Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

• 1. Introduction

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  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 reached stores on the 10th of November 2009, and within 24 hours it had sold roughly 4.7 million copies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Those sales brought in $310 million. At the time, that made it the biggest entertainment launch in history, ahead of Grand Theft Auto IV and ahead of releases in other media. Infinity Ward made the first-person shooter and Activision published it. It was the sixth numbered entry in the Call of Duty series.

  Numbers like these raise obvious questions. What story did the game tell, with special forces chasing a terrorist leader while Russian troops fought through Washington, D.C.? How did Infinity Ward go about building this sequel? Why did one level set inside an airport provoke such anger? And why did some players on Windows feel their version had been built against their interests?

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• 2. Building the Sequel

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  In 2008, the project that became Modern Warfare 2 was still called Call of Duty 6. The title surfaced early. On the 3rd of December 2008, Activision announced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, then retracted the announcement and described any information about an upcoming Call of Duty game as speculative. Infinity Ward said it had not confirmed its newest project. The official announcement came on the 11th of February 2009, with a tentative release window of Holiday 2009.

  Robert Bowling, the community manager at Infinity Ward, explained a notable absence. Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: World at War had both been preceded by public multiplayer betas. Modern Warfare 2 was not. The team tested it with an internal beta instead, and Bowling said a public one would be needed only if the internal run failed to produce adequate feedback.

  Treyarch ported Modern Warfare to the Wii and released it on the same day as the sequel, but Infinity Ward declined to do the same. According to Bowling, the Wii's technical limits made it impossible to deliver the cinematic experience the sequel aspired to present.

  Aliens and the living dead were once on the table. Jesse Stern, in an interview, listed ideas shared with Infinity Ward producers, including "outbreaks, viruses, chemical warfare, and even outlandish things such as aliens and the living dead." During brainstorming, someone also asked what would happen if the ending of Modern Warfare had been a loss, which would lead into the sequel. Stern said the game was meant to draw on real-life conflicts. Planning halted at first because of the 2008 South Ossetia war and the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

  The in-house engine, IW 4.0, was an improved version of the IW 3.0 engine from Call of Duty 4. Although proprietary, it is based on an unspecified id Tech engine. It handled larger worlds, richer graphic detail and more efficient rendering. Its most visible change was a "dynamic AI" that replaced the old system of enemies respawning endlessly at different points in a level. The "smarter" enemies were designed to seek out the player and drive them forward. They could also abandon set behaviors, such as following a designated route, in order to attack. A second playthrough of a level would therefore not find enemies standing where they stood the first time.

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• 3. Story and Cast

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  The story begins in 2016, after Ultranationalists seize control of Russia and Imran Zakhaev becomes a martyr. Relations with the United States collapse. Zakhaev's protege, Vladimir Makarov, carries out terrorist attacks in Europe and America. Private First Class Joseph Allen of the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, patrols in Afghanistan with Sergeant Foley and Corporal Dunn. Lieutenant General Shepherd takes notice and reassigns him to Task Force 141, a multinational special forces unit.

  Moscow's airport is where Allen's mission ends. Embedded with the CIA under a secret identity, he infiltrates Makarov's cell and takes part in a mass shooting there, in which numerous Russian civilians die. Makarov knows who Allen really is. He kills Allen and leaves the body behind to implicate the United States.

  Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson and Captain John "Soap" MacTavish of Task Force 141 recover an Attack Characterization System module from a downed American satellite at a Russian airbase in the Tian Shan range. After the massacre, Soap, Roach, Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley and others travel to Rio de Janeiro to capture Alejandro Rojas, Makarov's arms dealer. Russia then launches a surprise invasion of the American East Coast. The invasion was facilitated by Russia's earlier capture of the module, which let it disable NORAD's satellite network.

  Private James Ramirez replaces Allen in Foley's squad and fights alongside other Army Rangers to defend Northern Virginia, then Washington, D.C. In Rio, Rojas reveals under interrogation that Makarov's most hated enemy is "Prisoner 627," held in a gulag in Kamchatka Krai. The war keeps American help away, so Task Force 141 escapes Rio with aid from Soap's old contact, Nikolai. The team joins U.S. Navy SEALs to rescue hostages and neutralize S.A.M. sites aboard oilrigs, then breaks into the gulag. Prisoner 627 turns out to be Captain John Price, Soap's former commanding officer.

  Price rejoins the unit and leads a raid on a Russian nuclear submarine. He launches a submarine-launched ballistic missile that detonates above Washington, D.C. in the upper atmosphere and destroys the International Space Station. The blast creates an electromagnetic pulse that disables all electronic equipment, which favors the defending Americans. Foley's squad counterattacks to retake the White House and to stop a U.S. Air Force bombing run from destroying the city to deny it to the Russians. The run is aborted, and the Americans retake the capital.

  Task Force 141 then splits up in search of Makarov. Roach and Ghost lead half the team to Makarov's safehouse on the Georgia-Russia border, while Soap and Price lead the other half to an aircraft boneyard in Afghanistan. At the safehouse the team finds a wealth of intelligence. At the extraction point, Shepherd executes Roach and Ghost, and his private military company, Shadow Company, eliminates the rest of the unit. Soap and Price are caught in the crossfire between Shepherd's and Makarov's forces and escape with Nikolai's help.

  Price and Soap forge a temporary truce with Makarov, who reveals Shepherd's location. They launch a vengeful suicide mission into Shepherd's base in Afghanistan. After a lengthy pursuit they corner the general, who stabs Soap in the chest. Shepherd admits that he leaked Allen's identity to Makarov to start a war with Russia and become a war hero. He says he betrayed Task Force 141 to cover this up. Price fights him with his fists, which gives Soap time to pull the knife free and throw it, killing Shepherd. Nikolai arrives by helicopter and carries both men to safety.

  Roach and Ramirez are the two main playable characters, and Captain MacTavish becomes playable later in the campaign. On the 20th of August 2009, Robert Bowling revealed on Twitter that Kevin McKidd, Craig Fairbrass, Barry Pepper, Keith David and Glenn Morshower were confirmed voice actors. McKidd voices Soap. Fairbrass, who voiced Gaz in Call of Duty 4, plays Ghost. Billy Murray reprises Captain Price from Call of Duty 4. The rapper 50 Cent voices one of the squad members in the Special Ops and multiplayer modes.

  Hans Zimmer provided the main theme, while Lorne Balfe composed the rest of the score. The soundtrack was released on the 1st of June 2010. The iTunes page for it incorrectly lists Zimmer as the only composer.

  A six-part comic series, Modern Warfare 2: Ghost, was announced by Bowling on the 17th of August 2009. Published by WildStorm, it explores the backstory of Ghost, and its first issue debuted on the 11th of November 2009. A fan-made film called Find Makarov was never canon. Activision contacted its makers, We Can Pretend, and helped produce a canon follow-up, Find Makarov: Operation Kingfish. It premiered at Call of Duty: XP 2011, with visual effects by The Junction. The short tells how Task Force 141 first tried to capture Makarov, then known as Kingfish, how Soap got his facial scars, and how Price was captured and sent to a gulag.

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• 4. Modes and Map Packs

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  Eighteen levels linked by one plot make up the Campaign mode. Players often switch characters between levels, each level carries a series of objectives, and dying sends the player back to the most recent checkpoint. Four difficulty settings are offered, and a finished level can be replayed. The soldier can jump, sprint, crouch, go prone and aim down iron sights.

  Taking cover is how health returns. When enemy fire hits, blood splatters the heads-up display, and staying out of gunfire restores health automatically within a time limit. The display also shows a compass, a mini-map and an ammunition count. Each level starts the player with specific guns, which can be swapped for ones found on dead bodies or near supply units. Assault rifles, shotguns, handguns and sniper rifles all appear, some with attachments such as suppressors and heartbeat sensors. Grenades and flashbangs handle crowds, a knife covers close quarters, and some levels hand over night vision goggles or a laser designator.

  Twenty-three Spec Ops levels sit outside the story and can be played alone or cooperatively with a partner. One challenge asks players to defuse three bombs within a short period of time. In co-op, a downed player crawls and can fire a handgun. If the partner fails to revive them, they die and the level is failed. Five tiers of Spec Ops levels escalate in difficulty, and only the first is open at the start. Stars open the later tiers. They are earned by clearing levels on one of three difficulties, with harder settings paying out more stars.

  Three kills in a row without dying earns a killstreak reward in multiplayer, such as a Predator missile, a sentry gun or a tactical nuke. A player who dies repeatedly without a kill receives a deathstreak bonus that evens the match. Games are team-based or deathmatch-based, and each type has an objective that calls for its own strategy. A match ends when a team or player reaches a point target, or when time runs out. Experience points come from kills, objectives and finishing matches. Each new level brings new weapons, along with perks that change gameplay elements, such as unlimited sprint and increased bullet damage.

  Two map packs followed the release, each with five maps. At E3 2009, Microsoft stated that they would reach Xbox 360 through Xbox Live before other platforms. The Stimulus Package arrived on Xbox Live on the 30th of March 2010 and on PlayStation Network and PC on the 4th of May 2010 in North America. It remade Crash and Overgrown from Call of Duty 4 and added Bailout, a multi-level apartment complex. Storm is an industrial park littered with heavy machinery, and Salvage is an abandoned car junkyard in the snow. The pack was downloaded over one million times within 24 hours and 2.5 million times in its first week, breaking Xbox Live records for downloadable add-ons. It also added two modes that randomize the built-in game types.

  The Resurgence Package came to Xbox Live exclusively on the 3rd of June 2010. PlayStation Network and PC followed on the 6th of July in North America and the 7th of July worldwide. It remade Strike and Vacant from Call of Duty 4 and added Carnival, a desolated amusement park. Trailer Park is a mobile home park, and Fuel is an oil refinery. Both packs went on sale for OS X on the 20th of May 2014, the day Aspyr's port of the game arrived.

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• 5. Trailers and Collector Boxes

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  The 25th of March 2009 brought the first teaser, shown at the Game Developer Choice Awards ceremony in San Francisco. Infinity Ward posted it on its website, and it reached Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network shortly after. A second teaser on the 10th of May 2009 showed snowmobile driving and underwater action. It also announced a "reveal" on TNT during the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on the 24th of May. That reveal was the first full-length trailer, with extended in-game scenes and combat. A trailer on the 27th of July showed the first multiplayer footage. A second full-length cinematic trailer on the 4th of October revealed that part of the game would take place in a war-torn Washington, D.C.

  Pre-orders broke an Activision record, according to the company's quarterly earnings report. More copies had been pre-ordered than for any other game it had published. Bowling said on Twitter on the 21st of July 2009 that a controller was in the works, and Mad Catz was contracted to make controllers and accessories for every platform. In September 2009, Monster Energy offered redeemable codes from its packs for items such as Xbox 360 Premium Themes and a Modern Warfare 2 map pack code.

  In October 2009, Infinity Ward posted a YouTube video called "Fight Against Grenade Spam," starring baseball player Cole Hamels. Journalists, including Phillip Kollar of Game Informer, criticized the video because its acronym spelled a pejorative term for gay people. They said it condoned homophobic slurs. Bowling said the video was meant as social commentary on the "gamer" stereotype. He was then convinced the joke went too far, and the video was taken down.

  The original teaser trailer confirmed a shortened official title, simply Modern Warfare 2. Photographs of retail boxes posted by Bowling then showed the Call of Duty logo, and Activision confirmed that standard-edition packaging would carry it. Some speculated that brand awareness was significantly lower without the logo. The developers still prefer the shorter name because they treat the game as a fresh property, and the in-game menus use it.

  Four retail versions existed on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360: Standard, Hardened, Veteran and Prestige. Windows received only the Standard edition, which held the game and a manual. The Hardened Edition added a steel book case, an art book and a token to download Call of Duty Classic. That was a high-definition version of the original Call of Duty, delivered through Xbox Live Arcade or the PlayStation Store, and it was also released separately on the 2nd of December 2009. The Prestige Edition held everything in the Hardened Edition plus functioning night vision goggles bearing the game's logo and a stand modeled after the head of Soap MacTavish. The goggles ran on five AA batteries and could see up to 50 feet in absolute darkness.

  On the 18th of September 2009, the retailer GAME announced a Veteran Edition exclusive to the United Kingdom and Ireland. It had the same contents as the Hardened Edition and added a 12 inch statue of Soap with interchangeable arms and weapons. A Veteran Statue Bundle was also listed on the EB Games website for all platforms.

  On the 15th of September 2009, Activision and Microsoft jointly announced a limited Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 with a 250 GB hard disk. It was the first Xbox 360 to ship with a drive that size. The bundle came with two black wireless controllers, a black wired headset, an ethernet cable, a standard definition composite A/V cable and the standard edition of the game.

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• 6. The No Russian Level

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  The player steps out of an elevator beside four other gunmen in the level called No Russian. The player controls an undercover CIA agent who takes part in a mass shooting at a Moscow airport to win the trust of a Russian terrorist group. The gunmen open fire on a crowd at a security checkpoint. They then walk through the airport, killing the civilians who remain.

  Security personnel arriving in waves inside the terminal are the only legitimate targets, along with a better-armed gang of riot squad and FSB members on the tarmac. Screams fill the soundscape. The injured crawl away leaving blood trails or prop themselves on tables and stands as they bleed out. Even so, the player is never forced to join the killing and can let the others shoot the civilians. A player who feels uncomfortable may skip to the next level with no penalty.

  Footage from the level leaked onto the internet before release, and some journalists chose to wait until they could play it before judging it. After release, much of the criticism centered on letting players take part in a terrorist attack. Vince Horiuchi of The Salt Lake Tribune thought the level was in poor taste after the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. He asked why its events could not have been shown in a non-interactive cutscene. Marc Cieslak of BBC News was saddened, because the level disproved his theory that the video game industry had "grown up."

  An episode of The Big Questions brought religious leaders into the argument. Alexander Goldberg of the London Jewish Forum worried that children would play the level. Fazan Mohammed of the British Muslim Forum described it as an intimate experience of enacting terrorism. Stephen Lowe, the retired Bishop of Hulme, called it "sickening." Network N executive James Binns replied that the game had been classified as mature, 18+, so protecting children was up to guardians. "This is an adult piece of entertainment. We can make all entertainment for children, or we can take proper steps to try and protect children from adult entertainment."

  Because of the level's graphic nature, the game was censored in international versions. The Russian version removed the level entirely.

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• 7. Praise and Backlash

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  Metacritic recorded "universal acclaim" for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions and "generally positive" reviews for the PC version. Reviewers praised the in-depth story mode, the mini missions and the multiplayer. 1UP.com said the game mixed real-world locations with bombastic set-pieces and packed in so much quality that it would likely stay among the most-played games in a library. IGN called it a "no-brainer purchase" because of its online multiplayer, co-op mode and campaign. Computer and Video Games called it "Loud, epic and incredibly polished." Game Informer praised its polish, its iteration on the series and its wealth of playable material. GameTrailers said the tweaks and twists made it the best multiplayer shooting experience in the industry, since most shooters were still playing catch-up with Call of Duty 4.

  Mark Bozon of IGN called the single-player campaign surprisingly short and below the standard set by earlier Call of Duty games. Many reviewers also complained that the series formula lacked innovation.

  In October 2009, Infinity Ward announced that the Windows version would not allow user-run dedicated servers or in-game console commands. The version ran on IWNet. Infinity Ward said it would not support matches larger than 18 players or let players ban cheaters. Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica wrote that at launch it would be "one of the most locked-down, inflexible, and gamer-unfriendly games ever created." An online petition for dedicated servers passed 150,000 signatures in ten days. Activision CEO Mike Griffiths replied that leaving out dedicated servers would give an "easier multiplayer experience." Windows made up only 3% of UK sales, yet that version still outsold the Windows version of Call of Duty 4 in its first week.

  Some journalists accused the developers of cultural insensitivity over the Karachi multiplayer map, which is based on the real city in Pakistan. Signs and banners there used Arabic instead of Urdu. An Easter egg in the tutorial level drew further criticism. One soldier asks another about his sexuality and then remarks "don't ask, don't tell," though some journalists considered the reaction overblown.

  At the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards, the game won Best Shooter and Best Multiplayer. GameSpy and GameTrailers named it Best Overall Game of 2009, and GameTrailers gave it six awards in all. At the 6th British Academy Games Awards, it won the GAME Award, which is chosen by public vote. At the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences gave it "Action Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay." It was also nominated for Game of the Year and for Animation, Art Direction, Game Design, Original Music Composition, Sound Design and Visual Engineering.

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• 8. Sales and Legacy

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  Five days of sales produced $550 million in worldwide revenue. Activision also said that 8 million people played online in that period, the largest army of players in the world. The game has since passed $1 billion in sales.

  On the 8th of March 2010, Robert Bowling announced that the game had amassed 25 million unique players. In June 2010, Activision CFO Thomas Tippl said it had sold 20 million copies, and in August 2011 Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said 22 million. A month later, Modern Warfare 3 producer Mark Rubin gave a figure between 28 and 29 million, though he did not confirm whether it counted players or sales. IGN put the total at 22.7 million in November 2013.

  The NPD Group counted about 4.2 million Xbox 360 copies and 1.87 million PlayStation 3 copies sold in the United States during November 2009. In Japan, the first week brought 64,000 PlayStation 3 copies and 42,000 Xbox 360 copies. Totals there later reached 117,000 and 61,000. Anita Frazier of the NPD Group reported in March 2010 that U.S. sales were slightly under 10 million. The game became the second best-selling game of all time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Famitsu ranked it first among games sold in 2009, ahead of Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV. It also scored 39/40, matching Grand Theft Auto IV as one of the few Western games released in Japan to earn that mark.

  The 28th of August 2018 made the Xbox 360 version backward compatible with Xbox One, and sales jumped. The NPD Group ranked it the eighth-best selling game in the United States that month, ahead of the series' newest entry, Call of Duty: WWII, which came out in November 2017. The month before, it had sat at number 321 on the best sellers list.

  Retrospective assessments rank the game among the best in the franchise, and some say the very best. Dan Weneroweicz of Complex wrote that nearly everything in it was high quality and put fun first. He called it "a perfect combo of gameplay in that era that will be hard to ever replicate again." Critics singled out the campaign for its theatricality, spectacle, pacing and emotional weight, including the shock of No Russian.

  Multiplayer earned praise for restructured loadout and perk systems, extra killstreaks, progression challenges and new weapons that allowed cinematic moments such as sniper "quick-scoping." The maps Terminal and Rust became fan favorites. Cade Onder of ComicBook.com called it "one of the most defining multiplayer experiences of its generation," and Cian Maher of TheGamer named it the best multiplayer shooter of all time in 2021. Several critics still noted balance problems, pointing to the Tactical Nuke killstreak and "noob-tubing" grenade launchers. Spec Ops was highlighted as one of the series' best modes. In 2011, readers of Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition voted Ghost the 40th-top video game character of all time.

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 arrived in 2011 and finishes the original Modern Warfare storyline. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered reached PlayStation 4 on the 31st of March 2020 and Xbox One and Windows on the 30th of April 2020. It holds only the campaign, with no multiplayer or Spec Ops, and buyers receive cosmetic items in 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and 2020's Call of Duty: Warzone. It brought improved models and art, cutscenes remade with new motion capture, a revamped post-process pipeline and HDR support. It ran on a more advanced version of the Sledgehammer Games engine from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, with modifications from Beenox. On Metacritic, the PlayStation 4 and PC versions hold a weighted average of 71 out of 100, indicating mixed or average reviews.

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