From what we have seen following the MW3 reveal event, the stakes have never been higher for Call of Duty‘s Captain Price and Task Force 141 in Modern Warfare 3. With the infamous Makarov and the Russian paramilitary Konni Group threatening the world with chemical warfare and assumed annihilation in MW3, the Modern Warfare 3 campaign is going to have to end with a fatality or two, right? Well, perhaps, but not for Makarov. If you’re sitting there wondering whether Makarov dies in Modern Warfare 3, there’s one major piece of evidence staring us right in the face that suggests otherwise.
If you need to know what that piece of evidence is, all you need to do is look at your Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders and the bonuses you can get your hands on ahead of the Modern Warfare 3 release date. If you pre-order the Vault Edition of Modern Warfare 3, you get access to the Nemesis Operator Pack. This DLC comes with a Price operator skin, a Ghost operator skin, a Warden operator skin, and a Makarov operator skin. So, this confirms that Makarov is an operator in Modern Warfare 3.
Do you know what Call of Duty does with its list of active operators? Well, whatever it does do, it doesn’t kill them off. In fact, Call of Duty is in the nasty habit of bringing the dead ones back to life inexplicably – or with shoddy excuses. Alex’s return in Season 3 of Modern Warfare 2019 is one example of that. And, of course, big Phil Graves’ more-recent “I wasn’t in that tank” explainer.
If you want a reminder of what that particular piece of shithousery from Graves looks like, which ironically also features Alex, you can below:
We know this isn’t concrete confirmation that Makarov makes it out of Modern Warfare 3 alive, so take it with a pinch of salt. However, when you look back at Modern Warfare 2019, Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard, and Modern Warfare 2, there isn’t one major character with an operator at launch that dies canonically in the respective Call of Duty game’s campaign.
Of course, Black Ops Cold War is a bit of a unique example in all of this – given the fact that you can choose to kill quite a few major characters in the campaign mode. However, as these are all the result of player choice and thus can be avoided in certain scenarios, they’re not canon. For example, Park has an operator at launch and can be killed in the mission End Of The Line. However, she can also survive this and ultimately survive until the end of the campaign, if the player chooses to side with Adler and co. in The Final Countdown (and not Perseus in Ashes To Ashes).
On top of all of that, if it isn’t enough evidence for you, do you really think Call of Duty would bring Makarov back for one simple campaign? Call of Duty’s first iteration of Makarov is, perhaps, the series’ most iconic villain. So, we’re finding it hard to believe that Call of Duty would kill him off as soon as it has brought him back. Sure, we could see him meet his maker when this narrative comes to its conclusion after a few post-launch content updates, but we don’t think it’s going to happen in the campaign we’ll get to play when Modern Warfare 3 early access starts.
If, though, you’re wondering whether Captain Price dies in Modern Warfare 3, you’ll have to click here to find out what we think. MW2 skins will transfer to MW3, so the Price skin in the Nemesis Operator Pack could technically be for the MW2 iteration of Captain Price. Not that we want Bravo-Six to ‘go dark’ permanently, or anything.
You can find out more about MW3 Zombies and all the leaked MW3 guns you’ll be able to use in this strange new Zombies mode right here. It also looks like MW3 could signal the end of Warzone’s DMZ mode, if you’re a fan of this large-scale PvPvE experience. But, will it signal the end of Makarov? We doubt that.