Project Nova

Project Nova is a single player flashback level that details the events that led up to Viktor Reznov being incarcerated in Vorkuta.

Summary
The mission setting is in 1945, picking up right off from the end of Call of Duty: World at War. The player assumes the role of Viktor Reznov as he confronts Doctor Steiner who has defected from Nazi Germany. Dimitri Petrenko (The Russian player character from World at War) is also a main character in this mission. The Russian forces (including Kravtchenko, Dragovich, Reznov and Dimitri) look for Dr. Steiner, the Nazi Scientist defector, and the biological weapon Nova 6 in a Nazi compound after World War II. After the Russian forces get to Steiner, the Nazi defector leads the men to an abandoned ship, where they find the Nova gas. Dragovich, wanting to see it's effects, subject Dimitri and most of the Russian expedition to it, killing them all and sparing only three, including Reznov and another soldier named Nevski. After the men escape the room they were put in, they fight against Russian and British forces trying to obtain the gas. Reznov and Nevski plant bombs on V2 rockets stored in the ruined ship's cargo bay, destroying most of the original Nazi Nova Gas.

Trivia

 * This is the second time in the entire Call of Duty series in which the player can observe two different enemy factions fighting against each other, while not belonging to either one, the first being "The Enemy of My Enemy".
 * This is the second time in the Call of Duty series that the player is betrayed by his own commander. The first time was in "Loose Ends" in Modern Warfare 2. Also, both main antagonists in these two games have the rank "General". The player also sees both betraying commanders in the first level of their respective games. Dragovich and Shepherd are also the last enemy the player kills in their games. They both kill a character very close to the character being played as at the time of betrayal. (Ghost was close to Roach at the time of Shepherd's betrayal and Petrenko was close to Reznov at the time of Dragovich's betrayal.


 * This is the first time in the Call of Duty series where the player fights against the British.
 * Numerous parts of this level, from the weapons to the soundtrack, are from Call of Duty: World at War.
 * The entire mission is told to Mason by Reznov in Vorkuta, possibly to counteract the brainwashing he received, or just telling why he was there.
 * The events in this mission are shown to be the reason Reznov was sent to Vorkuta.
 * When the player regroups with Dragovich outside the ship, if the player looks to the right, they will see the Red Army executing German prisoners.
 * This is the only level in the game the player can use the PPSh-41, MP40, Mosin Nagant and STG-44, as well as the Sten and Tokarev.
 * This is also the only time in the entire Call of Duty series where the player can use both German, Russian and British weapons in the same level.
 * All MP40s and Mosin Nagants in the level have frost on them, it is also noticeable on the MP40's pickup icon.
 * It is strange that Dragovich would kill such honorable soldiers, as both Reznov and Dimitri survived WWII, specifically the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Berlin. Dimitri assassinated the German general Heinrich Amsel (possibly giving the U.S.S.R. the victory at Stalingrad), and also planted the Red Army banner atop the Reichstag. One soldier at the beginning of Project Nova even recognized Reznov and Petrenko as "the heroes of Berlin."
 * However, once consider the animosity between Reznov and Dragovich, which went all the way back during the Siege of Stalingrad, and Dragovich's tendency of sacrificing even his own men for his purpose, putting Dimitri and Reznov up for such a painful death isn't such a surprising move. Plus, for Reznov and Dimitri being such close-nit comrades, killing one requires to kill both.
 * From the map can be found on the level, the German originally planned to launch the V2s from the arctic region of Northern Canada. It's unknown if the ship was modified into able to launch V2s from the cargo hold, or have to move onto the thick ice to set up for launch.
 * The execution scene where the Soviet soldier is shooting the surrendering Nazis and runs out of ammo when he gets to the last Nazi is likely a reference to a similar scene in the World War II film the Pianist. In the Pianist a Nazi soldier executes Jewish labor workers deemed to be unfit to continue working and he shoots them one by one in a line and is forced to reload when the last one in the line is momentarily spared by his gun running out of ammo.