Five years after the events of Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Russia has been taken over by the Ultranationalists and an Ultranationalist rebel by the name of Vladimir Makarov carries out terrorist attacks against the West. A CIA agent is put in the ranks of Makarov, but after being killed during a terrorist attack, the Russian government believes the US ordered the attack and invades the US in retaliation. The story focuses on a US Ranger that takes part in repelling the Russian invasion, while a multinational task force seeks to find Makarov and put an end to any further damage.
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The marketing team had a bit of fun with the release date. Every trailer leading up to launch flashed the date as '11-10-09', with the numbers ticking on one by one like a countdown to a detonation. Cute touch for a game about a world going up in flames.
MW2 didn't just beat other games at launch, it beat every form of entertainment period. It pulled in $310 million across the US and UK in its first 24 hours, blowing past Grand Theft Auto IV's previous record and beating out music and film releases too.
Roughly 4.7 million copies flew off shelves worldwide in the first day alone. By March 2010 that number had ballooned to over 14 million, making it the second best-selling game ever in the UK at the time and third in the US.
Before he was scoring Dune and Dark Knight sequels, Hans Zimmer wrote his very first video game score for MW2. You can hear that cinematic, dread-heavy sound all over the campaign's big set pieces.
Right before the airport massacre kicks off, Makarov mutters 'С нами Бог' (God is with us) then tells his men in English: 'Remember... no Russian.' It's not just a creepy line, it's the whole plan. Keep the gunmen speaking English so the attack gets pinned on America instead of him, which is exactly the spark that sets off World War III for the rest of the game.
The airport massacre mission caused enough of a stir that Russia yanked the level entirely, releasing the game there with it stripped out completely. Other regions got softer treatment, but Russia just cut it loose.
Japan and Germany didn't get the mission cut, but they did get it rewired. In those versions, if you actually fire on the civilians during 'No Russian' instead of just walking through it, the game slaps you with an instant Game Over screen.
Head into the big house on the Estate multiplayer map and check the rack underneath the TV in the main hall. There's a console sat there called a 'Gamestation 5', a cheeky PlayStation dig, with a couple of games next to it: 'Italian Plumber Princess Rescue' and 'Deer Hunter 17'. Not exactly subtle, but funny every time.
Some of the car license plates scattered around the game read 'IW20094'. Break it down and it's Infinity Ward's own signature: IW for the studio, 2009 for the year it came out, and 4 marking it as the fourth game they'd built.
On the multiplayer map Derail there's a blue freight train engine sat on the tracks. Take a look at the number painted on its side and you'll spot 1337, a little wink to the old internet slang for 'elite'.
