Endgame

"Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye. And the world just fuckin' watched."

- Lieutenant General Shepherd

Endgame is the eighteenth and final level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The objective is to kill Shepherd before he can escape.

Plot
Captain Price and Captain MacTavish are chasing after General Shepherd in the Site Hotel Bravo cave system. Shepherd, who has some distance between Soap and Price, boards a Zodiac speedboat in the underground river. Soap and Price board another Zodiac and continue in pursuit of Shepherd. Soap drives the boat while Price fires on the Shadow Company soldiers on Zodiacs, and the OpFor on the land and bridges.

Price and Soap chase Shepherd through a cave, a lake with many rock formations, and finally, rapids. Near the end of the rapids, Shepherd boards a Pave Low that was waiting for him in the river. Price tells Soap to hold steady while he is able to successfully shoot it down at the rotor. The helicopter spins out of control, but the fast moving current of the rapids keeps Soap and Price from reversing, and their Zodiac goes over a nearby waterfall.

After a brief wait, Soap wakes up on the shore near the waterfall, but Price is nowhere to be seen. He gets up, knife in his left hand, and moves slowly towards the Pave Low's crash site. He finds Shepherd escaping from the crashed helicopter and runs, injured, from Soap into the sandstorm. Soap follows him, and finds him leaning against a wrecked car.

Soap takes the opportunity to kill Shepherd with his knife, but Shepherd blocks the stab and rams Soap's head on the car, causing Soap to fall on his back. Shepherd draws his own knife and stabs Soap in the chest. Shepherd briefly explains that he lost "30,000 men in the blink of an eye," referring to the nuclear explosion that killed the Marines in the Call of Duty 4 mission "Shock and Awe". He loads two rounds in his revolver (one for Soap and one for Price), and takes aim at Soap's head.

However, before he is able to kill Soap, Captain Price intervenes, tackling Shepherd and making him miss the shot. After trading a few punches, Price kicks Shepherd's pistol away. Soap, seeing an opportunity crawls towards the discarded pistol, but when he is almost within reach Shepherd knocks Price down, kicks the pistol away from Soap, and stomps on his face.

Soap, now lying on his back, helplessly watches Shepherd and Price fight. Eventually, Shepherd knocks Price down and begins to beat him, repeatedly punching him in the face. Soap's attention is redirected towards the knife in his chest. He slowly and painfully pulls it out of his chest, and takes aim at Shepherd. Immediately after Soap moves his arm back to throw the knife, Shepherd looks up, being distracted from Captain Price. Soap throws the knife, and it lands in Shepherd's left eye, killing him.

After a moment, Price coughs and gets up, and stumbles towards an injured Soap, who is still lying on the ground. He bandages Soap's wounds, and at that moment a Little Bird lands. Price recognizes the pilot as Nikolai, and helps Soap to the helicopter. Nikolai exits the helicopter to assist, and mentions that he knows a place to take them to keep them safe. The mission ends and the credits roll.

Walkthrough
The player (John "Soap" MacTavish) and Price begin the level in hot pursuit of the traitor, General Shepherd. They get into a Zodiac speedboat and chase him through the cave and down the river with Soap driving and Price firing at hostiles along the riverbanks (note that Shepherd is invulnerable until the end of the mission). Along the way, Shadow Company and OpFor will be taking potshots at both the player and Shepherd respectively. Price will gun them down using his M4A1 and occasionally M203, but the player can also return fire with a Mini-Uzi while driving the boat. On higher difficulties, the OpFor in this early stage of the level can be a real problem, especially when they use Technicals, therefore taking them out is essential. Shepherd is not difficult to find, as his location is marked on the player's screen. However, if Shepherd gets too far ahead, the player will fail the mission.

Eventually, the player and Price will follow Shepherd through a narrow cave, and into a wide open area. Price advises Soap to "Stay clear of open areas!" This area and subsequent areas are not too hard on higher difficulties, but staying in the open will result in a quick death. To avoid dying on this part of the mission, the player should keep their distance from the right shore and enemy Zodiacs (eliminate them if necessary). Enemy Little Birds and their miniguns appear and engage the player; they cannot be shot down so they must be avoided, and are extremely deadly on the Veteran difficulty setting. After avoiding the first Little Bird, enemies on bridges and occasionally the shores, will fire at the player with RPG's. They should be avoided as they do a great deal of damage if they hit the player.

Eventually, the player and Price make it to the rapids. Though rough at first, the river becomes more smooth as they progress. Hostiles will still attack you from Zodiacs, RPG's, and Little Bird helicopters. As they go along the river, they hear Shepherd and a Shadow Company U.A.V. Operator talking to each other on the radio. The player will then go under a bridge, and see Shepherd's Zodiac enter the cargo bay of a Pave Low helicopter. Shepherd is forced to cut his speed drastically to board the chopper, so much in fact that your boat almost collides with the Pave Low as it begins to take-off just a few feet above your head! Just when it appears that Shepherd will get away, the helicopter slows down and turns sharply to avoid flying straight into a sandstorm and hovers over a waterfall. With only a few seconds left before the chopper is out of range, Price tells Soap to steady the boat and fires three shots at the helicopter. The first two shots miss, but the third round hits one of the Pave Low's engines, this causes the helicopter to catch on fire and violently snap to the right, the Pave Low then begins to start spinning out of control toward the riverbank below. As the chopper disappears below the waterfall, Price tells Soap to back up but the current is too strong, and the boat tumbles over the waterfall, plunging into the river moments before the burning Pave Low crashes.

After a brief wait period, Soap wakes up, washed up on the shore. He picks up his knife, and walks towards some flames in the distance. Moments later, he comes upon a Shadow Company soldier crawling from the crashed helicopter in the distance. The player has the ability to knife the soldier, or let him crawl away and bleed to death. At the crash site, he sees another soldier lying in the Last Stand position. The soldier will attempt to fire his pistol, but to his misfortune, is out of ammo. The player can also knife this soldier or let him bleed to death.

After deciding the soldier's fate, the player will see Shepherd stumble out of the flaming wreckage of the Pave Low. He will glance at Soap and then run away into the sandstorm. (Shepherd cannot be killed at this moment.) Soap follows him and finds him leaning on a car.

If the player waits a moment, Shepherd will tell Soap to go ahead and kill him, although it won't change anything. If Soap waits another moment, he says that he "knew you couldn't do it". He then says you are "a good warrior but that you could never take that extra step to do what was absolutely necessary".

Once Soap attempts to knife him, Shepherd will block this attack and ram Soap's head into the car, causing him to fall. Shepherd pulls out his own knife and jabs it deep into Soap's chest causing him to black out from the trauma.

Shepherd is then heard saying: "Five years ago... I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fuckin' watched." Soap's vision returns to see Shepherd standing over him, loading two rounds in his .44 Magnum Revolver, while saying, "Tomorrow, there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots." He cocks the hammer of the pistol, points it at Soap's face and says, "I know you understand."

Just then, Captain Price intervenes, tackling Shepherd and kicking the revolver out of his hand just before the player is executed. The player then needs to alternate betweed left and right triggers/mouse buttons to crawl towards Shepherd's pistol. Before the player can get to the Magnum, Shepherd kicks it away and stomps on Soaps face, who blacks out.

Soap wakes up a few seconds later to see Price and Shepherd engaged in a brutal fistfight. After a few brief moments, the fight begins to turn in Shepherd's favor as he punches Price in the face, causing him to fall to the ground. While, Shepherd is slowly and relentlessly beating Cpt. Price, Soap notices the knife still stuck in his own chest. The player needs to repeatedly press the "use" button to pull it out of Soap's chest, spinning it around in his hand. Then the player aims the knife at Shepherd and throws it (by pressing "shoot"). Shepherd looks up just before the knife pierces into his left eye, killing him.

To trigger the line where Soap says "Shepherd," the player must wait a moment before throwing the knife. The voice does not sound much like Soap does, because of the injuries he's sustained. This line is not subtitled.

Soap almost blacks out (due to the amount of blood he's lost in the past ten minutes) before Price wakes up and stumbles towards him. While Price attends to Soap's wounds, he notices a Little Bird helicopter land on the riverbank behind them. Price tells Soap that the bandages will hold for now and helps Soap to his feet. The pilot of the Little Bird comes to assist Price and Soap, who turns out to be Nikolai. He mentions that because of what they have done, that they'll be looking for them now. Price tells Nikolai that they need to get Soap of out there, and Nikolai responds by saying he knows a place to go, and the game ends as Price, Nikolai, and Soap are walking towards the helicopter.

Weapon Loadout
If the player started this level from the previous level, the player will start the mission with the weapons they had at the end of the previous level. If the player did NOT start this level from the previous level, the player will start with a Mini-Uzi and an RPD. The loadout, however, is fairly useless since as soon as you enter the Zodiac you automatically switch to the Mini-Uzi, and never use another gun for the rest of the level. Also, at the end of the level, the player uses a throwing knife to kill Shepherd.

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Enemy Intel
Intel No. 45: Right before getting on the the boat, look left, it's on the crate (with lights shining on it). This Enemy Intel is considered to be the easiest to find throughout the game, yet it may be surprisingly easy to miss due to the hectic pace and Price urging you to get on the boat.

Transcript
See Endgame/Transcript.

Trivia
See Endgame/Trivia.

Video
thumb|400px|left|CoD:MW2 - Endgame, featuring Shepherds extended speech