Fans of Infinity Ward's popular shooter, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, had plenty to like this week as the anticipated season 2 kickoff finally arrived. The infusion of new content brought a brand new battle pass to work through as well as additional maps, game modes, and much more. Fan favorite character Simon "Ghost" Riley is also the featured operator this season, bringing him back into the franchise since his last appearance in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Ghost also comes with a stylish new finishing move, though it's posing a few unanticipated problems for players trying to use it.
Finishers in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare are essentially melee execution moves that can be triggers when approaching an enemy player from behind and pressing the button prompt on screen. A small animation then triggers showing the player's character performing a quick and stylish kill that may add insult to injury for the opposing player.
Ghost is no different in this regard as the returning operator also has a very cool finisher sequence that involves the character stabbing his victim in the back, sliding to their front and finishing them off with a close range pistol shot to the head. However, this animation is not only much longer than many of the other finishers, but it leaves the player vulnerable to some unexpected dangers. When sliding to the front to finish the enemy, the player can actually fall off ledges or drops if the enemy is standing on a location that isn't big enough to support the entire finisher animation sequence.
As players are discovering on newly added maps like Rust, this is costing them a death and sometimes the kill as well. Reddit user 0nePrblm posted a video showing a situation where they went for the finisher kill on an enemy but fell off of the platform they were on. As it turns out the knife kill isn't enough to take the enemy player out if the full animation doesn't finish. The video shows the former victim fighting back against the player.
It's likely that this isn't a bug, meaning Infinity Ward likely won't release an update to fix it as it's largely working as intended. Therefore, players will need to judge when and where the move should be used. It also gives defenders a viable way to counter the finishing move by simply standing near an overhang or ledge.
Outside of Ghost and the arrival of Season 2, Infinity Ward seems focused on the next big event for its game, which has seemingly leaked all over the internet. The long awaited Battle Royale mode seems to be coming soon thanks to keyart which reveals the name as Warzone. According to other leakers and dataminers, this mode will likely be free to play and coming as a standalone option for those without the full game, meaning it'll be able to directly compete with other major games in this genre like Apex Legends and Fortnite.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.