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Infinity Ward’s2022 smash hitCall of Duty: Modern Warfare II(not to be confused with Modern Warfare 2 from 2009) gave players a more toned-down military thriller that focused less on World War 3 and Connery-era James Bond-esque plot twists and instead hyper-focused on character interactions, government corruption, and the consequences of allowing private armies to call the shots without proper oversight.
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The commander of the PMC outfit Shadow Company, Phillip Graves, is revealed to be corrupt and is working with General Shepard to quietly cover up their involvement in allowing US missile systems to fall into the hands of Iranian terrorists. Graves seemingly dies after the player destroys the tank he commandeered, but the process felt too easy to some. Did Phillip Graves really die in Modern Warfare II?
The Tank Fight
The player confronts Graves and a detachment of his Shadow Company mercenaries who have taken control of a Mexican Special Forces air base for themselves.Graves is cornered near the vehicle depotand seemingly takes command of a tank and confronts the player as they pursue him into a fenced-off training area. The boss fight itself is presented as a quasi-tutorial for fighting armored vehicles in Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer modes, like Ground War and Invasion. As he patrols the ground, firing at the player if he spots them, reinforcements clamber around the far end of the fence to pursue the player.
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Forced to scavenge the battlefield, the player will whittle away the tank’s armor with C4 and rocket launchers, all the while being taunted by Graves until finally, the tank goes up in a ball of smoke and fire. That should be the end of this storyline and Graves, butplayers have taken note of oddities with the battle that could point towards Graves not perishingin that destroyed tank chassis.
The Evidence
Firstly, the player never sees Commander Graves enter the tank prior to the boss fight. Throughout the entire Modern Warfare 2 campaign, the game regularly shows perspectives and moments that the protagonists,Ghost, Soap Mactavish,Gaz, and Captain Price, aren’t able to know about, letting the player see views that the characters aren’t privy to. Yet the player never sees Phillip Graves in person at any point during this mission, only encountering him after he ambushes the player in the tank. After the tank is destroyed,there’s no attempt made to inspect the wreckage for a body, which would’ve been rendered unidentifiable due to the explosionand resulting fire.
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Secondly, Graves taunts the player during the fight using the tank’s intercom system. At no point during the fight does his tone, mannerism, or voice clarity change, even as the tank becomes more and more damaged as the fight progresses. He never stutters, gets angry, or has his voice become static-like or break up as the tank nears destruction. With Infinity Ward’s obsession with the smallest of details in this game,not having his voice react as he nears death’s door seems like a major oversight.
Maybe he was never in the tank to begin with— and that’s where the theories begin to pile on. Graves is no fool, and cornering himself as he appears to have done in the campaign is a fool’s errand. It’s theorized that Graves and his top lieutenants cut and run when they saw the writing on the wall and used the tank battle, with Graves giving commentary remotely, asa way to fake their deaths and go off the radar. They would be presumed dead, and Shadow Company would be dissolved and face international scrutiny from lawmakers as the United States tries to throw them andGeneral Shepard, who also disappeared around the same time,under the bus to minimize the damage done to America’s reputation.
Players will have to wait and see if this theory holds water, and if so, will Shepard and Graves re-appear in the future, possibly as part of Modern Warfare II’swildly successfulongoing live-service support for story and multiplayer content? If this theory turns out to be a reality, thenTask Force 141 and its players will be in for the fight of their lives against well-trained and well-connected men with nothing to loseand everything to gain.
