Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 cut ending mystery looks to have been solved after 13 years
Price is not alright.
What looks to be a previously-unseen Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 post-credits scene has been uploaded to YouTube after 13 years, solving a mystery surrounding unused audio in the game's files, and offering a bleaker coda to the hugely-popular shooter's campaign.
Infinity Ward's first Modern Warfare 3, released in 2011, famously ends with the trilogy's main villain Makarov swinging from a rope, after he and hero Price fall through a glass skylight. The credits roll as Makarov's dead body sways, while an injured Price lights up a cigar. It's a grim but satisfying conclusion.
But unused sound files suggested there was still more to come - and indeed, after 13 years, fans finally believe they can see what Infinity Ward once intended would follow. Spoilers: it would have been bad news for Price.
Audio files for the level include mention of a mysterious "Shadow Man" entering and exiting a room with heavy footsteps, while ominous music plays. But there's no place in the level - as shipped in the final game - where this happens.
Step up Call of Duty modders yoyo1love and Vlad Loktionov, who claim to have discovered and uploaded footage of a post-credits scene that features the "Shadow Man", and presumably sets up a new mystery to be answered by another game.
The scene would have contined on from the end of the game - Price still lying on the floor smoking his cigar, Makarov still swinging on his rope. A mysterious figure would have walked into the room, observing the two, and as Price seemingly bleeds out, would then silently exit. The screen blurs as Price drops his cigar, before fading to black. Here it is to watch in full:
Price dying (on top of earlier main character deaths in the game) would certainly have been a more downbeat finale. The question would then have been who the mysterious stranger was - perhaps answered in a Modern Warfare 4 (rather than Infinity Ward's actual follow-up, 2013's standalone Ghosts).
Regardless, it's fascinating this coda has seemingly lain unseen in the files for more than a decade.
There's not long to go until this year's Call of Duty is fully detailed at next month's Xbox Showcase. It's widely-expected to be a Black Ops title set in the Gulf War - and to debut on Xbox Game Pass.