoured train.
Overview[]
A Ranger of the Spartan Order, after the Battle for D6, Tokarev was one of the few brave men who joined Artyom, Anna, Miller, Stepan, Duke, Alyosha, and several others on the journey eastwards across the Russian wilderness.
Tokarev, a technical expert, is renowned across the Order as being the man responsible for creating many of the faction's weapons and modifications. Totally in love with his job and duty, he spends much of his time in the workshop aboard the Aurora, working on equipment and firearms for his brothers.
When not making new kits as usual, Tokarev has plenty of stories to tell about weaponry. In the level Autumn, Tokarev tells Artyom a story from his past, which most likely explain the origins of his name (which turns out to be just a nickname). When he was younger, he owned a Tokarev pistol, which was "fantastic in all regards, but only had eight rounds in the magazine" (this information strongly suggests the pistol was Tokarev TT-33, the most famous weapon invented by Fedor Tokarev). He once got into a firefight with some outlaws, which he nearly won, but given his pistol's small magazine, he ran out of ammo, got shot and nearly bled to death. The Rangers arrived just in time to save him and he later became their main weaponsmith. He also tells Artyom that the crew of Aurora has more members than he had bullets back then, and for this reason, he believes that nothing can stop them. He tells this story to cheer Artyom up, as the mood onboard the Aurora is fairly grim, given Anna's worsening condition and the recent discovery that the situation at Novosibirsk is much worse than expected. However, this is one of the few stories that actually reveals something about Tokarev's past as well.
Trivia[]
- Tokarev (Токарев in Cyrillic) is a somewhat common Russian surname, derived from the word "токарь" (turner).
- One famous person who had this surname was the aforementioned Fedor Tokarev, a weapons designer and deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1937 to 1950; he was behind the design of the TT-30 and TT-33 pistols in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, which saw continued use after the Second World War in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.
- If you approach Tokarev on the train following the events of the Caspian area, Tokarev, while cleaning weapons will remark: "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.". This is a reference to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, where one of the main characters, Anakin Skywalker, says this line. It has become a popular internet meme.
- In the Russian version of the game, other characters sometimes call Tokarev "Тэтэшник" (Teteshnik) instead of "Tokarev". Actually, it's not Tokarev's real surname as in Russian the word "Тэтэшник" is a slang name for both TT-30 and TT-33 pistols.
- His first name - Nikolai (Russian: Николай) is mentioned in the Russian dub of the game: during the preparation before the Novosibirsk mission, Miller will thank Tokarev with the phrase: "Спасибо, Коля", ("Thank you, Kolya"). "Kolya" is a common short version of the name "Nikolai".
- It's implied that the Tikhar, or at least the iteration of this weapon seen in Metro Exodus, was (at least partly) invented by Tokarev. At the beginning of Volga, Tokarev builds a Tikhar which he gives to Artyom, and throughout the game, the player can receive several upgrades for this weapon when talking to Tokarev while he's at his workbench. He also invented a special incendiary ammunition for the Tikhar in order to increase its firepower.
Gallery[]
| Metro 2033 | |
|---|---|
| Metro Last Light | |
| Metro 2035 | |
| Metro Exodus | |