Endgame/Trivia

Endgame trivia.

General

• When Soap is laying down, the player is able to see a body. This is the very first time the player can see a characters body and feet during gameplay in the entire Call of Duty series. This trait will carry on to Black Ops.
• This mission is actually made up of two missions, evident by the second loading screen and if the player pauses the games after going over the waterfall, the menu will read "0/0 Enemy intelligence found," when clearly there is an Enemy Intel on the dock in the beginning. Restarting the mission from this point takes the player back to when Soap wakes up from the waterfall crash, not the beginning of the boat chase. This is because it is not logical to load the cave system, water streams, rapids...etc when the only things that the game needs to load are the helicopter, Rust area, sand dunes and part of the waterfall.
• The cutscene of this level and the two levels before it have "Most Wanted Imaging Database" on the top left of the loading screen. This means that the cutscene is not from Task Force 141's point of view but the point of view of (possibly) a police force in the area. The speech that Price makes during the loading screen must have been recorded earlier and the evidence was found and then scanned into the Most Wanted database and played back for the player to see.
• At the beginning of the level the player will start with the last mission weapons, but when the player get to the Zodiac and restarts the mission the player will start with a Mini Uzi and an RPD.
• "Endgame" is a a reference to chess. The Endgame in chess are the final few moves when both sides has very few pieces left (in this case, only Soap and Price are left to oppose Shepherd). This ties into the multiple chess references in "The Enemy of My Enemy" and related achievements.
• When the player looks at a friend on PS3 or Xbox 360 playing this level, it doesn't say Endgame. It instead says "The Ending" which may mean that the level was originally supposed to be called "The Ending".
• This mission has the structure of the final mission of Call of Duty 4, "Game Over".
  • The start of the mission involves a chase, but in "Endgame" the player is chasing after the antagonist, rather than escaping from the enemies.
  • The chase ends with a crash, and the characters are left on foot.
  • The survivors of the crash are executed, however in "Endgame" it is optional (to the player).
  • Soap kills the main antagonist while lying on the ground, and with a basic weapon (an M1911 in "Game Over", and a Knife in "Endgame").
  • Price helps Soap kill the antagonist in both missions. However, the help differs between the games. In "Game Over", Price passes Soap the pistol used to kill Zakhaev and his guards. In "Endgame", Price saves Soap's life by shoving Shepherd out of the way mere microseconds before Shepherd fires his gun, causing the bullet to land in an unknown place (possibly very close to Soap).
  • Price and Soap are saved by a Russian Loyalist in a helicopter. In Game Over, Sgt. Kamarov rescues the pair, and in Endgame, Nikolai rescues them.
• The multiplayer map Rust is based on this level. Notice the background when the player kills Shepherd. It isn't possible to enter it, however. But if the player goes into spectator mode on Rust, he can clearly see a flipped Zodiac near the shore and a downed Sea Knight where Shepherd's Pave Low would have been. The crashed Sea Knight model is the exact same as the one found on Crash in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Using "noclip" shows that the map has slight cosmetic differences from Rust but is essentially the same, just maybe smaller.
• This is the only instance in the single-player campaign that a Throwing Knife can be used. In fact, its use is mandatory to win the game.
• This is the only level in the game in which the word "fuck" is used, in the line from Shepherd: "Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye. And the world just fuckin' watched." Cpl. Dunn gets close when he says, "Sarge, did HQ just tell us to go 'F' ourselves?" in Wolverines!. Also in Wolverines!, when the roof of the restaurant is about to be bombed, Sgt. Foley tells James Ramirez to "Get the f... off the roof!" but the actual word is blocked out.
• This, Team Player and Loose Ends are the only levels where the player can see the character's feet.
• If the player flanks left away from the Pave Low when crashed, the Shadow Company Soldier can still be heard clicking his gun throughout the rest of the level. Along that note, if the soldier is not killed, he will keep trying to shoot with the empty gun and the clicking is heard even from distances.
• After the waterfall event, the player is free to roam the second half of the map until they are ready to go after Shepherd, although this is not common because the view is fuzzy and annoying to most and the majority of the players just want to end the game.

Boat Chase

• The idea for a boat chase as a climax may have been inspired by the James Bond movie "Die Another Day". Both times, the heroes are British they are chasing after a General that crossed them, and both involved a waterfall as the end of the chase. The only difference is that in "Die Another Day", the chase is at the beginning of the movie, not at the end.
• If the player tries to get on the boat before Price and try to drive away, Price will always jump and get on before the player speeds away.
• If the gap between the player and Shepherd is too big, the screen will black out and there will be a message saying, "Shepherd got away".
• The hand that fires the Uzi stays for a second in the boat, then disappears immediately. This is because the hand uses the same animation as Roach's hand in the mission Cliffhanger.
• When playing on veteran, if the player crashes hard into the wall of the cave, the player will fall off the boat and die. This action is not possible when on Recruit, but it is fairly possible on Regular, and quite possible on Hardened.
• If Soap dies while driving the boat, Price dies for no reason, even though the boat is still steady with no driver. His body also levitates above water when he dies.
• It is possible to get onto one of the bridges with the boat. If so, the player will notice that the boat drives along land the same way that it drives on water, which is unrealistic for a boat. However, the player will lose Shepherd very quickly.
• If Soap dies, the camera may still continue the chase in a set path that could be the same that Shepherd is taking.
• No matter how good the player drives, it is impossible to get in front of Shepherd.
• During the first part of boat chase during the cave area, if you look closely at some points, the player can see a grenade launcher from Soap and Price's boat. Thats because it came from Price's M203 although the player never sees him reload it.
• The player can see several sentry guns on the rocks through out the chase.
• At the part where the river widens and the first Little Bird appears, if the player goes near the left bank he can see a WWII-era German truck with the iron cross (Balkenkruz).
• The OpFor on the bridge where Captain Price warns the player about RPGs will just stand there after firing their RPGs. The Shadow Company on the boats will still fire on them, however.
• Though the player is fighting OpFor and Shadow Company at the same time, when chasing Shepherd through the first few caves, the OpFor tend to focus more on the player than Shepherd, meaning that the OpFor may be halfway helping Shepherd escape, this may not be possible. This could also be that A.I. tend to target the player more often than they target others, like in The Enemy of My Enemy, the A.I. seem to target you more than the opposing faction unless hiding in cover.

Helicopter and waterfall

• At the part when Price shoots down the Pave Low, Price's name will appear as Cpt. Price not Captain Price.
• It is unclear why Warhorse 5-1 still uses a Sikorsky MH-53 Pave Low since they have been replaced by the CV-22B Osprey 8 years before the setting of Modern Warfare 2.
• Shepherd's boat is forced to slow down considerably to board the Pave Low, giving the player time to catch up. If the player can reach the Pave Low before it lifts off, the player will pass right through it, revealing it is not actually a solid object (or because the player isn't meant to get on the chopper anyway).
• No matter how steadily or unsteadily the player drives the Zodiac at the end when Price is shooting the helicopter, Price will always miss the first two shots, but always get a perfect third shot.

• After Shepherd boards the chopper, there is no way to stop the boat; the Zodiac is in a set path to go off the waterfall which activates after Shepherd's boat boards the heli. Pushing the Walk Forward button will only speed up this process but pressing the Walk Backward button will NOT slow it down.
• Price's ability to shoot down the Pave Low might have been a reference to the flashback mission "One Shot, One Kill" in which he and MacMillan are running from Zakhaev's men after their attempted assassination and at one point they shoot down an attack helicopter. However, in the flashback, 'Lieutenant Price' and Captain MacMillan were shooting at the rotor, but Captain Price seems to be shooting at the engine of the Pave Low as it was turning around.
• When Price shoots down Shepherd's Pave Low, if the player holds down the reverse button early the boat will not go down the waterfall. Shepherd's Pave Low will still crash but the player will fail the mission with the message saying "Shepherd got Away".
• When Price shoots the Pave Low, his M4A1 makes the sound of an Intervention, most likely because the normal sound of the M4A1 firing would not have been dramatic enough.
• Warhorse 5-1 (the enemy Pave Low) shows up as an ally Pavelow on the pause menu's minimap
• If the player listens carefully, the Pave Low pilot says, "Sandstorm at 12 o'clock; we're taking the long way 'round," which explains why he turns around.
• When the boat is falling down, first the minimap shows Price almost at Soap's position, for a moment a few meters away, then his icon disappears.

After the boat crash

Looking for Shepherd

• Using PC cheats, certain weapons can be spawned in the section after Soap goes over the waterfall, including an RPD, RPG and P90. Any spawned weapons can then be used on the injured Shadow Company and Shepherd, although to no effect on the latter. Shepherd will also strangely not appear on thermal sights or heartbeat monitors, suggesting in this mission he is an animated object and not an actual NPC. Note that if the player gets a good angle of Nikolai when he lands, they can get a friendly fire message by shooting him to death. This is hard though.
• After the boat crash, the player cannot find Price on the ground even though he saves the player from getting shot by Shepherd. However, by noclipping the player can find that Price is in a frozen state right behind Soap's view to jump right into action when he is scripted so. This is so that the game doesn't have to randomly spawn Price; he can just be there so the memory is not wasted.
• One of the injured Shadow Company soldiers will try to shoot the player with his pistol at the crash site, but will find to his dismay that it has no rounds. He will continue to uselessly pull the trigger until the player knifes him or he bleeds to death. Another one of Shepherd's men is seen crawling away from the flaming wreckage of the chopper. The player can cut short his attempts of escaping by slashing him on the ground. the player can leave both of them alone, and they will both eventually bleed out and die. If they die, and the player goes towards Shepherd, and come back, the soldier's gun will now have a red dot sight and silencer on it.
• If the player stays close to the downed helicopter, he can actually get close enough to knife Shepherd as he is running away, but the knife goes through him and doesn't affect him, even if the player is right behind Shepherd.
• If fast enough after the crash, the player can run over to the Pave Low and catch up to Shepherd, it is possible to run in front of him. He will then stop running until the player moves away. Although the player cannot kill him, as he is invincible until the end of the mission. The player can also walk through him while doing this. When the player moves away, he will start running again and may make his hands look like he is holding a gun, even though he is not.
• The model for the crashed Pave Low is the same as Raptor's Pave Low in Wolverines!

Trying to kill Shepherd

• The truck that Shepherd leans on can actually be seen outside of Rust (the multiplayer map.)
• If the player doesn't get close enough for Shepherd to attack him, he opens a conversation with the player. He says: "You know what they say about revenge... you better be ready to dig two graves... Go ahead and end it. It won't change anything... Hmph... I knew you couldn't do it... You're a good warrior... but you could never take that extra step... to do what was absolutely necessary." He sounds like he has a sore throat while saying these lines but it could be the Pave Low crash.
• The beginning of the above quote is a reference to one of the many quotes that appear whenever the player dies: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. -Confucius".
• Shepherd will slam the player into the car if he's close enough to him, even if the player doesn't attack him with the knife.
• Even if the player crouches or goes prone as he approaches Shepherd, he will yank the player into a standing position and still beat his head against the truck.
• If the player stands behind the barrel Shepherd is standing next to, the player can swing his knife and slash the General from the other side of the barrel without engaging the battle sequence. The same sound can be heard as if he were slashing an enemy, and blood can seen spraying from Shepherd. Obviously, it is impossible to kill him this way.
• When the player fails to kill Shepherd at the broken-down car, Shepherd will pull out a knife from a sheath at the back of his uniform and stab it into Soap's chest. It is unknown why he does not simply take and use Soap's knife, although it is possible that retrieving the knife on the ground would have given Soap enough time to get back up.
• When Soap is trying to kill Shepherd with his knife, the player can see Soap's arms. The player will be able to see that Soap is wearing a wool jacket covered with dirt and mud because of the waterfall fall.
• Surprisingly, when Shepherd hits Soap's head on the car, his vision gets better as the fuzziness is gone and the sandstorm seems more controlled. This is likely to speed up the game as the sandstorm might slow the PC version down on some systems.

Killing Shepherd

• When Shepherd tells Soap about the 30,000 men he lost five years ago, he is speaking about the incident in Shock and Awe, since Modern Warfare 2 takes place five years after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. This means that he was the commander of the USMC in CoD4. However, this was never revealed in the previous game as the developers didn't think of that yet. That is strange because a commander of an entire army would be mentioned several times in real life. It makes even more strange because if he was the commander of the USMC, that is a branch in the Navy, is unknown what is he doing in the Army.
• Though it may seem that Soap is crawling for an empty gun, this is not the case. Shepherd can be seen loading two rounds into his revolver, one for Soap and one for Price.
• Soap seems to crawl on his belly toward the .44 Magnum even though he's got a knife in his chest. One possibility is that he is crawling on his side or with his chest raised.
• The blood splatters on Soap's gloves when crawling toward the .44 Magnum are completely identical.
• This is the only part of the whole game (Single Player or Multiplayer) where the player can see the lower half of the player's body, because if the player looks down at any other time, he will not see his body.
• No matter how quickly the player tries to crawl to the discarded .44 Magnum Revolver, Shepherd will always manage to kick it away.
• The .44 Magnum is the same revolver that Shepherd is loading at the beginning of "Team Player."
• If the player does not crawl for the .44, the screen will black out and say, "Price was killed." This will also happen if the player waits too long to throw the knife.
• The animation used by Shepherd when he is beating up Captain Price is also used by a Juggernaut in the Museum when he is beating up an Army Ranger, and in Call of Duty 4 when Captain Price is beating up Al-Asad.
• The player can actually pull the knife out of Soap's chest before being prompted to. While Price and Shepherd are fighting, after the player is able to see Shepherd's knife, (i.e. when Shepherd kicks Price down) they can repeatedly tap the "use" button to start pulling the knife. Even though the player can throw the knife earlier, Shepherd will still be over Price beating him like he is scripted to do so.
• When the player tries to take out the knife from Soap, his mag pouches can be seen. There are always STANAG (the magazines used by the M4, M16, FAMAS, and several other weapons chambered for 5.56 NATO) magazines in them, no matter which weapon you use in this level.
• The player cannot throw the knife unless the crosshairs go red.
• No matter where the player aims at Shepherd, the knife will always hit his left eye, as at that point, the player can only control the camera, and the arm is always leveled at his face.
• If the player waits while holding the knife Soap took out of his chest, they can eventually hear Soap (in a harsh and strained voice) say what sounds like to be "Shepherd".
• If the player takes too long to throw the knife at Shepherd, he will beat Captain Price to death.
• When looking at a different direction before the player throws the knife at Shepherd, when the player presses the "Shoot" button the game will motion the player in the direction of Shepherd.

Rescue

• When Nikolai's Little Bird comes in to evacuate Soap and Price, there isn't a pilot in it before it lands. When the heli does land, the door does not open at all; Nikolai just appears outside of the helicopter.
• After the credits are finished, there is a picture of Task Force 141. It is possible that Roach is one of the men in the picture, or possibly the one taking it. Some of the soldiers in the picture are US Army Rangers and some of the soldiers have been deceased/KIA by the time Endgame is complete (note that the only TF 141 soldiers are Price, Ghost and Soap).
• It is unknown if Nikolai is also considered a "Wanted War Criminal", as he helped Price and Soap.
• When Price is patching up Soap, a knife can be seen on him. It is unknown why Price did not use the knife in combat with Shepherd. He may not have had time to pull it out or it may have given him too much an advantage in the brawl.
• When Price is helping you get to Nikolai's helicopter, if you look down at the ground you will see a short trail of blood, possibly from when Soap crawled across the ground trying to grab Shepherd's gun.