Characters

    The game sees the return of former Task Force 141 Cpt. John "Soap" MacTavish (voiced by Kevin McKidd), former SAS Cpt. John Price (Billy Murray) and Russian informant "Nikolai", who are on the run after killing the rogue U.S. Army Lt. General Shepherd, the antagonist of the previous game.

    However, for most of the game, the player will control Yuri, an ex-Spetsnaz soldier who joins Price on his hunt for Russian Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov (Roman Varshavsky), and is revealed to be linked to the main story in more ways than one. As mentioned above, Makarov also reprises his role as the game's primary antagonist, and has a new contact named Volk, a Russian bombmaker in Paris, France. Several new playable characters have been added, including: Delta Force operative Sgt. Derek "Frost" Westbrook; SAS operative Sgt. Marcus Burns; and Andrei Harkov, a Russian federal security agent tasked with protecting the Russian President.

    Just like Al-Fulani in Call of Duty 4, Soap is only "playable" during the game's opening sequence; while Price becomes the player character in the game's final mission.New non-player characters (NPCs) include: Delta Force operatives "Sandman" (William Fichtner), "Truck" (Idris Elba), and "Grinch" (Timothy Olyphant), who serve as Frost's squadmates. Captain MacMillan returns from Call of Duty 4 to provide the 141 with critical intelligence. Actor Craig Fairbrass, who originally voiced the characters Gaz and Ghost, returns to voice SAS operative Sergeant Wallcroft, who originally had a minor role in the first Modern Warfare.

Plot(Spoilers)

    On August 17, 2016, hours after killing General Shepherd, Captain John Price and Nikolai evacuate a dying John "Soap" MacTavish from Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan. They reach a safehouse run by Nikolai’s Loyalist allies in Himachal Pradesh, India. While Soap receives medical attention, Vladamir Makarov's forces storm the safehouse in an attempt to kill the three. Yuri, Nikolai's best soldier with a grudge against Makarov, aids Price in giving Soap an adrenaline shot to keep his heart going, and with securing a safe route to an extraction point out of the country. Together, the four are all that remains of the now-disavowed Task Force 141. Price's team then goes into hiding for two months, while Makarov does the same.

    On the same day, World War III continues. The actions of a Delta Force team call-signed "Metal 0-1", which includes Sgt. Derek "Frost" Westbrook, "Grinch", "Truck", and their C.O. "Sandman" (with whom Soap, Price, and Ghost previously worked together with on Operation Kingfish three years ago to kill/capture Makarov), facilitates the Russian army's withdrawal from the invasion of Lower Manhattan, New York. They start by destroying a jamming tower on top of the New York Stock Exchange, then with hijacking a Russian Oscar II submarine in the East River, in order to use its ordinance against its own fleet.

    On October 4th, 2016, Russian President Boris Vorshevsky announces plans to make peace with the United States at a summit in Hamburg, Germany. However, the plan is derailed when Makarov's men hijack Vorshevsky's plane and force it into a crash landing at the airport. F.S.O. Agent Andrei Harkov attempts to secure Vorshevsky's safety, but is killed when Makarov appears inside what the F.S.O. mistake as the evac chopper. Makarov kidnaps the President, and plans to capture and torture his daughter, Alena, to force the President to give Makarov the launch codes for the Russian nuclear arsenal.

    Soap eventually recovers enough to fight, and with help from Yuri, and from Price's former mentor and C.O., MacMillan, they follow Makarov's trail to an arms deal in Sierra Leone, but are unable to intercept the cargo. This cargo of unknown nature is distributed to Paris, Berlin, and London. Meanwhile, a British S.A.S. unit, including Sgt. Marcus Burns and Sgt. Wallcroft, is sent in to deal with the cargo but discover one of the transports to be a decoy. Meanwhile, a piece of the real cargo, revealed to be a biochemical weapon from Fregata Industries, is detonated on a London street nearby, killing a young American family as it releases its toxic payload near Big Ben.

    The chemical attacks pave the way for the Russian Army to invade Europe, and Team Metal is deployed to Hamburg to rescue the U.S. Vice President from a hostage situation. Acting on intelligence supplied by Price, who had extraced it from a warlord in Somalia named Waraabe, they are later deployed to Paris in order to capture Russian bomb-maker Volk.

    After securing Volk, they fight their way through the city to an extraction point with the help of an AC-130 gunship; however, the Eiffel Tower collapses into the river after a bombing run eliminates all Russian forces at the escape point. After extracting information from Volk, Team Metal learns of Makarov's current location: the Hotel Lustig (loosely based on the Four Seasons Hotel) in Prague, where Makarov is about to call a meeting with his top advisors. Sandman informs Price of this information, and Price's team infiltrates the locked-down city.

    Once in Prague, Task Force 141 meets up with Loyalist Kamarov, now the leader of the local resistance, to try to assassinate Makarov. Yuri and Soap take sniping positions from a church tower across from the hotel, while Price sneaks into the building itself. However, the plan goes awry when Kamarov himself is taken hostage and rigged with explosives. Price escapes the hotel just as Kamarov is blown up. Makarov reveals that he knows Yuri personally, by acknowledging him as his "friend". Makarov had already predicted Yuri and Soap's overwatch spot and had it rigged with explosives, which he then detonates. Yuri and Soap avoid the explosion by jumping down to ground level, but Soap is mortally wounded due to the height he fell from the tower and a large chuck of debris falling on him, the force of the ordeal causing his knife wound to reopen. Yuri helps Soap and escapes with Price to a resistance safehouse. In his last moments, Soap tells Price about Makarov's knowledge of Yuri before dying. After leaving his M1911 pistol with Soap's body and taking Soap's journal and dog tag, an enraged Price punches Yuri down a staircase and holds him at gunpoint, demanding him to explain his connection with Makarov.

    Yuri explains that he was a former Ultranationalist, another protegé of Imran Zakhaev, and Makarov's former friend and ally. He was present with Makarov at Price’s assassination mission in 1996, evacuating Zakhaev from the arms deal. Yuri was also with Makarov when the latter detonated the nuclear bomb in the Middle East, killing 30,000 of Shepherd's Marines. After witnessing the nuclear explosion, and Makarov's reaction, Yuri attempted to stop the massacre at the Zakhaev International Airport in Moscow 5 years later by alerting the FSB there. However, Yuri was found out, and was restrained and shot in the stomach by Makarov himself before the attack started. Yuri's guilt of being unable to prevent the mass murder convinces Price that they are fighting for the same thing, and Price decides to keep his alliance with Yuri.

    After infiltrating Makarov's castle near Prague and learning of Vorshevsky’s captivity, Price and Yuri alert Team Metal of an Ultranationalist plan to abduct Alena from a safehouse in Berlin. Team Metal is unable to prevent the kidnapping, but they are able to trace Makarov's Ultranationalists to a Siberian diamond mine. Team Metal (without the inclusion of Frost) and Task Force 141 launch a joint-rescue operation to save the Vorshevskys before Makarov gains the nuclear launch codes. Their actions ensure the safety of President Vorshevsky and Alena, and end the conflict between the United States and Russia. During extraction, Sandman, Grinch, and Truck stay behind to buy the evac chopper some time, and are KIA when the mine collapses on them.

    On January 21st, 2017, 3 months after the end of World War III, Price and Yuri track Makarov to the Hotel Oasis (loosely based on the Burj Al Arab in Dubai) in the Arabian Peninsula. They assault the hotel, with Price and Yuri wearing E.O.D. armor, which is later destroyed. On the hotel roof, Makarov attempts to escape on a helicopter, but Price jumps on, killing the two pilots and crashing the helicopter back onto the roof. A dazed Makarov prepares to execute an equally injured Price, but is distracted by Yuri, killing him instead. Enraged with the loss of another ally, Price takes advantage of the moment to tackle Makarov, wrapping a steel cable around his throat into a noose before breaking through the glass roof, resulting in Makarov's death by hanging. Price lands on the atrium floor just below and survives. As the police arrive on the scene, Price sits up in front of Makarov’s hanging corpse and quietly smokes a cigar.