The Gewehr 43 is unlocked at level 7 in the Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer. The gun has rectangular iron sights and is similar in most respects to the Soviet SVT-40. The Gewehr 43 can be unlocked with a Rifle Grenade, however. Between the two rifles, the Gewehr 43 has slightly less visual recoil. Both have the same amount, but the SVT-40 bounces slightly when shooting. The Gewehr 43 can also attach a Suppressor instead of a Flash Hider, which offers vastly superior stealth capabilities. If a Suppressor is attached, the Gewehr 43 will reload using the same animation as if the whole magazine was emptied even when there are shots remaining, but this does not increase reload time because the reload is hastened, making it the same speed as without a suppressor.

Many players will be at a stalemate when attempting to find the best rifle. It is only up to preference if the player chooses the SVT-40 or the Gewehr 43, as neither, minding attachments, are very different from each other.

The Gewehr 43's recoil is extremely low. While the Aperture Sight makes the recoil more visible, it does not increase it. When aiming down the sights a player can fire as fast as they like without a noticeable drop in accuracy. For this reason, it is one of the most common guns used by players with modified controllers on the Xbox 360. Also because there are no shot limitations, it is significantly superior to the M1 Garand, with its restricted rate of fire. One should still consider its ammo capacity (10 rounds).

The Gewehr 43 is common in multiplayer, as it is unlocked early and is one of the easiest weapons to unlock the Rifle Grenadewith. The SVT-40 is usually discarded after the Marksman III challenge as it does not attempt to equip a rifle grenade of its own. Some of its flaws, more or less, is its relatively low ammo capacity.

It deals decent damage in Nazi Zombies and is usually found in the starting room for 600 points. Its price make players that prefer to rack up several thousand points to save points and buy it as soon as possible. The plentiful ammo and the low health of zombies during early rounds make it a good choice. Eventually it becomes a useless weapon and is terrible against hellhounds. Whenever possible, it should be traded off for another weapon. When Pack-a-Punched, its name is G115 Compressor . The presence of "115" in the Pack-a-Punched G43 is, like the upgraded PPSh-41's 115 round magazine, another reference to element 115 (Ununpentium). The Compressor is not worth the cost at all due to low rate of fire and higher health of zombies.

Trivia

• The Gewehr uses similar sights to the STG-44 in Call of Duty: World at War.
• Strangely, the weapon's name in Call of Duty: World at War does not abbreviate the word "Gewehr," otherwise it would be called the G43 as most German rifles would be named (i.e. the G36C and G3).
• In Call of Duty 2: Big Red One the Gewehr reloading animation is the same as the M1 Carbine's.
• On the Wii version of Call of Duty: World at War, the Gewehr 43's empty reload animation is the same as the animation for when you reload it mid-magazine in multiplayer
• When using the Gewehr 43 in Call of Duty: World at War, even after you fire all ten bullets in a magazine the reload animation shows the magazine you remove from the gun still containing a cartridge.
• When a suppressor is attached to the Gewehr 43, the mid-magazine reloading animation is a sped-up version of the empty magazine reload animation.
• Its telescopic sight is mounted in the wrong area of the gun.
• For every 20 M1 Garand rifles produced by the Allies, the Axis produced 1 Gewehr 43.
• Call of Duty: World at War does not feature a sniper version of the Gewehr 43 unlike most of the previous installments.
• It is strange that in Call of Duty: World at War, the G43 had a very low recoil, while in fact the rifle has got a medium to high recoil, due to the big cartridge.