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The Soldiers of Multiplayer are hearing voices in their head.

• If this WMG is correct, then somewhere, there is a parallel universe where Earth is stuck in a massive, never ending war over the same plots of land. All of the people that appear in multiplayer are real people with families that love them in another dimension who are hearing and obeying voices in their head or are possessed by spirits. The countries in the War are the factions as they appear, since their flags are just the faction's flag instead of their country of origin. (Example: The flag for the S.A.S. is the winged dagger symbol instead of the UK flag.) Weapons in multiplayer are manufactured by giant corrupt arms dealers who happen to make guns with random, often illogical weapon modifications and camouflages. New soldiers deploy so quickly because the ones you are controlling are too confused to notice the spider holes that are spread throughout the battlefield.

Black Ops is a prequel to all of the other games, and all of the bad guys' plans are sucessful.

• There is no evidence or reason established within the game that simply killing the main villain would stop the launch of Nova 6, as even if he was the one sending the signal to the operatives, the bad guys would surely have others who could replace him. Mason failed, and the Nova 6 was fully dispersed, killing most of America. This allowed the resurgence of the Nazis, leading to the events of the first four games, which were about the remnants of America fighting the resurgent Nazi forces. This explains why all the wars in the series feel the same: The alternate World War II happened shortly after Black Ops, the weaker technology a product of societal degradation due to massive depopulation, and the wars between America and Russia in the later games are constant struggles for domination of the world between the Nazis and the Russians. When the Modern Warfare series happens, America is actually controlled by the Nazis, who maintain the illusion of a democracy in order to hide their horrible policies. All of the whites in the Modern Warfare series are treated as super-powered Aryan ideals, and the foreigners and non-Christians like Arabs, Russians and Muslims are treated as stereotypes because the series is filtered through Nazi propaganda.
  • Completely and totally Jossed. Black Ops takes place after World at War, and with Black Ops 2 on the way, the chances of Treyarch and Infinity Ward having the same canon is extremely unlikely.

The First Horseman is Makarov.

• That's why the achievement pops after the nuke goes off. In the third game we see that he is the one that activated the nuke. I realize they probably didn't come up with him by then, but add them together and it makes sense seeing as Makarov was part of the Ultranationalists from the start. Heck, he could even have been somewhere at Al-Fulani's execution.

The reason why Frost was nowhere to be found during "Down The Rabbit Hole"

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Years ago, when he was a teenager, he and his sister were walking back home from school. They were set upon a group of thugs, who when proceeded to beat both of them and sexually assault his sister, which he was helpless to stop. In spite of this traumatic experience (or, perhaps because of it) he joined the military and eventually entered into the elite Delta force. His name "Frost" was due to his nature as The Stoic. He suppressed his anxiety for several years during his service, but when he heard Alena screaming as she was dragged away by enemy soldiers it brought back his memories and caused him to trigger. Directly after "Scorched Earth" ended, he had a Freak-Out and pointed a gun at Sandman's head, demanding that he call in a helicopter to pursue Alena's captors. After this incident, he was deemed unfit for duty was not sent to rescue Vorshevsky.
  • He has a sister?

Makarov's fixation on a "single man" is a purposeful inversion of the series' original motto of "In war, no one fights alone."

• Makarov is obsessed with the idea of a single man, his entire philosophy, as based upon the earliest MW 3 trailers, is that "The will of a single man is all that is needed to create a global conflict." However, Call of Duty has always been about the group- it was it's original selling point way back when to differentiate it from Medal of Honor- and it is rare that you are alone for an extended period of time. So while Makarov is trying to achieve his goals alone, with few allies and even fewer friends, he is doomed to fail, because in war, no man fights alone.
  • I daresay that qualifies as Fridge Brilliance. In fact, it looks like it already is on that tab. Essentially, the villains failed because they were all out for themselves and their own goals, while the heroes were able to work together, despite what were implied to be some major differences (Kamarov and Price don't seem to have much love lost between them...)

John "Soap" MacTavish's father is the Demoman

I wonder why no one noticed that they are both Scottish, black, and an explosive specialist.

• Soap's not really an explosives expert and is definitely not black.
  • On the other hand, though, the Demoman is surprisingly reasonable when he's sober. Maybe Soap turns into an effing lunatic if he's had too much to drink.

Captain Price was sent to get Nova 6

He was only wounded on the Tirpitz, and the rescue during the credits of CoD 2 was canon. Being a crazy badass, he rejoined the SAS and went on the ship. He escaped there too, just because.

== Nova 6 gas in MW 3 ==. In the trailer for Paris (or was it Berlin?) for a few seconds there is a shot that has a lot of greenish gas covering the streets. Also the Russian government created Nova 6 and Makarov may know where hidden caches of it are. There have also been leaked details saying that in one level on Britain you are playing SAS trying to stop a terrorist attack...

• No Nova 6 in MW 3. Although the gas used by the Russians is very similar, just as deadly but not quite as messy in what it does to it's victims.
• This troper suspects that was Nova-6, or more accurately a more degraded variant (Nova-5?) since Makarov didn't have the same technical knowledge as Dragovich...
  • If it was Nova-6 it must have been a really weak version. Nova-6 destroys exposed skin, and the gas attack victims look fairly intact. Plus it's apparently possible to survive exposure to Unnamed Chemical Agent with just a gas mask instead of a full hazmat suit like you needed in that one level of Black Ops. And Nova-6 is more yellow than green.
  • The Gas could be the Nova Gas from COD: Black Ops multiplayer.
• Perhaps a more advanced, less-messy version, Nova 7?

== The campaign levels of Modern Warfare 3 involving Paris and Berlin will contain no depiction of French or German soldiers ==. The result of this will be people from those countries getting pissed off. The game may contain a Hand Wave of "The EU forces have been completely decimated" or something to that effect.

• But the trailers have shown GIGN commandos in France and German Leopard 2 tanks in Berlin. I think it's safe to say that there will be no French or German player characters, but soldiers of both countries are definitely present, most likely as NPC allies.
  • French and German forces both appear in MW 3, as NPC allies.
  • And they are pretty competent as well. The only reason the French forces are so few in number is because the surprise chemical warfare attack killed most of the GIGN before they could deploy, and the German tanks that aid you are only stopped because they literally have a building fall on them.

Shepherd's betrayal of TF141 had nothing to do with the DSM; it was a case of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.

Simply put, once he had Shadow Company stocked with all the best equipment money could buy, he no longer needed the 141. He knew there was no way they would get on board with his plan, and he knew that they would inevitably turn on him when they found out sooner or later, so he considered them a "loose end" and decided to remove them.

The Modern Warfare trilogy was planned to follow traditional hero-villain story structure, if you take the countries as characters.

A traditional story structures is that the beginning of a story introduces a hero and conflict, which builds into a climax where the hero is weakened and almost beaten, only to rise up again and triumph over the villain at the end. In Modern Warfare, the hero is America and the villain is Russia (yes, don't even try to deny it). Britain is the Hypercompetent Sidekick. Modern Warfare 1 introduced the conflict and the players, in Modern Warfare 2 America gets invaded and badly beaten by Russia, and Modern Warfare 3 was planned to have America's counter-attack that beats Russia (including that invasion of Moscow). This also explains why you play so many different characters and why they're all faceless non-entities: they're all just parts of Composite Characters.

Of course, now that Infinity Ward is staffed by entirely different people who knows what Modern Warfare 3 will end up looking like.

• So in other words, the Modern Warfare games are basically an Axis Powers Hetalia Dark Fic from the viewpoint of the Nations' citizens? It all makes sense!

The Campaign level - Project Nova brainwashed the players.

The players who played World at War fell in love with the characters (Reznov especially). If the player hadn't felt the need to kill Dragovich and Krevchenko by the time the level happened, we would when Reznov himself tells us why he is a bad person. Best way to do that? Play through Reznov's eyes, and our watch our past selves (Dimitri) be brutally murdered while Reznov narrates. The music even kicks in from World at War. Someone we trust is talking the player into continuing the game, kill the Big Bad, and stop the toxin from being used, because that is the goal of the Developers.

Ramirez from MW 2 is Mexican.

And he has a moustache. Not that a wild guess.

• Or you know, could be Puertorican, because he's working for the US military and Puerto Rico is a US province. But then again, he could just be a latino from any other country from Latinamerica.
  • Or even simply an American of Hispanic descent. As of the 2010 US Census, there were a little over fifty million Hispanic and Latino Americans living in the United States.

Oswald was the backup plan if something went with Mason

• Reznov knew that Mason was brainwashed, so he contacted America to tell them Mason would be a threat to Kennedy. Mason was contained the day of the assassinaion, but Reznov didn't know that Oswald was also active in the area. Reznov cut a deal with the Americans: he'd be safe from the Russians if he helped stop Dragovich. In return, Hudson told Mason (the last person who believed Reznov was alive) that Reznov was dead so Reznov could go by a new alias and continue to work against the USSR. Also, Mason would not be killed immediately: he was too important to Reznov's plans. Besides, he had the information about the numbers. Why would the Russians kill Kennedy? To keep them from being friends with China. Kennedy was on the verge of a breaktrhough with China, and the USSR wanted all communists in one alliance. By putting a much less charismatic president in office (LBJ), they prevented Sino-American relations from improving for another decade. Indirectly, this also lead to Vietnam, something the Russians didn't anticipate but enjoyed anyways. So this means Reznov was actually in Vietnam and Rebirth Island and Mason did not actually kill Kennedy.
  • That assumes a lot, most notably that Reznov was able to contact someone after the Russians kicked the shit out of him for trying to escape from Vorkuta. It's incredible unlikely.
  • He's REZNOV! That man can escape anything!

Dr. Clarke is Back to The Future Marty McFly

• Marty McFly stole the DeLorean and met his future self. The two halves fused, creating a human that looked 40, had grey hair, and was mentally unstable (including getting a British Accent). Then, Marty McFly took the DeLorean to the 70s and 80s, stole many prototype weapons, and then went to 1965 Hong Kong. He worked with Dragovich for 3 years, until the CIA caught him and interrogated him. Marty was able to help the CIA escape with various weapons FROM THE FUTURE. More evidence? Both Clarke and Marty have the same vest.

Bowman is Black Dynamite

• They both were members of the CIA, both with licenses to kill, and what's more, they were both in Vietnam. The timing works as well, since Black Dynamite takes place during the Nixon administration. He survives the Russian beating him in the back of the head in the tunnel (because come on, he's Black Dynamite), makes his way out of Vietnam and back to the States, and from then until the movie he builds up his massive empire of ladies and kung fu and kung fu ladies. When he wasn't running ops with Mason and Woods, he worked with O'Leary, who was also stationed in Vietnam.

== Dragovich's ideology and methods served to inspire the Ultranationalist movement and such figures as Imran Zakhaev and Vladmir Makarov ==.

• Dragovich's influence on his modern-day counterparts is clearly evident, from adherence to Communism, fanatical nationalism and hatred of the West, to complete willingness to commit genocidal acts or atrocities to advance their political goals. General Dragovich himself was killed at the height of the Cold War, but decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, his supporters still pose a grave threat to global stability. In particular, Makarov finally managed to bring about what Dragovich did not: the Invasion of the United States.

Alex Mason never existed.

• It's all a dying dream of Reznov who actually died when he was exposed to Nova 6. He just dreamed of getting revenge for what they created.

Reznov never existed.

• It's all a dying dream by Petrenko, fatally wounded in Stalingrad by the Germans. He just dreamed of his death meaning something.

JFK never existed.

• It's all a dying dream by Drageovich, having been mortally wounded by the SAS attempting to secure the Nova-6 weapon. He just dreamed of getting to be the Magnificent Bastard instead of the buttmonkey of the Great Patriotic War.

The Player never existed.

• It's all a dying dream by a Treyarch developer, having been mortally wounded due to the decision to move Call of Duty to the Civil War era.

The sequel to Black Ops will be about a massive zombie outbreak caused by the Nova-6 Gas.

• That's what causes the zombies. The new strain of Nova-6 causes zombification.

The American MW 2 campaign is an autobiographical movie on Pvt. Ramirez' time in the war.

• I mean, come on. The way the action is so OTT, and how Ramirez is always the big damn hero in his missions. It's clearly the autobiography of a delusional, egotistical and arrogant US army private, trying to tell the world he won the war on his own.

Price died at the end of CoD: Modern Warfare

• Soap got pretty messed up in that fight, probably suffered a nasty concussion in the explosion. As for why Roach can see him too... uhm.... Ramirez did it.
  • No Roach was hit by shrapnel caused by the multiple breaches and the stress caused him to Halucinate.

The second part of the Black Ops series will take place during the 70s, much like how BO 1 took place during the 60s..

• Okay, hardly a stretch here, but when one considers the whole "Operation Charybdis" thing as well as some of the e-mails on the CIA systems easter egg, it is a near given. However, here's some elaboration:
  • The SAS will be a playable faction, with the PC quite possibly being MacMillan or "Jonathan" Price. The other playable factions will be CIA (where you will finally meet Ryan Jackson face-to-face) and "men without a country" (Alex Mason and friends, who have gone rogue, but whether this is for "good" or "evil" reasons would be up for heavy debate).
  • Levels will include (in order of stuff that pops into my head) a "Fall of Saigon" level, a level where you break Woods out of the Hanoi Hilton, missions in a divided Berlin, the Middle East during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and Apartheid-era South Africa. The final level would would see the factions having to come together against the true antagonists, who launch a ICBM (containing a nuke stolen from the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War) from the vicinity of the Prince Edward Islands. Our heroes will narrowly stop the launch, causing the nuke to detonate high in the air, the only record of it's existence being that the American satellite "Vela Hotel" detected it on September 22, 1979. After the credits will be a news report that Iranian revolutionaries have stormed the American embassy in Tehran, and that there are rumblings of a buildup of Soviet troops near the Afghan border...
    • Which leads up to a young Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defending the American embassy from zombies.
    • Well, I was actually more thinking along the lines of Richard Nixon (connecting it to the CODBO zombies), Leonid Brezhnev, Chairman Mao and Golda Meir holding a secret early 70s summit that is interrupted by Zombies. That'd be a funny bunch.
    • My two cents: Nixon, Kissinger, Carter, and Chomsky. Just for the lolz.
    • Also Entebbe. You can't forget Entebbe. Heck, there'll probably be an Israeli protagonist who will get the game banned in the middle east. Also you hunt down the traitor who sabotaged Apollo 13.
    • A nuclear missile launched from the vicinity of Prince Edward Island would hit almost any Eastern Seaboard target within fifteen minutes, and would be completely impossible to cover up. Especially if it were detonated prematurely to prevent a nuclear explosion.
      • I said Prince Edward Island S, not the Canadian province, but the islands in the southern Indian Ocean that are technically part of South Africa.
  • They're skipping straight to the 80's for the actual Black Ops 2's first act.

The launch trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will feature a montage of tense gunfights set to the tune of ABBA's "SOS"

• Furthermore, there will be a level where you burst into a South African nightclub, guns blazing, with Dancing Queen blasting in the background
  • Obviously Jossed by the revelation of what the real Black Ops 2 was actually like, but one weirdly specific detail did end up coming through in the end—the special trailer from E3 did, indeed, feature a firefight in a nightclub. The difference is that said nightclub is located on a floating platform over the Cayman Trench, rather than in South Africa.

While I'm at it, the third Black Ops would take place in the 80s.

• Missions would be in Afghanistan (where you have the uneasy situation where you are helping the guys who will become the Taliban), Iran (where it is revealed that Operation Eagle Claw involved more than what was revealed), London (the Iranian Embassy Siege), Iraq (during the Iran-Iraq War), the Falkland Islands, Grenada and various Eastern European locales.
• And they'll sabotage Chernobyl, inadvertently starting the plot of modern warfare
  • Oh, and the Zombies characters: Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and George H.W. Bush
    • Reagan could tell Gorbachev to "tear down that wall" to reach a new part of the map.
      • There'd be a Russian campaign in Black Ops 3 where you'd play as Nikolai from the Modern Warfare series. He mentioned in MW 2 that he was in Afghanistan with the Soviets.
      • And the above Iranian Embassy level could have the player as Price, since he was based on one of the SAS soldiers involved there.
• The debut interviews for BO 2 indicate that the first part of the campaign will take place in the 80's, and the Soviet-Afghan War was confirmed to be present in the game at E3. Maybe we'll get our Nikolai backstory yet? Aside from Afghanistan, other 80's Cold War locales that have been confirmed include Angola, Panama, and possibly Nicaragua.

The next "series" in CoD (after WWII, MW and Black Ops will be a "Hard" Science Fiction set in the 2040s or later

• Rumors are going around that a forthcoming CoD will take place In Space. However, CoD isn't Halo, and the people involved in making it generally try to do things a bit different. Instead, it'll take place in the 2040s or so (100th anniversary of the events of WWII) and will be a "hard" science fiction dealing with a conflict between a alliance of democracies (thus continuing how most of the CoD games have been, where you play as either an American or a Brit) and the Chinese (or, depending on how MW 3 turns out, Russians). The battles will take place on Earth (on land, in the air and even under the sea), in orbit and on the Moon. The fights in space would be reasonably realistic (although with some artistic license like lasers being visible and such) and will be unlike anything seen in a mass-market game.
  • Gamespot is thinking the same thing.
  • The revelation of Black Ops 2 suggests that the shift to a futuristic setting will indeed come to pass, though the timeframe is the 2020's rather than 2040's.

Additionally, the next series by Treyarch will take place in World War I, and the PC will be a young Reznov

• Moving the story into the past would nicely mirror the other developer moving the series into the future. Furthermore, while most people don't consider WWI to be as interesting from a technological perspective, there is vast room for story telling in a basically untapped historical period. The reliance during that time period on bolt action rifles might explain where Reznov got his skills with the Mosin Nagant (before his hand injury in Wa W).
  • This is flat-out impossible. In one of the cutscenes in Black Ops, there is a very brief glimpse of a dossier on Reznov. His date of birth is April 20, 1913: he'd still be a child by the time WWI ended.
  • Definitely not happening anyway, as the actual Black Ops II is going to first wrap up the Cold War plot of the first game before flashing forward to a newer, parallel conflict in the 2020's.

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon will take place in the same universe as MW 2.

A little tenuous on the basis of a single trailer, but what the heck: It's set in our world, the protagonists are American, the invading bad guys sound Russian and fly Russian planes. Plus, it fits both franchises tendencies to have the fate of entire conflicts resting on the shoulders of a few apparently-normal soldiers.

The Juggernauts are Russian Mercenaries hired by the U.S

Notice how the Shadow Company speak American English and the Juggernauts seem to speak Russian.

Spec Ops is a VR training exercise

Think about it. When you take a sniper round to the head or get riddled with bullets from an LMG, Your officer wouldn't actually say "That was a failure. Let's run it again". Therefore, it is just a simulation.

The two flashback missions in Call of Duty 4 are an exaggerated account.

• Think about it. It's 2 men versus an entire army that's well equipped with weaponry that hadn't even made it to the German military (The G36C was used by these terrorists? Doubtful). Think about it: Price tells a story. Due to the length of time between the event (15 years) and probable head trauma since then (he's probably bumped up his head a few times since), the details decay. So, sure, Price and MacMillan might've killed some people on their way to the hotel, but sneaking under the noses of 10 APC's and about 50 troops? then running across an open field that's being guarded by 50 troops and a helicopter? Not to mention that, in the escape, they must kill at least 150 people before the heli arrives. So, the theory is that they killed troops on their way to the "APC and Troop field", sneak by maybe 15 and a few APCs, run across an open field that has maybe 20 people and an unspinned heli protecting it. Then, for extract, they might kill 50 or 60 people before extraction. It's still out there, but quite a bit more plausible than facing a future(at the time)-tech army.
  • COD4 probably takes place in the near-future, thanks to the G36C. It was introduced in 1996, Price's missions take place 15 years in the past, therefore the game is set in 2011 (and MW2 would be set in 2016). Or it's Gameplay and Story Segregation. And the whole game is exaggerated, you kill hundreds of guys in every mission.
    • It was produced in 1996, it was introduced in 1997. Do you really think that the audience is expected to believe that Zakhaev's thugs could really intercept hundreds of newly-produced, yet-to-be-introduced-to-an-organized-arm-force weapons? That's on the same page with, say, the Taliban suddenly having a few hundred SCARs. Therefore, Price is lying due to age or trauma. He got the gist right, but he mucked up the details.
    • Actually, yes.
    • Damn you and your response, although I expected more of this to make your point. With that, I say that had there actually been G36Cs in their hands, then Zakhaev was more than a munitions handler, he was an arms dealer.
    • You're forgetting the fact that this is CAPTAIN PRICE we're talking about.

At the time of COD 4, The Ultranationalists were already winning the civil war

If the Ultranationalists are an insurgency, how is it that they have tanks, helicopters, APCs etc?. Because they've already seized most of Russia and its military equipment. The Loyalists just have light infantry and a few helicopters. they are actually the insurgents. Now, the reason why the West was so shocked the Ultranationalists won was because they believed that as soon as Zakhaev was killed, they would collapse due to internal power struggles. There were indeed power struggles, but Makarov and/or Vorshevsky assumed control and Russia fell to the Ultranationalists.

Modern Warfare 2 takes place in the same timeframe as Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Y'see, Shepherd convinced NORAD to send Bad Company to Russia at the same time Soap and Roach were retrieving the ACS module from Kazakhstan. They're both called back and sent to South America. Whereas Soap's team invades Russia again, Bad Company tries to hunt down the traitor to them, who just so happens to be one of Shepherd's accomplices. The Russian colonel, however, worked for Makarov and got orders to cap Aguire and invade America to assist in the country's downfall. At the end of Bad Company 2, they're sent to Canada, where they will meet Ramirez and Foley and Dunn.

• If that's the case, it's interesting that at the end of the day it didn't matter that Kirilenko was stopped from using the scalar weapon: Price dropped an EMP on the U.S for them.
  • Which also helps explain how Soap and Price go from Black Ops to International Terrorists in the blink of an eye.
    • Except that the U.S. is already fighting a full scale war in Russia with nothing going on in the U.S. throughout most of BC 2...
    • Where's it say that in BC 2? All I ever got was, "Russians making EMP."
    • BC 2 clearly shows the Americans trying to stop Russians from invading South America and Alaska, and failing. Cutscenes show Europe, China, and everywhere else falling to Russia.
      • This actually fits in with a different theory I had which may or may not be on this page where, basically, MW 2 takes place over about... oh, say, 9 months? That would fit, wouldn't it?
        • Dear god, I think you may be on to something.

Ghost from Modern Warfare 2 is Gaz

They have the same voice actor, are both from the SAS, and Ghost covers his face. If Price managed to survive the Ultranationalist attack on the bridge why not Gaz? We didn't SEE Gaz get shot in CoD4, so it's possible.

• You can quite clealy see Gaz get shot in the head while he's struggling to get back up. Also, when you meet Captain Price in Modern Warfare 2, he talks to Soap about their past experiences but doesn't seem to recognize Ghost at all. Not that it really matters whether or not he was Gaz...
• I assumed that was some random red shirt, since I couldn't look directly at the guy (and thus bring up the name), and I tend to focus more on the guys shooting me than what my allies look like. Besides, people can survive gunshots to the head.
  • Usually not shots that are point blank with a Desert Eagle, though. Really, just think about what Gaz's head would've looked like if the game had allowed for a realistic rendering of what that would do.
  • It is a well known fact that SAS operatives have special training that allows them to resist headshots. They're also fireproof.
  • Gaz was propably heavily scarred from the bullet. That's why he wears a mask.
• Jossed by the Modern Warfare: Ghost comic miniseries, where Ghost is revealed to be a brand new character, Sergeant Riley.

• The comic is Ghost's fictional background, as he was Faking the Dead after MW. When Zakhaev shot him, he survived, but was hideously scarred (like Arseface from Preacher (Comic Book)) and wears the mask to disguise this fact. The skull on the mask is a bit of dark humour, as bone was exposed by Zakhaev's shot.

• Or maybe he's Gaz's ghost.
• according to CO Dwiki:"The player can use the "noclip" console command on the PC to see Gaz's death from a closer angle. From the side, it appears that Zakhaev shoots Gaz in the upper back, but from Soap's view it appears he was shot in the head. In some cases, Zakhaev will shoot the ground almost a foot behind Gaz, yet it still causes his head to explode with blood." So....in other word,He's Ghost
  • • No matter which way you look at it, Gaz is (a) Ghost!
  • Possible fuel for the theory: in the training level for CoD4, Price mentions that Gaz holds the squadron's record for the CQB test, 19 seconds. In the training level for MW2, a Ranger makes reference to a creepy dude in a skull mask (read: Ghost) beating the Pit in 18.2 seconds. Yes, the Pit is about a dozen times easier than the CQB test, but still.

Ghost from Modern Warfare 2 is Gaz, and Captain Price is the same Price from the World War II installments.

Both Price and Gaz are immortal, which is why Price has been around since World War II and his own on-screen death. Gaz has to hide his face and go by a different name because Soap isn't in on the secret, assuming he's not also disfigured from the gunshot that killed him. The backstory about Ghost detailed in the comics is completely made-up as a cover story he can tell if anyone ever asks him about his past exploits.

• Possible crossovers that would fit this:
  • Price and Gaz are immortal.
  • Price found Shambala during his World War II exploits and kept himself a large enough supply of the Tree of Life's sap to take every once in a great while for longevity without the insanity. He gave some to Gaz just before the fuel tanker on the bridge exploded, which is why when Zakhaev shoots him at point-blank range, his head remains intact instead of going splat on the pavement.
  • Price isn't really immortal. He was sent on a mission to stop the creation of the atomic bomb, and he was stranded in World War 2 after running out of go-back-in-time potion.
  • Or perhaps "Captain Price" is an alternate form/avatar of Arthur Kirkland/England.

Captain Price is a Time Lord

Someone had to say it. But how else could he fight in World War 2 and 2011?

• Yup. His hat is his TARDIS, y'know. As for the voice change, that was just a very, VERY specific regeneration.
• No, his mustache is obviously his TARDIS.

Reznov from World at War is a Warhammer 40K Ork

Just too many parallels:

• Uraaaaaaah! vs. Waaaaaaaagh!
• Wields a giant choppa/machete thing.
• Favorite weapon after losing the ability to use a sniper rifle: a sub-machine gun with a 71 round clip (more dakka).
• Doesn't exactly speak with the most refined accent ever.
  • His sheer awesomeness inspired Games Workshop (Who are Time Lords.) to base the Orks off him.

General Shepherd is working with Liquid Ocelot.

That is, if the theory that Shadow Company (Shepherd's goons at the end of MW 2) are mercenaries (and they do look similar to, say, Raven Sword or even Praying Mantis), not to mention that Shepherd is pulling off a Xanatos Gambit. Maybe they're taking control of the Armed Forces - Shepherd, for the US Military, and Ocelot, PMCs - to try and get rid of the Patriots.

• • This troper thinks that General Shepherd is more likely an agent of the Patriots, and that Shadow Company is a black op unit under the Patriots' command. Shepherd's rhetoric about history being written by the victors (ie. him) seems to suggest that the General's goals are very much well-in-line with the Patriots' obsession with controlling the digital flow of infomation.
    • One can even say that the loading screens before each mission represent the POV of the proxy A Is that run the Patriots.
  • However, it's possible that General Shepherd may be following a warped vision of Big Boss's dream (note: he wants moar soldiers and patriots to serve), and is only allied with Liquid Ocelot to help along this goal (unaware of his true motive). He may even be a Patriot mole in the first place.
• Also, the protagonists are using stripped-down versions of the SYSTEM nanomachines. Explains why they regenerate and have HUD.
  • Explains why Allen could kill civilians without a second thought; his nanomachines suppressed the trauma. He'd have been in for one hell of a Heroic BSOD if he'd lived long enough to see Liquid use Guns of the Patriots.
• Also, Price knew Snake. CQC, anyone?
  • Roach certainly seems to know it, too; the pistol/tactical knife combo looks a lot like Naked Snake's CQC stance.
    • Probable that Snake taught Price, then Price taught Soap, who taught Roach...
      • It's worth mentioning that Hideo Kojima and Infinity Ward are on very good terms with each other (Kojima going as so far to say it's his favorite development studio)...
• "Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers. No shortage of Patriots"...

General Shepherd conspired with Makarov all along

Arguments pro (spoilers ahoy):

1. Shepherd chose Allen to go undercover under Makarov and succeeded without a glitch.
2. ...right until the last moment where Makarov SUDDENLY knew that Allen was an American and used him for a False-Flag Operation.
3. In most missions where 141 targeted Makarov's organization, the latter somehow always knew of them in advance.
4. Makarov knows where General Shepherd is when Price asks.
5. In the end, however, he double-crossed his ally judging him unreliable but in one way or another, everything played right into his hands (and once, into his eye).

Arguments against:

1. Makarov loathes Americans. It's somewhat ambiguous, however, as it's never made clear whether or not he honestly believes his own rhetoric about Zakhaev or if he considers Zakhaev, being dead and all, irrelevant and is just using his image to get things done.
2. General Shepherd's plan has, from the start, no room for Makarov to be anything but a pawn; Shepherd's plan to use a Russian invasion to galvanize the American population into getting up off the couch requires that Russia be defeated when they invade, and Makarov would have to be stupid to think a counter-invasion wouldn't result shortly thereafter. Of course, this assumes Shepherd doesn't just simply lie to him convincingly enough to gain his trust.

• It might as well be confirmed, they both wanted war, just for different reasons.

Makarov is actually Kamarov from Modern Warfare

He pulled a Face Heel Turn at some point after Zakhaev's death. Simply because their names are so similar and because no mention of Kamarov is made in MW2 and vice versa. Would also explain how Makarov and Price agreed to cooperate so fast.

• If that's true, though, he must have gotten some serious plastic surgery at some point, considering the two look nothing alike...then again, Makarov's probably just crazy enough to do something like that.
  • Except for the face that their facial structures look quite different and they have different sounding voices.
    • As revealed in MW 3, Makarov and Kamarov are different people.

The sequel to Modern Warfare 2 will be Postmodern Warfare

At some point, someone will try to kill the player (and not just their character).

• And instead of the player being part of the good guys, they could be the terror- wait, that actually happened.
• There will be a bisexual flamenco-dancing vampire, as well as a reveal that the villains have been dead for a hundred years!
  • I hate you because it's so accurate.

The sequel to Modern Warfare 2 will be Futuristic Warfare.

It's the only logical progression, from WW2 to present day to sci-fi.

• No, the sequel has already come out. It's Mobile Suit Gundam.
  • A Gundam game that follows Modern Warfare's gameplay would be so awesome that it could potentially destroy the world.

Modern Wardare shares a universe with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, with Gentou Nogizaka as one of Makarov's arm dealers.

First point, copypasta'd from the Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu WMG page:

"Haruka's father made her learn Russian to facilitate his arms dealing. When he sends out his private army, we see a fighter launch from an airstrip. It is clearly a Su-27 derivative, which must have been purchased clandestinely. Learning Russian is highly unusual for Japanese people despite the countries neighbouring each other; the most likely reason for Haruka having learned it is that she is being groomed for business dealings with her father's arms suppliers."

Second point: the Ultranationalists conquered Russia by the time of MW2.

The invading Russians are a rogue pro-Ultranationalist splinter faction.

Yes, it's retarded, but it explains why the invasion force didn't get reinforcements and used non-standard equipment. It's also highly probably they were on the oil rig, too.

• Actually, it's implied that the Ultranationalists from MW1 managed to take over the Russian government in the five years between MW1 and MW2. So the invasion force is both the Ultranationalists and mainstream Russia in a sense, because the Ultranationalists are Russia now.
  • Even so, either the not-Ultranationalist government would blame America for siding with the Ultranationalists in the aftermath of Makarov's attack (which is just retarded - the Loyalists and Russian forces were fighting with America - even if they did a face heel turn, there would have been a much more serious attack than just some CIA agent helping terrorists), the Ultranationalists pin the blame on America, or Russia is angry at America, but didn't send their military after America (hence the lack of modern Russian equipment, reliance on NATO weapons, and no jets). (What the Hell was the point of the attack if the Ultranationalists were in charge, anyway? Yes, they leave an American behind as part of the conspiracy, but still.) Not to mention the Ultranationalists weren't very popular when they first began.
    • No jets? The Russians definitely had jets...They're said to be over I-95 during the invasion video, and you see them strafing American positions a few times.

Captain Price of Modern Warfare joined the army specifically to follow his great-great grandfather's footsteps.

Or however back the Price of Call of Duty goes. He join the military specifically because the older Price did.

The ending of Modern Warfare 2 is actually a reference to the climax of Half Life Full Life Consequences: Free man

"...then Shepheard went at Soap and stabed him, but Soap got nife out and stabbed Shepheard in brane."

Ghost is Rios from Army of Two undercover.

• The skull mask is pretty much Rios' defining feature.
  • Nope. TF 141 most likely would have never included mercs, no matter the credentials. I doubt Rios would have the patience to learn an accent. Ghost isn't as...wacky as Rios, either.
  • Here's a possible compromise: Maybe Ghost knew Rios and picked up a habit or two from him?

The events of Modern Warfare 2 lead to a global nuclear holocaust.

• Russia invades the US. Various countries would see this as a perfect opportunity to settle some scores whilst the the US, Europe and Russia are occupied. China would invade Taiwan; they'd probably settle the dispute over the Spratlys once and for all by invading Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia while they're at it, too. Indonesia would attempt to invade Australia. Pakistan, which may have become controlled by hardline anti-American political groups, decides to attack India. North Korea would attack South Korea and Japan. Syria and Iran would attack Israel and US-occupied/controlled Iraq. Many of these powers control nuclear weapons, and these weapons have already been used, and it's a very slippery slope from tactical nuclear weapons use, to strategic weapons use, to a full-scale nuclear attack and a retaliatory counter-strike.
  • China is known to consider or at least planned to launch EMP strikes on Taiwan.
  • North Korea has nuclear weapons, and Japan would be able to develop them within weeks of a decision being made. Each of these nations would be willing to use nuclear weapons to ensure victory, stave off defeat, and their use would cause the other side to retaliate.
  • India and Pakistan may launch such attacks on each other as a first strike.
  • The possibility of Israel using nuclear weapons on Iran is very high, as is the potential for Iran to use them on Israel.
  • And of course, the big one. United States vs Russia. A Russian sub uses a nuclear torpedo to sink a US carrier group. The US launches a nuclear Tomahawk at the Russian fleet at Petropavlovsk. Germany uses nuclear mines to destroy invading Russian land forces. Russia attacks a NATO airbase in France, France attacks a Russian staging area inside Russia. Russia launches a nuclear attack on Paris, London and Berlin and an American base in Afghanistan. The UK, France and the US retaliate with a full scale launch on all Russian military installations and cities. Russia retaliates by launching its own full scale attack with its remaining ICBMs, bombers, and SSB Ns.
• This is probably what would happen in reality. It's a safe bet that Modern Warfare 3 will ignore the idea for the sake of not being titled "Call of Duty: Sticks n'Stones Warfare, though.
  • given that the series so far has been an ever-escalating cycle of attack, revenge, counter-revenge, and counter-counter-revenge, the possibility of the series ending in mass nuclear war is a pretty valid possibility.

And to elaborate on this...

MW 2 takes place in the same universe as Fallout

Washington D.C in ruins by the hand of a nuclear war during the course of the 21st century. MW 2 was just the catalyst. Soon it becomes World War III. China annexes the destroyed Russia. War ensues between America and China.

• The Fallout universe goes off on a tangent back in the 50's, the world went into 'yesterday's world of tomorrow.' The computers in Fallout are supposedly as advanced as they ever got, even a single computer monitor from the MW series disproves this. Sorry.

Cpl. Dunn is actually Alex Mercer.

Okay, so there's a government conspiracy afoot, right? Shepherd was secretly involved in the BLACKLIGHT project as well as his own scheme. When he went to recruit Allen, Mercer snuck in and consumed Dunn, proceeding to infiltrate the Ranger battallion in hopes of getting to Shepherd. Unfortunately, they Rangers were transferred back to Virginia shortly before the Russians attacked, so Mercer; still trying to maintain his cover, played the role of Dunn. Think about it, how many times have you seen Dunn take enough bullets to kill you twenty times over, and still get up? Immediately at the start of Second Sun, he takes a bullet to the shoulder and isn't impaired in the slightest. As for why he doesn't just use a devastator or start tearing Tanks apart barehanded, since the events of Prototype, he's trying to be focus more on the "heroic", less on the "sociopath" part of being a Heroic Sociopath, and doesn't want to needlessly slaughter the Rangers (Let's assume Dunn was part of BlackWatch before transferring to the Rangers, so he had it coming).

• • Alternately, Dunn wasn't Blackwatch, he was actually perfectly innocent; Alex acts scared shitless as Dunn because that's how the others expect him to act, it's part of his cover. Dunn was mortally wounded in combat and was the first such soldier Alex both found and was able to consume as a Mercy Kill without anyone seeing; this actually gels well with Prototype canon, which suggests via character development as the game approaches its conclusion that Alex (aka, Blacklight) is growing out of his Heroic Sociopath phase. In order to learn how to act like him, Alex would've had to have absorbed him fully with his memories intact instead of pounding his brain into paste; Dunn displays a sudden bout of patriotism after retaking Whiskey Hotel when another Ranger expresses a wish to counter-invade Russia because in taking Dunn's memories, Alex inherits his desire to serve; Alex could also wish to make up for the horrible things the real Alex Mercer did, and once someone else kills Shepherd, presumably crippling Blackwatch, sticking it out with the Rangers would be a convenient way of doing that.
  • If were going with the played by the same actor Epileptic Trees I propose that Dunn is actually Dale Earnhardt

Modern Warfare takes place in the same universe as the Tom Clancy games.

• In both, Russia was taken over by Ultranationalists with the same goal - the restoration of Soviet Russia. The first Ghost Recon takes place in 2008 - it's highly possible the US didn't officially get involved until Al-Asad's monkey business.
  • They should have had the XM29 in Modern Warfare. I liked GR's version of that gun.

The main character of MW3 will be the Astronaut from the beginning of Second Sun.

• The nuke didn't kill him; the shockwave never would've reached the ISS. In fact, the ISS exploded because of how awesome the Astronaut was, not because of the nuke. Then, in a level cut from the game, the Astronaut surfs back down to Earth aboard one of the piece of the station, lands in D.C., and begins clubbing Russian troops with a moon rock. The only reason that he didn't take back the White House is because he was too busy taking back the Capitol, Supreme Court building, Hampton Roads, and the Lincoln Memorial; Jimmy Ramirez and his squad got to Whiskey Hotel literally five seconds before the Astronaut would've.
  • And then he eventually becomes elected as President of the United States after he beats back the Arizonan support of the Russian invasion, and gets betrayed by Richard Hawk. This explains how President Wilson knew how to surf back to Earth from orbit on a piece of the space station!
    • That means the astronaut was chuck norris, but he is called sat1, Chuck Norris' name is too awesome to change, even for a codename.

Captain Price will be the Big Bad of Modern Warfare 3.

• He's already taken a turn for the nihilistic. In MW 3, he will put a permanent end to war by putting an end to humanity, most likely via nuclear holocaust, and he'll trick your PC into helping him do it.
  • Agreed. He lost his mind in the gulag and caused Shepherd's betrayal by blowing a nuke up over the East Coast. If you listen in on the radio conversations in Of Their Own Accord, Exodus and Wolverines! you will notice that while the war is tough, it was Unwinnable for the Russians long before Price launched the missile. And Soap plays his Dragon unknowingly.
• Alternatively, MW 3 will initially involve the US launching a counterattack on Russia. Price will be the Big Bad, but does it to force the superpowers to have to work together to take him down as part of a Xanatos Gambit to finally end the cycle of revenge.
  • So...he's going to execute the Zero Requiem?
    • Alternatively to the alternate (and most likely), the REAL bad guy will be "Suzy" (the guy Mac Millian hit in the head in "All Ghillied Up") out for revenge against Price and Mac Millian. After the main character (probably Ramirez) gets killed, a nuke explodes, and there's a climactic battle you'll be saved by Gaz, Ghost (who turns out to NOT be Gaz but rather his twin brother), and Mac Millian.

The "place" that Nikolai refers to at the end of Modern Warfare 2 is the last remaining Loyalist stronghold.

• It makes sense, and provides a window for the conspicuously-missing Kamarov to come back. Maybe Modern Warfare 3 could even involve helping the Loyalists retake Russia from the Ultranationalists at some point...
  • And in the first cutscene of Nikolai landing the helicopter at the camp you see a heavily bandaged Gaz limping out of the hospital tent, having overheard their arrival over the radio and deciding to snap out of his five year coma so he can meet up with his CO in a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming!
  • Mostly confirmed by MW3, though obviously without Gaz, and Kamarov didn't show up till much later. Said Loyalist stronghold turned out to be in India, and was promptly attacked by Makarov's goons. Also, the Loyalists end up being let back into Russia peacefully, as President Vorshevsky turned out to be farm more reasonable than the other Ultranationalists.

Gary 'Roach' Sanderson is the protagonist of Marathon.

• Look at the similarities between the two. Marathon Protagonist: Is familiar with advancing with only his weapon against an immense horde of foes, can reload a double-barrel shotgun with one hand, and is made from the bodies and minds of many dead warriors. Roach: Advances with only a weapon as backup against an immense horde of foes, reloads double-barrel shotguns with only one hand, and is dead. Don't ask me how this works but it does.

Crysis and Modern Warfare 2 are set in the same universe

• We know that in Modern Warfare 2 countries can inexplicably become far more powerful than they have any right to, and the North Koreans do so in Crysis. Meanwhile, Modern Warfare 2 takes place about 5 years before Crysis, which is more than enough time for Jake Dunn to become a commissioned officer, pass Delta Force selection, join Delta Force, and get his own Nanosuit, as well as get used to surprising happenings.
  • In addition, the reason why Ramirez and Sanderson are constantly placed on point, never shown fully, and regenerate quickly (not to mention survive normally lethal wounds, and have a HUD) is because they're wearing the basis for the Nanosuit.

Ghost is Sgt. Jackson

• While his head may have ended up looking like a knifed watermelon (poetic justice?), he still had a perfectly fine corpse from the head down. So they take a horribly scarred burn victim with prior military experience(a certain Sgt. Jackson, perhaps?) and transplant his mostly working head onto the high-end SAS body. The vocal cords were still intact, so that's why he sounds exactly the same, since during his recuperation he was in the UK and picked up the right accent. This makes what happens after you get the data quite ironic, since if he hadn't killed Ghost, he only would have lost 29,999 men.
  • "General Shepheard you let Al-Asad nuke me and turn me into radiation victim. Britishes came and put science in me to make me live and strong and big now..."

The entire plot is a Gambit Roulette by Britain

• MI 6 played EVERYONE from the start. After realising that Zakheav had survived they helped him supply Al-Asad with the nuke, knowing that he would use it to bring down any invasion force with him. They then played Shepard to start the war between America and Russia. The reason that Price and Makarov co-operate so quickly is that they're both part of the plan. The next stage of the plan is for Price and Soap to somehow stop the war before it goes nuclear, but has economically and militarily crippled Russia and America. With the two superpowers gone, Britain steps in to fill the gap. China obviously isn't an issue hence why they haven't been mentioned. The final playable scene is Soap and Price being knighted or receiving some sort of medal by Her Majesty. Of course knowing Soap's track record for final scenes the medal pin will end up piercing his lung or something...

Britain is an Unwitting Pawn for China

Where have the Chinese been in all of this? You really think we'd hear nothing from them about all of this? They're using Britain to play everybody else against each other. Once Britain has played their cards, China will unleash their own version of Task Force 141, led by Fu Manchu, Captain Price's long-lost twin brother

The name of the level "No Russian" is actually an in-joke by the game designers.

• He says "No rushin'?" because for most of the mission, you can't run and only walk.

The United States would have repelled the Russians anyway.

• The Russians only had as much success in their attack as they did because they hit the US by surprise. By the end of the fighting in DC, there are American jets making bombing runs. All Price did was make things a bit easier on the American infantry.

Sergeant Foley is a tactical genius, on par with Grand Admiral Thrawn and Lelouch

• The man took back Washington D.C. with a squad of soldiers and one extremely tenacious Mexican. The U.S. force deployed to Russia will consist of two soldiers: Sergeant Foley to issue the orders, and Ramirez to carry them out.
  • RAMIREZ! TAKE THE KREMLIN!
  • If that becomes a mission objective in the climatic mission for the Foley/Ramirez/Dunn campaign, MW 3 will be the best game ever.
    • "So there I was, doing my rounds, patrolling the Kremlin, when this Mexican guy pops out of my own hat and nearly shoots me dead! How did he even get in there? Must have taken some kind of tactical geniu-FOLEEEEEEEEEY!!"
      • Is it ever said that Ramirez is Mexican? I mean, he could easily be Filipino, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Cuban, or any other kind of Hispanic. Anyways, yes, Foley, will take over Russia, with his subordinates, the Heroic Mime of Hispanic descent, and Alex Mercer.

Cloning technology exists.

• Why does it seem Price has been in every IW game since the series started? Those are his clones. Ghost is also a clone of Gaz.
  • The first to use cloning were the Nazi's. They had perfected it between 1944-45. Which is the reason most Germans soldiers all look alike. But it to late to put it into to good use, as Germany was getting over run by the allies. Eventually it was recovered by the British when they occupied Germany.

PTSD

• Soap, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder hallucinated the entire second Modern Warfare game from inside a mental hospital. How else could you explain a plot that crazy happening.
  • Angry fanboys still raging over the dedicated servers hallucinating that Soap is hallucinating?
• Altenatively, Soap is drugged up and hallucinating/dreaming in a Russian hospital. It explains why the plot makes no damn sense, and why Price and Gaz/Ghost are there- he dreamed his dead comrades back to life.
• Or Soap died in the Loyalist chopper at the end of Modern Warfare, and the sequel is his Dying Dream. How did you think he got promoted to Captain so quickly?
  • Because he was the only one who wasn't now a war criminal or dead to take down Al-Asad and Zakhaev?

No Russian is actually a test by the government to see how many psychopaths are playing

The proof? You're never once told you HAVE to shoot at anyone. Anyone who actually followed Makarov's orders did so on the command of a terrorist.

Everything is a Xanatos Gambit by Burger Town

You won't be laughing at me when MW 2 comes out.

Captain MacMillan is the Astronaut from Second Sun

After the events of CoD4 Captain MacMillan joined NASA and became a highly decorated astronaut. On his fifty-seventh mission Captain MacMillan was setting up an orbital sniping rig so he could kill every single dog on the planet in an attempt to save his fellow soldiers from hours of frustration and stupid deaths. As MacMillan was just about to line up a shot that would kill over 9000 dogs and penetrate through the Earth's core to kill both Shepherd and Makarov (who he both knew were traitors before the first game started) Captain Price's nuke goes off. Distracted by the pretty, shiny, and completely harmless light, MacMillan accidentally fires his rifle into his personal GPS satellite. As MacMillan was using Stopping Power, it annihilates the satellite, several African countries, and pushes him into space. Luckily, MacMillan has been saved by aliens and is going to save the world in MW 3.

Makarov is pro-Loyalist.

Bear with me on this. Okay, so the Ultranationalists are winning the civil war with the Loyalists, and achieve power in the Russian government. If Makarov is pro-Ultranationalist, why does he apparently carry out terrorist attacks on the Ultranationalist government? And why does he apparently work with Shepherd to provoke Russia into a war with the US that they know is not going to end well? The obvious answer is that Makarov supports the Loyalists, and is pushing the Ultranationalists into war with the US so the US can force a full-scale regime change. This appeals to Shepherd, who wants to strengthen the US militarily. So, they cook up a plan to make the Ultranationalists attack the US and acheive both their goals.

Of course, Makarov hates Price because, in helping to kill Zakhaev, he's created a martyr that strengthens the Ultranationalists. Shepherd, of course, betrays Makarov because he's a convenient scapegoat, and killing him eliminates proof of his involvement in the plot. He tries to take out Soap, Price, and the rest of TF141 just to make sure they can't report any incriminating evidence against him they might have come across.

Makarov doesn't hate Americans. He doesn't hate anyone except the Ultranationalists, and is pushed into taking an extremely...extreme stance on bringing them down.

• Actually, there are two sects of Ultranationalists in the game, those loyal to the Russian government, and those loyal to Makarov.
  • Sure, Ultranationalists could be loyal to Makarov. Hell, that would fit this interpretation of Makarov like a glove if he made the anti-government Ultranationalists his buddies and pitted them against the government's troops. No matter who dies, he wins.
• None of which explains Makarov's criminal ties, his apparent animosity towards the remaining Loyalists, the fact that he adopts Communist symbolism, the general Lenin/Stalin symbolism between himself and Zakhaev, and the fact that most in Russia seem to believe they will defeat the US (including the Loyalist). If Makarov really IS a Loyalist plant, he is playing a very long, very strange, and very risky game.
  • Not the one who came up with the theory, but....Criminal ties: He has to support himself somehow and oppose the Ultranationalist government somehow. Animosity toward Loyalists: Where was this shown or mentioned? According to this theory, he's opposed to the Ultranationalist government that we know is currently in power. Communist symbolism: If he's faking being an Ultranationalist, of course he's going to be using their symbolism. Lenin/Stalin: Irrelevant. Russia believing they can defeat the US: Also irrelevant. According to this theory, the entire point behind him provoking a war is to push the Ultranationalist government to a breaking point by pitting it against an enemy it can't defeat.
    • The animosity to the Loyalists was more or less mentioned in his bio, in a few pieces of enemy intel, and in the EU (mainly some interviews and a few promotional maters). He is confirmed to have been a political terrorist shortly after his discharge from Spetznaz, and it is known that Zakhaev apparently took him under his wing personally, and that he was apparently active during the Russian Civil War. The only way for a Loyalist agent to get those kinds of credentials would be as a deep undercover operative. And I mean so-deep-he-is-standing-on-the-Earth's-core-deep. Secondly, while he is clearly gunning for the Ultranationalist leadership, the theory that he is trying to topple the regime by using its hubris to smash it headfirst into the West comes across as a very, VERY risky gamble at best. From what we have seen of the Ultranationalists so far, they are remarkably powerful, particularly for a nation that should by all accounts be in abject, ruinous decline (see real world population decline + the costs of the Civil War + the continuos Loyalist issue), and it is quite likely that were it not for the decision to send a large portion of the military on an army-sized kamikaze mission to Washington DC, they might well have the upper hand. And if the Ultranationalists were somehow able to defeat the West, Loyalist Makarov's choices for aid pretty much boil down to China or some emerging superpower in Africa or the Middle East, which is hardly a solid bet considering not only the power of Ultranationalist Russia in any such case but also the probably costs to Russia itself from such "help." And while the Lenin/Stalin connection may be irrelevant in the game world save perhaps as a way for Makarov- in whatever capacity he is actually acting as- to fashion himself as Zakaev's heir, it is highly likely it does mean something here in the real world, where characters are not made entirely randomly. In short, unless Makarov is under such deep cover nobody but the probably-already-dead Loyalist bigwigs knew about him (or at least neglected to pass that information on to their Western allies) , we have no reason to believe he is a Loyalist partisan, and as such Occam's Razor kicks in.

MW 3 will primarily take place in Europe

Think about it: The United States has just repelled a invasion of the Mid-Atlantic, and presumably the Ultranationalists are still in power in Russia. Even if Price and Soap get some indisputable evidence about Shepherd, the fact still remains that Russia invaded the United States, and, oh yes, the Russian leaders who did such an attack are still free. The ship has already left sail, for both sides. Russia, however, would be unable to go again at the Continental US (okay, maybe Alaska), so more than likely their target would be to go after Western Europe, particularly the UK (thus meaning that, for Price and Soap, It's Personal now). The "Nuclear War" scenario will somewhat occur, but for sake of gameplay they will be handwaved as being stopped by Missile Defense systems or similar things (that said, there WILL be at least one level in a city that has been nuked). The European Setting will bring the COD franchise full circle: it started in Europe during WWII, and now it's WWIII in Europe.

• As previously mentioned, the US Strike team will be Foley, Dunn/Alex Mercer/Dale Earnhardt, and Ramirez, who will be doing everything...
• And in keeping with the theme of someone getting nuked in every Modern Warfare game (Aftermath in the first, and the nuke Price launches to cause an electromagnetic pulse in the second, where Ramirez bears a good bit of a nuke as well), some poor PC will also get nuked, even if you're only given brief control like the astronaut in Second Sun or the President of Qurac.
• Partly confirmed by the new trailers; England, France, and Germany are all major locations, though America is also caught up in the action.

Shepherd is a good guy, Price is the true big bad.

Captain Price is and has always been a Terminator (of the living humans + robot parts + control chip variety), explaining his resilience to normal gunfire throughout the games. He was sent back in time by Skynet in order to prepare the world for its coming by destabilizing the U.S. and Russia. He's been active sense world war 2, explaining his immortality and why the MW world is so different from our own. Price used his SAS cover to start the Russian civil war in the first place by shooting off Zahkaev's arm, thus driving him mad, and had all the soldiers under his command replaced with cyborgs. The only reason he stopped the nuke launch in MW 1 was because Skynet was not ready to strike yet. Jackson was also a terminator and his dead body was recovered from Quarac by Sheperd, alerting him to the threat. Soap and Roach (both of whom are cyborgs, Soap supplanting Price's position while he's infiltrating Russia) actually decoded the ACS module at the Russian base to set up the Russian attack. Makarov was hired by them to begin with (using money gained with future knowledge of the stockmarket) and was alerted by them that Allen (a reversed engineered cyborg created by Sheperd, but retaining his humanity) was a spy. Ramirez and Sergeant Folley are also reverse engineered versions of the cyborgs who have kept their humanity. The information they regain from the safe house in Arcadia shows Sheperd that almost all of Taskforce 141 have been replaced by Skynet. He thus begins sending the taskforce on suicide missions in order to kill them off, while his own trusted squad of cyborgs deals with the Russian invasion. This explains why he killed Roach and Ghost with a high powered pistol to destroy their CPU's and then set them on fire to get rid of any backup processors.

• • The VIP in Wolverines was John Connor, who was on his way to debrief Price about Skynet's opening moves.
    • The nuke launched by Price was his way of trying to disable Sheperd's loyal cyborgs with an EMP, however Sheperd had noticed their weakness after the Qurac Debacle and had their processors hardened to prevent this.
    • Ghost is the Gaz Terminator, who's cover of living tissue was destroyed by the headshot from Zahkaev.

Shepherd isn't dead

If you were to hit in the eye with a knife you wouldn't necessarily die instantly. Plus, Captain MacTavish was inflicted with worse injuries and will most likely survive. He'll probably show up in the next game with an eyepatch and a score to settle.

• • He was dead, but Cerberus rebuilt him.
  • Plus, in Black Ops, Weaver gets violently stabbed in the eye and survives to spend the rest of the game wearing an eyepatch.

MacMillan was meant to make an appearance in Modern Warfare 2...

But he escaped into the tall grass and the developers couldn't find him. They say he still haunts Wasteland, sniping unsuspecting Suzies...

Ramirez will return in MW 3.

He's the only American PC in the Modern Warfare series that doesn't die, so he's clearly special. As for what he'll do in the sequel, it's possible he could either appear as a promoted NPC who's taken several levels in badass (a la Soap in MW 2), or reprise his role as player character. Either way, he'll end up as America's answer to Soap: a recurring character who represents his country.

MW 3 will have two endings.

At the end of MW 3, Ramirez or the new American PC will meet with Soap and fight him. You chose who to play as, and the story diverges from there.

• Which brings upon the question of why two people on the same side would fight, barring the terrorist charge, and even that would be stretching for an explanation.
  • Ramirez, kill that terrorist.
  • They're not on the same side, at least so they think. Soap and Price are now considered international terrorists and Ramirez is still a U.S. Army Ranger, and seemed to be under Shepherd's command (Shepherd talks to Sgt. Foley in the briefing before the first mission in the Capitol Wasteland D.C. area). While they may fight for the same ideals, and would be on the same side if Ramirez knew the truth about Shepherd, Ramirez does not. At least yet. Which sets up the possibility of Ramirez, Soap, Price, and Foley working together in a Badass Unit.
    • The 'Everyone working together' ending would only be possible if you got every single piece of enemy intelligence, which now have a story-line purpose rather than just collectibles.

There was going to be a betrayal anyways

Shepherd didn't betray Task Force 141 because he was bitter over the events of Call Of Duty 4, he was doing damage control. A betrayal would have happened eventually even if Shepherd helped Ghost and Roach escape. Case in point: The nuclear missile launch in 'Contingency' was all Price's idea, how could Shepherd trust Price or any TF 141 member after that? Had Shepherd not done it first, Price would have done it eventually though he might not get Soap on his side.

• Which brings upon the question that why wouldn't he- if he were on the up and up- be unduly angry over the nuke? Sure, there is the fallout from the ISS getting destroyed (both metaphorical and literal), but that seems like a fairly cheap price to pay for pretty much breaking the electronic backbone of the REF in and around Washington. It would've taken some explaining, of course, but it would probably have been accepted. That, and there is the fact that damage control doesn't explain half of what we see Shepard do.

Archer and Toad survived.

In "Loose Ends" when you are guarding the DSM, they are your sniper cover. After you leave and are fleeing, Ozone and Scarecrow (if they've survived that long) die. But Archer and Toad aren't mentioned. Perhaps they will be the PCs of MW 3.

• Jossed. They're not.

Zakhaev was one of the first STALKERs and knew of the the Zone's activity

Why the hell would he meet in Chernobyl? He was going to use the technology of the C-Conscious as a new weapon to help restore mother Russia, the only problem is that he realized how unstable it would be eventually abandoned the project, which led to the C-Concious going rogue before 1996. At the time of the assassination attempt, he simply knew the location well, that why he decided to make the arms deal over there. This could also explain the strength of the Ultranationalists, the Zone's harsh environment has trained them well enough to fight off humans with regular ease. -- Andaria

• This... makes far more sense than it should in some aspects, but not nearly enough overall. While his runins with the Ukrainian military (and their Hat of being utterly corrupt, ineffectual, and generally useless) might well have led to his disdain/hatred of an independent Ukraine (and thus support of a reabsorbtion of the Ukraine back into Russia proper), and potential conflicts with Clear Sky leading to distrust of the West (which Clear Sky is- rightfully or wrongfully- believed to be an agent of), and it would also go a fair amount towards explaining how Zakhaev can survive otherwise devastating injuries and still be somewhat combat ready and how his men can operate in and around radiation/radioactive weapons as well as they do, but it just lacks a few things to make it even remotely plausible. For one, if he is a STALKER, where did his reputation as an arms dealer come from? Did he decide to just randomly drop his lucrative arms contracts for a year or so to go spelunking around a radioactive wasteland? Or did he emerge from said radioactive wasteland and suddenly become filthy rich within a few years? And if he were a STALKR, where would he have found the time to raise get married and have a son (Viktor), or to attach himself the the Ultranationalist banner? And why are the dogs in Chernobyl fairly normal rabid dogs rather than the mutant blind ones we see in STALKER? And finally, how would he have pieced together the C-Consciousness at all when the first person to do so and get out alive (canon Strelok) also destroyed said C-Consciousness? And this is before we talk about the all kinds of strange things in STALKER that we don't see in the game (for instance, why would anybody- Zakhaev or the West- risk deploying all that they did when a sudden surge could kill everybody who isn't in shelter and do god knows what to the equipment).

General Shepherd's plan in Modern Warfare 2 had nothing to do with re-establishing America as a military power.

Instead, he provoked a war between the two biggest nuclear powers in the world, the US and Russia, so humanity would destroy itself in a nuclear holocaust. After seeing 30,000 of his troops die in "Shock and Awe" while the rest of the world "just fuckin' watched," Shepherd suffered a Heroic BSOD and realized that Humans Are the Real Monsters, so he decides to pull a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on the entire human race. He stages the No Russian massacre, using Makarov as a pawn, in order to start World War III. Nuclear weapons would probably be used in such a conflict and most of humanity would be wiped off the map. Presumably every other country would take sides in the conflict and the whole world would be beating the crap out of each other (it's not the first time this has happened).

Ultranationalist Russia took over Europe during the five-year Time Skip.

It has been done, it could be done again. America and Britain most likely bailed out early and tried to negotiate "peace" with Russia because Britain is too weak (see the WMG above about MacMillan being an astronaut) while America has a large part of its armed force stationed in the Middle East and is scared of nuclear apocalypse. This would explain why America didn't get any intel from its NATO allies and why the Russian expeditionary forces are using weird weapons. As for the weapons that aren't currently used by any European armed forces (FAL, TAR-21 and Striker), they used the FAL because it's the western equivalent of AK-47, the TAR-21 because it uses STANAG magazine and the Striker because it's banned in America and they're huge jerks.

• Main problems: Firstly, such an offensive by the Ultranationalists would almost certainly have triggered some nuclear exchange, or at least some form of all-out war that would have been unlikely to just end. Secondly, the Ultranationalist army was bloodied and depleted from the Civil War, so who how would they get the resources to pull it off? Thirdly, this is unlikely to have resulted in an info blackout like we see in the game, because La Résistance would probably be hard at work piecing together the actions of the occupiers and any other tidbits regarding Ultranationalist intents, and you can hardly completely hide the buildup of a massive amphibious fleet, now can you? (though to be fair, that is one of the better excuses I can find for the fact that apparently nobody in Europe feels like calling Washington to tell them about the little matter of a massive Russian navy heading West) Fourthly, there is the issue of the UK. Simply put, in-game we hear absolutely nothing about Britain- where a good half of the Player Characters are from, by the way- and pretty much no evidence to explain that Soap, Roach, etc are acting as forces for a Government in Exile (say, the Free British Forces). And even if Britain has somehow escaped occupation, there is still the issue of why nobody in London saw fit to inform Washington about the aforementioned big honkin' Russian Navy passing by Dover or Scarpa Flow.
  • As mentioned before, America is scared of a nuclear apocalypse after losing 30,000 men to a single warhead, so they didn't nuke the Russian forces. The only nuclear-armed countries in Europe are Britain, which America most likely tried its hardest to discourage from sending the Vulcans on a one-way trip to Moscow, and France, which many works of fiction portrayed as Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey. CIA might've gotten some intel from resistance movements, but they're most likely denounced as fake or paranoia since an invasion of the East Coast is much less plausible than Alaska or Hawaii. Also, as crazy as they are, it's unlikely that the Ultranationalist strategists would've told the Antonov fleet to fly over America's only remaining best buddy.
    • True, the bomb Al-Asad placed in Quarac might have stopped Western nuclear retaliation, but it was unlikely to have prevented conventional deployment against the invasion, wwhich should have happened in any case due to the Mutual defense pacts regarding NATO. Secondly, the issue is not so much of the Ultranationalists being stupid enough to fly over Britain (even THEY aren't that crazy. Yet.), but of getting the amphibious FLEET (which would have been damn well required for an operation like this after the initial airborne landing) past, because from the European ports of the Russian Navy (most likely St. Petersburg, Severmorsk, or Murmansk), the amphibious fleet is pretty much hamstrung passing either Scarpa flow in the North of Britain or the Channel Ports in the South where they are the LEAST likely to take such news lying down, with shades of Sealion and all). Granted, they MIGHT have been able to rebase at, say, the French Breton ports or the Iberian Atlantic ports, but the simple fact that such a force would have been in the middle of a nest of Allied resistance cells and intelligence assets far from home, where security would be a nightmare, seems dubious. And as for the Antonovs, the simple fact is that they wouldn't have to fly over Britain to risk being detected. Long range British recon near the channel coupled with French/Belgian/Dutch resistance would likely spot such a move and relay it to London and then to Washington (and do we have any reason to believe the communications equipment was brought down by the ACS?). That, and the Royal Navy, the USN, and whatever Exiled navies remains as well as possibly a few other allies (the Canadians would- if nothing else- be keeping a very close eye on this, since they are vulnerable in three ways- the Transatlantic, the Trans Pacific, and the Polar route) would be patrolling the Atlantic studiously, so it is hard to believe either a large fleet of very large transport planes or naval vessels would slip by unawares. The main way to avoid that- the Vladivostok-Panama-Havana-DC route- is prohibitively long, and puts the fleet at risk from the US Pac. Com, the Australians, and the Kiwis. That, and the most pressing issues inverse are not addressed: firstly, how the Ultranationalists were able to take their victorious but savagely bloodied war machine from the Civil War and Russia's devastated and Loyalist partisan ridden capacities and somehow turn them into a war machine that steamrollers European NATO and any other potential Western allied aid sometime within five years. Even if we accept the possibility of the Ukraine and Belarus rejoining voluntarily and the local Russian minorities aiding the invasion while perhaps cutting something out with Serbia and Montenegro, they STILL are facing the Baltic Republics, Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy, and Slovenia. At least. That is quite a feat. And secondly, there is the simple matter that nowhere do we hear of this massive occupation. One would think that the Ultranationalists accomplishing what Lundendorff, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, etc al. failed to do would warrant SOME kind of mention by the characters.
  • Except that as we see in the game, the Russian forces weren't supported by any kind of amphibious forces. And if they're strong enough to take over all of Europe, their navy, or at least their air force is probably large and strong enough to force USN and Royal Navy out of a good part of the Atlantics. Regarding the secrecy issue, they could've launched the fleet from one of the Mediterranian countries, landing at night scattered on multiple airbases (a forced curfew by an army that bombards its people with rockets for the lulz wouldn't be too implausible) or only getting mid-air refueling. Yes, it would've been longer and more resource-consuming than a trip across the Atlantic, but except they're careless enough to land too many planes in a single airbase, few people would've had any idea where they're going. As for how they were able to take Europe so quickly, let's say that it's the Rule of Cool at work. This is WMG, not Just Bugs Me. The point is having fun, not being logical.
    • Good point regarding naval basing in the Med, I hadn't thought of that. But still, that would still mean slipping out either from the Straits of Gibraltar (which would likely have been riddled with Western spies, even if the occupiers could restrict access to the coast) or the Suez Canal (which would have either required getting permission from Egypt or forcing the canal and running the risk of destruction in the confines of the Canal Zone and the Red Sea). Regarding the idea of there being no amphibious fleet, the simple fact of the matter is that Antonovs alone could not have carried what we see ingame (apparently a fully functioning army complete with armor, artillery, and airborne assets) to DC. At the very LEAST the heavy artillery and the tanks would have had to be transported by ship, particularly after the Antonovs were intercepted on their third or fourth run and either shot down or damaged so severely as to be put out of action. And yes, I do realize that WMG is to be fun, and I hope I have not hindered that. It's just that I have fun by discussing some of these things and questioning how they would actually work.
    • Al-Asad's forces could've taken North Africa during the Time Skip. From what we know, in MW1 the US forces are fighting in Saudi Arabia, while in MW2 they're fighting in Afghanistan, which most likely meant that they have been pushed back. Also, the game did show the BTRs being air-dropped from transport planes. Yes, it's not realistic, but it's relatively believable compared to some of the game's more outlandish scenes.
      • Perhaps, but the fact that Al-Asad dropped a bloody NUKE on his own capital city- which did not defeat the US but only ruined a good deal of his still-American-occupied country- probably dampened a lot of support for him. And his cowardice probably didn't do any favors. If anything, the Op For we face in Afghanistan are far less equipped and armed than the ones we faced in Quarac in ME 1, and their proximity to Russia may well indicate that THEY are the ones being pushed back, with the survivors relying upon Russian support from across Central Asia to continue the fight.

Modern Warfare shares universe with Uncharted.

A few years before the Russian Civil War, the Ultranationalist party sent Lazarevic, along with a part of their armed forces to the Himalayas to find the Shambhala and bring back the Cintamani stone to help the Ultranationalists to conquer the world.

• • Sometimes before the first game, Soap found the Shambhala and drank the sap of the Tree of Life, explaining his invincibility and his mountain climbing skill.
• A couple issues with this: firstly, Lazearvic's goons are shown to be hired guns from various corners of the world, including some Americans, which doesn't fit with the idea that the troops Drake faces are some of Zakhaev's men. Secondly, Lazarvic himself is Serbian rather than Russian. Sure, I can imagine that the Ultranationalists could find a place for one of Milosevic's axe men in their organization (what with the close ties between Belgrade and Moscow due to the Yugoslav Wars and NATO), the question of how he would join them in the first place and why he would personally want to are left unanswered.
  • Lazarevic might've joined the Ultranationalist to protect himself from war crime investigations. Also, Lazarevic could've hired mercenaries along the way to the Himalayas since they're more experienced than your average Russian country boy.
    • The simple problem with your first assumption is that the world at large thinks that Lazarvic got killed when somebody dropped a few metric tons of high explosives on him during a raid. And since you can't have a corpse stand trial for war crimes (as his Real Life boss showed), that eliminates the "looking to escape" motive, because the only person with any indication otherwise is our dear Elena Fisher, who is largely treated as a quack for it.
    • A not-so-dead war criminal trying to hide by, say, pretending to be some random farmer could still be discovered. A not-so-dead war criminal being hidden by a major political party with a big, scary army, not so much. Just look at how well the Ultranationalists hid Zakhaev for 15 years after the failed assassination. Also he's probably supporting the Ultranationalist party's communist ideals or just want some power for himself.
  • Alternatively, Lazaravic never had anything to do with the Ultrantionalists; Price found Shambala shortly after World War II, and careful rationing of sap from the Tree of Life ensures he's long lived without going nuts. He gave some to Gaz at some point, so Gaz is Ghost, wearing the ski mask to keep the secret with a made-up background ("Simon Riley" doesn't exist) and this is why the point-blank Deagle shot to his head was a Pretty Little Headshot; the sap made him more durable. Is Gaz had the forethought to keep an emergency dose on him, he could've chugged it while defending the DSM and thus survived Shepard's betrayal.

Soap and Price are Author Avatars of Jason West and Vince Zampella, while Shepherd represents Bobby Kotick.

They're sick of Activision milking the hell out of the franchise they created, so they made a plan to bail out of Activision. They put a Foreshadowing in Modern Warfare 2 to make themselves feel better about fighting an Unwinnable court battle against their former employer.

James Ramirez is a the son of the "Most Interesting Man In The World" from the Dos Equis Commercial

No explanation needed; two Memetic Badass Spaniards who can do everything. It's obviously genetic.

Modern Warfare takes place in the same universe as Black Lagoon.

Balalaika more than likely was at the Cernobyl meeting where Zakhaev got his arm shot off, Foley is Dutch's illegitimate son, and Ramirez is a distant relative of Roberta, which explains everything about his ability to take down entire armies within minutes.

Modern Warfare 3 will involve...

Jetpacks. Also, The French will launch a nuke, disguised as a space shuttle and the player character's squad will use those jetpacks to infiltrate the launch facility to disarm them. During this mission, Soap will be revealed to be a Time Lord and will bring in reinforcements for the big assault with his TARDIS. My source for this? It was a dream I had about 2 weeks ago. But it was probably prophetic because something this awesome can't go undeveloped.

A CHALLENGER HAS ARRIVED! WMG FROM DIFFERENT TROPER

NO! Mechas! and Japanese! I bet they will recreate some scenes with alien battle armor in District 9, and Japanese will be involved as a backup force for Americans after the Russians invades Japan because their alliance with America while the rest of the Americans invade Russia through Europe.

You play as Americans, Soap and Price (they are mercenaries under a different name now), and Japanese. And because of trademark, they will call it Future Warfare instead of Modern Warfare.

Modern Warfare 1 is commentary on the public's view of war vs how war actually is

The game presents two views of war, the "Hollywood" glamorized view that people who know nothing about war have, and the real view. The American side of the game is the Hollywood view. They do everything the public would consider right, everything Honor Before Reason style, everything you'd see in a pro-war movie for a public who has never experienced it, "no man gets left behind" and all that. Then it shows us just how badly that can work out for you. It shows how if a war is fought like that, things will go wrong, badly. Your American character dies after going to save a wounded comrade despite knowing of the likelihood that this would be fatal, and so on. Then, on the other side of things, the SAS fight dirty, preform wetwork, do things nobody would consider honorable or right, and it's them that get things done. It's the nasty, dirty, sneaky, just-how-different-are-we-from-the-enemy sort of thing that wins a war, and that's why when they do it, they get results.

Price dies in Modern Warfare 3

Just so I can say I called it. (Soap appears to be set up as the series' main character, so if either of them dies, it's Price.)

• Quite the opposite.

The American Protagonist of MW3 will be...

A member of group of Navy SEALs sent to track down Soap and Price, who stumbles onto evidence of the collusion between Shepherd and Makarov to start the war. Your CO, however, refuses to trust the evidence, either because he believes it to be faked by Price or because he was in Shepherd's pocket as part of the Shadow Company. There will also be an opportunity to choose which side to support at the mid-point of the game with a mini-climatic quickdraw event where you can choose to shoot either Price or your (possibly) corrupt CO. If you shoot Price, all the evidence of Shepherds bastardness dies with him, and your SEAL team comes within a hair of killing Makarov, before something suitably ironic happens to you and he Karma Houdini's his way into the history books as the one who got away. If you shoot your CO, you join up with Price to succesfully take down Makarov. The last act of the game shifts back to the Rangers, who are making Ramirez do everything about to take Moscow.

All the Four Horsemen along with Sheperd and Makarov are Templars from Assassin's Creed

OK, for those who don't know, the four horsemen were the main antagonists of the first game, Al-Asad, brutal dictator of an unknown arab country (AKA Saudi Arabia), Imran Zakahev and his son, Victor, leaders of the ultranationalist russian political party and military force, and an unknown fourth man (my money is on Makarov). They are all Templars, again seeking the piece of Eden. I have no evidence to back up this claim, as frankly I have no idea how taking over Russia and the Middle East or, in Sheperds case, expanding US influence has to do with finding the piece of Eden, but hey, that's why this is called Wild Mass Guessing.

• Hey, if the Templars were able to set in motion WWII with the help of the Templars Hitler, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and JP Morgan, creating a nuclear holocaust is pretty much child's play by this point. I guess that makes Price and Soap secretly Assassins.

Shepherd is a rogue Assassin.

"30,000 men" sounds a bit like a Requiescat in pace speech Ezio would give.

"23 years ago, I lost my father and two brothers in a Templar plot, and the world just <insert Renaissance-appropriate Italian oath here> watched..."

Captain Mac Millian is a Superhuman

I mean the man was run over by a HELICOPTER and still was able to pull off headshots. This can only mean that he is secretly some sort of superhuman, or more likely a space alien capable of regeneration.

By the events of MW 3, Price and Soap will have raised an army

Realizing that Price's final speech ("this is for the record") was supposedly broadcast via satellite to anyone who would listen, it makes sense that such a Memetic Badass would garner some kind of following. Many gun-nut, anti-government types would have rallied around this message and formed something of an army for Price to command. Playing as Soap, a big choice in MW 3 comes in the form of siding with Shepherd's successor, who represents a morally questionable (but legitimate) American government, or with Price, whose grip on reality is becoming more and more tenuous as the game progresses.

The Juggernauts are superhumans.

A bomb suit can't withstand the kind of punishment that they can take. Alternatively...

• • They're customized bomb suits, according to Word of God.

The Juggernauts are aliens/time travellers with super armour disguised as modern-day bomb suits.

Same as above.

McMillan will appear in Call of Duty: Black Ops

Why waste an awesome character on two bloomin' missions?

• One of which he has an injured leg (not that he was any less awesome at that point, he just needs more appearances where he can walk).
  • Sadly, no. But what was really unexpected was seeing Dimitri Petrenko return, even if only for one level.

Reznov isn't dead.

Hudson is lying - Reznov's death is faked, twice (one for the escape, the other for the "real" informant who "died" during the attack on MACV). They're trying to jostle Alex out of his number programming by claiming Reznov was Dead All Along - and Reznov actually does contact Alex when he ascends from the Numbers Station. In addition, Mason can take the blame for killing Steiner - Reznov is too important to be blamed for Steiner's death, so why not have some grunt who's been going off the rails recently be blamed instead?

• Not to mention we never actually see his supposed death at the hands of the Red Army—the scene simply cuts away as Mason stares at Reznov's truck from the train. If Woods can survive by virtue of his body not being found, so can Reznov. Furthermore, Hudson doesn't really have any way of backing up his claim that Reznov is dead; after all, he wasn't there at Vorkuta, and there's no way he could have gotten any kind of documentation for the death of a single Soviet prisoner. Besides, he's WAY too tough to go down so easily...
• And there's also the fact that sticking too close to Reznov during sneaking about on Rebirth Island will have him physically move you about - not to mention that Reznov needs to translate for Alex when the Russian guards speak. [Even if Alex knows Russian from his time in Vorkuta, he only knows some. Note that he doesn't speak when undercover. Ever.]
  • More additions: Reznov knifes a Viet Cong too far away for Mason to hallucinate, especially in the tunnels.
  • In the same sequence, he tells Mason things he could not possibly have known for himself: as far as Mason and Woods knew, the rat tunnel was just like any other one of its type, but Reznov somehow knew that Kravchenko's forward compound was down there.
• More proof: one of the emails on Hudson's account has a man under the alias of John Trent say, "Please tell Mason one last thing. This time, it's freedom for both of us". Well, gee, where have we heard something like that before, huh?
  • Ahem.
• Further evidence: In the intel files for Vorkuta, Ryan Jackson compiles a report on Reznov that is dated in 1966 - three years after Reznov was supposed to be killed. Yet the report does not include a date of death and speaks of Reznov in the present tense, as if he is still alive .
  • Furthermore John Trent, who is heavily implied to be Reznov working under an alias, speaks of secret power players who have plans to change the world as it currently exists and gives Hudson a cryptic message days prior to John F. Kennedy's assassination that on November 22, 1963, "things will change" and that he should be ready. The CIA Database even has a picture of Reznov in clothes that he is never seen wearing in the story and is listed with the codename of "Wolf", implying that Reznov is still alive and working as a spy behind the scenes of the story.
  • Treyarch mentions Reznov in preview material for Black Ops II, bringing up the notion of him being a figment of Mason's imagination in the first game and then immediately challenging it. Seems likely that we might get to see what really happened to him during BO II's first act, set in the 80s.

The "Jonathan" assigned to burn Mason and friends in South Africa is Price.

The [REDACTED] bit is short enough to fit Price.

• Did we mention he's SAS?
• In b4 flame war over Treyarch/Infinity Ward/Haters of Infinity Ward
• From a purely realistic standpoint, that'd put him at least in his sixties in CoD4. So unlikely; Unless it's that Price's father or something.
  • Price is too old to be in the SAS, realistically. He's in at least his fifties when MW 2 rolls around, if his age doesn't tell you anything.
    • Frame of reference please?
      • Easy. It's been 20 years since Pripiyat, yes? Well, Price was too old to be in the SAS in Call of Duty 4 because there's a set limit on years you can serve- something like 10 years. ALREADY he's PAST SAS age. :p
      • No. There's a maximum age for applying for selection (32 years), however officers who complete two tours with the regiment, which Price would have to have done to still be in the SAS at the start of CoD4 (a tour in the SAS is three years, and Price has been in the regiment for at least ten) can join the regiment permanantly. Further, if we assume he's in his early twenties in 1996, then he's not too old to be in the SAS in CoD4. His being too old in MW 2 is a non-issue since he's not technically in the SAS anymore.
• Didn't I-Dub confirm that WWII Price is CoD4/MW2's Grandfather? So, maybe the lineage is WWII Price is father to Hypothetical Black Ops Price, who is father to CoD4/MW2 Price. So, the Price's have a tendency to get into the SAS.

The next game will have McMillian

Someone was going to say it eventually. Might as well get it out of the way now.

• Sadly, only as a voiceover in a pre-mission cutscene.

In Black Ops, Reznov wasn't a hallucination

He was a ghost. Helping Mason from beyond the grave, to ensure that the mission he left him is completed. When Mason executed Steiner while claiming to be Reznov, that was because Reznov (ghost) possessed Mason, so that he could take revenge personally. Reznov's final congratulation to Mason after the underwater broadcast station is destroyed was Reznov thanking Mason for finishing what Reznov started, so that he could finally pass on and rest in peace.

Reznov was brainwashed himself or worked with Dragovich to kill all people related to Nova-6

The Maverick Code when spelled out says "Reznov is dead, or is he dead. There was no body. Is he who he says he is." Reznov was either manipulated by Dragovich or somehow came to work with him, and assigned Mason not to kill Kennedy, as Mason believed, but to kill all of the individuals related to Nova 6 once they have completed the project. Dragovich has a pattern of killing everyone related to Nova-6. So once the plan began, he would start the broadcasts, which would tell Mason to begin his work of killing everyone related to Nova-6. This explains how Reznov knew that Dragovich wasn't trusted in Moscow, unless that was in the dossier. Why would Dragovich kill himself after his plan? So he would never be captured and his plan would continue since if everyone related to the plan, including him, was dead, there would be no way to stop it. His plan was only half-way successful in this regard since Mason did shut down the project, and the Rusalka was destroyed.

Captain Price is an Immortal from Baccano!

Sometime in the 1930's, Price encountered an Elixer and drank it, thus granting him immortality. When WWII rolled around, he signed up, knowing he couldn't be killed. 60 years later, he's still fighting. Think about it: This explains his appearance in both wars, plus the fact that he never seems to die from gunshots.

'Sergei' was the real Reznov.

Alex Mason saw the true Reznov die as Sergei. The 'Reznov' seen 'wielding the fist of iron', and such, was really some other random prisoner, if he did in fact exist at all. Mason's brainwashing and whatnot stopped him from realizing that Reznov died holding open the door at Vorkuta.

Black Ops was originally going to have a mission where you assassinate JFK

Given how peripheral to the main plot that twist is at the end, it seems like they were originally going to make a much bigger deal out of it. My guess is that Treyarch originally wanted to have a mission where you shoot from the grassy knoll to have their own "No Russian"-type shock level but that Activision eventually told them not to put it into the game, as it would be far too shocking and controversial.

The Modern Warfare games take place after an alternate outcome of Axis Powers Hetalia: Paint it White.

The Movie of the series basically involved an sudden alien invasion. But suppose the aliens won and succeeded in draining the world and everyone on it of their color, beauty and vitality. Fast forward a couple decades and Earth has turned into a cynical Crapsack World just a few Russian invasions short of nuclear annihilation. Of course the only reason why the whole colorless thing isn't evident in-game is because of a strong Weirdness Censor. This could also explain why the Ultra-Nationalist Russia of Zakhaev and Makarov behaves the way it is. Or why General Shepherd is so keen in making America great again.

Captain Price is actually a battlefield cover for England.

Copied shamelessly from the Hetalia WMG page, it's not that hard to imagine "Arthur Kirkland" serving alongside and befriending the aforementioned soldier at some point during the WW 2-era games. At some point, however, the original Price gets killed in action, prompting England to take his identity in memory of the man. But as the War drew to a close, he decided to retain the name and mustached appearance as his cover whenever entering combat alongside humans. Besides, how else could he survive the sort of crap he's gone through? Up to and including being locked up in a Russian gulag for three years.

Reznov and Jonathan Price will face off.

Presuming that John Trent is indeed Reznov and Jonathan's last name is indeed Price, then the two baddest asses in Call of Duty will eventually face off as Reznov defends his friend Mason while Price attempts to kill him.

Modern Warfare 3 will include a level in Space

Modern Warfare 2 originally had a plan for an entire level on the ISS, But was cut. I believe that MW 3 will have a level set on a rebuilt ISS in the future which has been rigged up to fire warheads at targets across the world during its rotation of the earth. The player will play as an astronaut sent to disarm the warheads, but runs into trouble inside and subsequently gets into the same trouble Sat1 got into in MW 2 in Second Sun, and as he floats past the ship which had carried him up to the ISS with the pilot desperately trying to contact you, the warheads go off and hit the first target.

Captain Price is Arnold's father from Hey Arnold!!

If we completely go by both series, completely ignoring Word of God, Price's first name is a mistery, as is Arnold's last. Also, his parents are completely missing, citing an "adventure" as the reason. This "adventure", is a cover story so Arnold doesn't have to live with the atrocities of war. The Its established that his grandfather fought in WWII, making the Price from those installments Grandpa, and the one from Modern Warfare Arnold's father.

• I know my theory is Jossed by Word of God's reveal that Shortman is his real last name, but maybe that was a cover to prevent Arnold from learning the truth?

Modern Warfare 3 will have child soldiers

• The first game had one of the two Player Characters die when a nuclear bomb is detonated. The second game's trump card was the infamous level where a undercover agent helps slaughter an airport full of innocent people. Both were confronting, both had a War Is Hell bite, fans would be wanting to see what Modern Warfare 3 has in store. With poor scared preadolescences conscripted into armies a ugly reality of war, if tastefully done this could be pulled off.
  • Jossed. However, the Kotaku leak for [MW3] says that the Russian President's daughter will be in the game as a plot device (You have to rescue her from getting kidnapped by Makarov).

Any remaining members of Shepherd's Shadow Company will be forced into an enemy mine with Task Force 141 in Modern Warfare 3.

• Wasn't 141 dissolved at the end of Modern Warfare 2? They were all killed, at the very least, aside from the obvious.
  • • Um, what about Price and Mactavish, don't they count as members anymore?
    • No. They're wanted by pretty much everyone in the world as a couple of rouge terrorists.
    • Until the final mission of Modern Warfare 3, when you see that the 141 logo no longer has 'Disavowed' over it. And on the prior level, Price and Sandman are fighting side-by-side.

MW 3's other campaign faction will be the Spetnaz

• Think about it, Call of Duty has always had a tradition of playing as Americans, and Brits or Russians. We know that the Russian government is at odds with Makarov's faction, and the game's plot will likely include proving that the airport massacare was a False-Flag Operation. We also know from Kotaku that there's a plot point involving an attack against the Russan government. Therefore the only other playable faction that apperas in more than one level will be the faction of the Spetnaz working against Makarov.

Dragovich dug up a Marker.

• Long before the 'original' Marker was dug up on the Yucatan Peninsula, Dragovich got a hold of a Marker, which he gave to Steiner to help in brainwashing Mason. The flashes of numbers Mason sees slightly resemble the various symbols seem by Isaac Clarke, and the 'steps' Reznov uses during the escape from Vorkuta resemble the steps that an insane Stross murmurs during Dead Space 2. It is possible that Dragovich's Marker affected him slightly.

Call of Duty takes place before Halo.

• Think about it, why is it that the weapons in Halo are not as advanced as they should be? maybe a event in history caused the governments of the world to put down defense funding, thus by the time of the Halo time line, Weapon technology is not as powerful as it should be, at least in the bullets used.
  • And the antics of Price, Gaz, MacMillan, Soap, and Ramirez inspired Halsey to create the SPARTAN-II project.
  • Maybe

Treyarch's next game series will take place in World War I

• Treyarch loves making things Darker and Edgier, and what better way to do that than the most pointlessly bloody war of all time? For added Squick it could even switch back and forth between the sides and show your friends from each side killing each other.

Al-Asad's country came from Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen uniting.

It would explain the jumpy satellite locators.

The PMC in Modern Warfare 3 will be analogous to Blackwater.

That is to say, they will be a band of mercenaries that will do some ugly, gut-churning stuff for the right price. Wait a second, this sounds familiar...

Al-Asad's Country is Syria

He hijacked the ongoing revolt there, struck a deal with the Syrian military, took control, and invaded Iraq, triggering a US intervention.

Makarov was the real mastermind all along.

In the last couple of trailers, Makarov says a bunch of cryptic things that seem to suggest that the whole global war thing may have been more than just a happy accident on his part. "Soon you'll see, that very move, every strike, was meant to bring us to this," from the Redemption trailer, sounds particularly telling, while his declaration of, "This is what your greed has brought you..." in the Launch trailer gives the impression that he'd wanted to "punish" the Western world for some time now. It may be possible that he was actually playing Shepherd the whole time, allowing the General to delude himself into thinking he was manipulating him, all so that he could get an excuse to start WWIII. And all of that aside...considering that he's supposed to be the main villain now, would it make much sense for a bad guy of that magnitude to be Shepherd's expendable pawn?

• Confirmed.
  • Well, kind of. He was initially a mook/midlevel officer before saving Zakhaev's life earned him his favor. Then he advanced, but was still lower than Zakhaev. MW2 leaves the Shepherd/Makarov Gambit Pileup unresolved, except for the inclusion of Soap and Price, who fortunately (for Makarov) took his side temporarily

Captain MacMillan killed General Amsel.

He went back in time, dressed up as a Soviet soldier, stole a PTRS-41, and then sniped Amsel with Reznov.

I have no evidence for this but it would be epic.

Soap's just hiding.

I refuse to accept that he's dead.

• He fell out of an exploding building. Then part of the building fell on him. And then he bled out all over Prague. And then we got loading screens full of memorials to the guy and Captain Price outright saying "They killed Soap". I screamed at my television when it happened but, let's face it, Soap's as dead as Gaz and Ghost.
• He's survived getting stabbed in the chest, that's mild by comparison. He may have had a weak pulse, or his heart may have stopped, leading the panicked Price to conclude that he's dead. Kamarov and the rebels have something in mind for him.
  • Price? Panic? Surely you speak of some other man.
  • Or perhaps it was all staged, in order for Soap to become blacker than black and completely disappear off the grid. The whole roaring rampage by Price at Yuri was to finally get the Russian to spit out his real reasons for fighting Makarov. The M1911 was given to Soap in case he ever meets with Makarov. After all, that gun has pierced the plot armor of ever major antagonist it has killed.

Ramirez saved Soap.

• Ramirez! Use the Force to heal Soap's injuries!

The next Infinity Ward Call of Duty will be Future Warfare

Although there are still a few loose ends, Modern Warfare is basically concluded story-wise. After what was done in three games, it would be pretty hard to top without a dramatic change. They've done the past, they've done the present, the future is the next logical step. It would be a hard-ish sci-fi set in the near future, most likely. Potential things that will be in it include:

• Captain Price, the third. Either the daughter or granddaughter of MW Price. Yes, you read that right. Daughter.
• Continuing the above, women will finally fight alongside their Spear Counterpart
• Walkers and mechs, a la Battlefield 2142
• Space combat! Similar to Shattered Horizon, except mainstream. Expect a multiplayer gamemode for this
• China will play into it, since both Russia and the Middle East have been done.
• Russia will be an ally, not an enemy.
• There will be a future equivalent of TF141.
• John Price will have died from lung cancer during or shortly before the events of the game -or-
• John Price will return briefly, and die in a Heroic Sacrifice since he is dead anyway
• There will be an old guy with half his jaw missing and heavy scarring all over his body Gaz/Ghost/????

Oops, someone already predicted this.

The games are a Dying Dream, or at least a story told by one of the characters.

It's most likely Price, whether he's telling his son to encourage or discourage him to go into the military, or just dying of lung cancer from smoking cigars. Virtually everything is exaggerated. For the first game, the American invasion is depicted as incompetent because Price disagrees with it. The timescale is compressed across all three- the Russians didn't invade in two days or magically teleport. For that matter, the whole Shepherd conspiracy could be Price making stuff up, though it is unlikely. Soap probably didn't get stabbed right in the chest, and they probably didn't drag him through the streets. Remember the EMP that was much more destructive than it should have been, and the blast wave in space? Price doesn't know physics. The infamous airport level may be real, an exaggeration, or a fabrication caused by Price's guilt. The chemical attacks were probably real, but Price fabricates the SAS mission since he doesn't want to admit that they didn't have any idea they were coming. The manner in which Makarov is killed is probably exaggerated- most likely Price, a sniper, shot him from a thousand metres. He probably did light a cigar after that, though. There are no women- there were women originally fighting on both sides, but Price is a chauvinist and doesn't want to remember shooting them or watching them die. A similar situation exists for civilians before Price descends into darker memories. All the times when the story is not about him are based on second-hand accounts, so they are less accurate. Ramirez probably did not have to do everything. Paul Jackson was probably killed instantly when his helicopter crashed. Coming back to the "Price is a chauvinist" theory, of course they go back to rescue a woman. Classified details are omitted or changed, or maybe Price doesn't care and they're genuine. Given all that, it's most likely a story told to keep people away from war rather than push them toward it.

Captain John Price will kill himself, or be in a life long depression

• After the death of Soap, Price, having nothing else to do, with the world in hell and Makarov dead, he will end up killing himself.

The Russian Nuclear Missile System Requires Either Launch Codes To Work... OR AN AWESOME MUSTACHE

In the MW alternate universe, Stalin commissioned the original nuclear response project. But he ran into a problem... what if the west launched while he was drunk? He required a system that would be able to destroy the free world even when he was hammered. Thus the greatest minds of Soviet Russia got together, and aided by a steady supply of the finest Vodka in Russsia, devised a missile launch authorization, that could be activated by Stalin's Awesome Mustache! But clearly if Stalin were slain in the initial strike, Russia would need an alternative, but who else would be more capable of leading Russia in it's darkest hour than a person with a mustache TO RIVAL STALIN! Fast forward to the “present day”. The scientists who remained sober have devised a system to allow mustacheless leaders to launch ICBMs, using launch codes, but the old mustache authorization system remains in place. Zakhaev had an awesome mustache, thus he was able to attempt to launch ICBMs at the east coast in revenge of his son. Captain Price had sufficient mustache power, thus he could launch an EMP strike on Washington DC. However, Makarov lacked sufficient mustache power to order a nuclear strike. He thus had to kidnap the Russian President, since the President had insufficient mustache power, he had to have launch codes.

Frost was injured during the events of "Scorched Earth", leaving him unable to follow Sandman on the diamond mine mission.

As we know, it's never actually explained what kept Frost from joining the rest of Team Metal in "Down the Rabbit Hole". However, he does get into two really dangerous situations prior to then; it's possible that, either during the building collapse (recall how he was dazed and stared at his hands for several seconds after it came down) or the botched breaching sequence at the very end, he sustained some kind of injury, and tried to go on anyway for the sake of his teammates. However, between the two missions, it got bad enough that he couldn't continue, and he had to be sidelined for treatment.

The Juggernaut Armor is full body Level V Dragon Skin armor.

• The only known real life body armor that can stand up to the 7.62x51mm NATO without ballistic plates.
• Dragon Skin also has been reported of having problems in high temperatures. This would explain why in the last stage of MW 3 you lose your Juggernaut armor when it got caught on fire.
• Except for the fact that it looks nothing like Dragonskin and everything like heavy-duty EOD armor.

Makarov is The Antichrist

I have absolutely no evidence for this, but it would be EPIC AS ALL HELL.

• Alternatively, Dragovich is The Antichrist. Why do you think his name translates to "Son of the Devil"?

Dragovich is not as intelligent as he wants people to think.

Mason is the only man who knows of the Rusalka's existence and isn't actually in on the Nova 6 plan. Dragovich refuses to actively hunt him down when he escapes Vorkuta. And then he broadcasts his intentions, including to Mason, from the Rusalka, which he has not yet actually moved away from where it was seven years prior when Mason actually saw it. He's not a super-genius, he's your everyday American-hating Soviet officer who just got lucky and grabbed a Nazi superweapon at the end of the last war.

• The Rusalka actually was moved away from the Cuban docks and to somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. And the actual transmitter station was on the bottom of the Gulf anyway. And he knew Mason was still brainwashed enough to kill Kennedy.

The Juggernauts use prototype Powered Armor

As a part of the Halo and Call of duty in the same universe thing, this WMG is about how the armor they were is actually a prototype for a advanced powered armor which will only be perfected until a few centuries later.

• Word of God is that the Juggernauts are "customized bomb suits", not purpose-built powered armor. Still, the idea is sound....

Sergeant Foley's grandfather was Sergeant Lincoln Osiris.

Which other black American sergeant in the US Army do you know is as awesome as Sergeant Foley? That's right, Sergeant Lincoln Osiris himself. It was tales of his grandfather's exploits in the Vietnam War that made Foley sign on with the Rangers in the first place.

The Ultranationalsts were funded by Team Rocket

And Makarov is Giovanni in disguise.

• No, obviously Shepard is Giovanni.
  • (OP here) As for Jessie and James, they got the hell out of Dodge when they found out what he was up to. Oh, and Ghost is James.

Saxton Hale is the mastermind behind the events of the whole series.

He started the war because people weren't buying hats as much as they used to. It also explains why Austrailia never gets attacked—Saxton manipulated things so it would be a major power in the aftermath.

• No, it was so Russia and the US would all by MANN CO weapons and teleporters. Furthermore, he founded Infinity Ward.
• Also, he used Mason (who has an Australian accent) to try and start a war in Black Ops.

Mason will have a relapse

A few months after the numbers station is destroyed, Mason will snap back into his "Kill President Kennedy" state. And while Kennedy may no longer be president, there is another one who is running for it. Could "Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy" be enough to set him off? After all, he was assassinated four months after Black Ops ends.

• For that matter, Sirhan Sirhan and Lee Harvey Oswald were also brainwashed sleeper cell agents.

The first level of Black Ops 2 will be Dallas '63

• Think about it, Mason was in Dallas to stop the assassination of JFK since Reznov more or less tried to deprogram him. This could led to a grand chase between Mason, Lee Harvey or any other shooters.
  • Not likely, given the whole Twenty Minutes Into the Future thing that Black Ops 2 is going with.

Makarov is Discord.

It would amuse me.

Captain Price will appear in Black Ops 2.

When it happens, you'll hear a sound. That sound will be every Call of Duty fan from every inch of the globe having a mass orgy of rejoicing.

• Following from this, concrete ties between the stories of Black Ops and Modern Warfare will finally be laid down in Black Ops 2, with the events of WWIII 9 years prior to the game being mentioned, among other things. It's certainly a possibility, based on the recently revealed fact that Treyarch had wanted to connect their games to IW's since before the first Black Ops was finished—its originally pitched title was "Modern Warfare Origins".

We get to see Makarov's grandfather in the original Call of Duty

• A Sergeant Makarov helps Alexei Ivanovich Voronin the Russian protagonist of the original Call of Duty. I say that just as the Captain Price of that game is the grandfather of the Modern Warfare Captain Price that Sergeant Makarov is the grandfather of Makarov from the Modern Warfare games.

Hudson and Weaver were brainwashed too.

Okay, bare with me on this one—it's gonna sound crazy, but it's straight from the horse's mouth (the horse, in this case, being James C. Burns, Woods' voice actor, in this interview). Now, according to Burns, at the end of "Payback", Mason's brainwashing caused him to confabulate Woods and Reznov into the same person within his mind. So, if we're to take that literally, that would mean that Mason was not alone on Rebirth Island, and that the person he thought was Reznov (and by extension, the person Hudson thought was Mason himself) was actually Woods. However, as I'm sure you're going to ask, "How does that explain Hudson and Weaver finding Mason alone in Steiner's office?". That's where the main point of this theory comes in—somehow (don't ask me how), at some point, Hudson and Weaver were themselves brainwashed. That's why when they caught up to Mason, they saw him declare himself to be Reznov before shooting Steiner, when in reality, it was actually Woods who did the deed, and no one present actually said "My name is Victor Reznov, etc..."—it was just part of everyone's programming. When Mason said he saw Reznov kill Steiner right in front of him, as far as he knew, he was telling the truth, since in his fucked-up mind, Woods was Reznov. And since no one on the scene could see him, Woods could simply slink off into the shadows, for reasons unknown. On top of that, them sharing the same programming could also explain why Hudson and Weaver were immediately willing to follow Mason when he ran off in search of that "unknown lead" in '78.

At any rate, an already Mind Screw-y game just got even screwier.

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