Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Guides

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare(2007)

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All COD4 Softlocks and How to Prevent From (Most of) Them.

Guides

All COD4 Softlocks and How to Prevent From (Most of) Them.

Updated 2 years ago by

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#Introduction: What is Softlock?

In this guide, I'm gonna show all the softlocks of COD4 and teach how to prevent them.

First of all, if you're new to speedrunning, softlock is basically something that happens on the game that doesn't allow you to advance on the mission or makes you lose too much time, killing the run, and COD4 has a lot of them.

#Crew Expendable

CE1 - NPC get stuck shooting:

NPC gets stuck shooting someone which holds up rest of the people.

How to Prevent:

Kill the drunk guy on the way:

How to get out of it:

Run back to the room where NPCs are shooting and kill the enemy.

CE2:

This one happens in the final section before the ship explodes, where you need to kill all the enemies. Apparently, if your team enter the last room before killing the enemies in the scaffolding, Price will not say his quotes after Gaz opens the the container, softlocking the game.

How to Prevent:

Killing those enemies before going to the last room should be enough.

CE3:

Very similar to the last one, but this time who will softlock is Gaz, where he will take too long or not even open the container, losing enough time to kill your run. We don't know exactly what causes it, but we think it happens if you clean the last room too fast.

How to prevent:

Easy, just don't clear that room fast enough Kappa.

#The Bog

TB1:

At the start of the level you can make Vasquez gets stuck in a wall, making him not moving foward.

How to Prevent:

If you enter the building fast enough the softlock shouldn't happen, but the 100% safe strat is before rushing to the building that you have to clear, wait for the "Keep Moving Foward" quote from Vasquez.

TB2:

At the start of the last section (where you reach the tank), if you go too fast you can make the enemies not to spawn, making impossible to rush to the Anti-Aircraft without getting the tank exploded.

How to Prevent:

When you are getting to the bog, wait for the "The tank's are on the other side of that overpass!..." quote and then rush to the next objective.

#Hunted

HU1:

When you need to wait for Gaz to open the door to the basement of the second house, if you are very unlucky with Price positioning and you go too fast once inside the house, Price can get stuck and doesn't activate his basement animation.

How to Prevent:

If you are not a speedy boy you will probably never get this softlock, but if you are a speedy boy, you can wait one more second than usual before getting out of the house. While doing that you can kill the three enemies that will enter the house.

This is very likely the hardest softlock to get anyway, the chances of it happening is very likely to be <1%.

HU2:

When you are at the last section, where you need to rush to the barn and destroy the heli with 2 stinger shots, you can make the helicopter "immortal", making impossible to advance in the mission.

How to Prevent:

Either:

Shoot only 1 stinger shot at the heli, then wait for the "Soap, Take the stinger and take out that chopper" quote and shoot the second stinger shoot.

Destroy it with a nade. Track where the heli is, push a nade and wait ~3s, do a strafe jump and throw the nade a bit to the left of the chopper. It´s important to keep track of the time of the mission, because the position of the heli depends on how fast you're doing the mission. If you manage to make Price open the fence shown in the video below in sub 3:40, you should follow this strat:

But if Price doesn't open the fence in sub 3:40, you should do this strat:

The nade strats don't work everytime, as they require some R.N.G aswell, but if they don't work, you can just kill all the enemies and do the stinger strat.

HU3:

When you destroy the helicopter with a nade way too early, Price will softlock and never open the last door.

How to Prevent:

Don't destroy it too early, using the Fast Nade strat or the Slow Nade strat shown in the last softlock is 100% safe from this softlock.

#War Pig

WP1:

When you reach the section where your teammates need to push a trash cannon, one of them can softlock and don't open the door that leads to the next section, not allowing you to advance.

How to Prevent:

We don't know exactly what causes the Softlock as it is really rare and we only have 1 footage of it, but we believe that it is caused by the teammate that opens that door getting stuck in the tank, as it doesn't move either as shown in the clip, so not going through the tank's path at the beginning of the level should prevent it.

#Shock and Awe

SAA1:

While using the Teleport Skip, the Heli can decide not fly to the next section, not allowing you to advance.

How to Prevent:

Just wait a few seconds after seeing the heli, you can use the top of the highest tree of the mountain as a reference.

#Safehouse

S1: When you are going down to the house where Al-Asad is, you can get Price stuck in a fence, and as it's him who opens the door of the house, you can't advance.

How to Prevent:

There are no ways to avoid it, so just pray to RNG gods.

S2: Price gets stuck after dog attacks him, interrupting him mid animation script. This might be a more general softlock.

How to Prevent: Kill dogs asap.

How to get out of it: Try restarting @ latest chekpoint.

#One Shot, One Kill

OSOK1:

Sometimes, in the section where Macmillan and Price need to take down a heli with sniper shots, Macmillan takes forever to activate the section, losing enough time to kill your run.

How to Prevent:

There's not a way to prevent it, but restarting the last checkpoit should fix it.

#Heat

HE1:

When exploding the detonators, you can accidentally blow one of your teammates, dying by friendly fire.

How to Prevent

Exploding the detonators in this order should prevent it from happening:

Sometimes the last detonator can still hit teammates, so double checking if there's someone in the denonation area before exploding it would be a nice thing to do.

HE2 (Console Only):

The game on console has a limit of AIs spawned at the same time, so if you go down the cliff at the end of the level too fast, the heli will not spawn, not allowing you to finish the level.

How to Prevent:

When going down the cliff, wait for Griffen 2-7 to say '' be ready for pickup.'' before crossing the trigger of the helicopter (the fence where you place the last claymore at the start of the level). Different from PC, you don't need to kill enemies while going down the cliff, so the time difference between console and pc isn't that big, althought it exists.

HE3:

This one can happen on pc, but it´s really rare and you shouldn´t worry about it if you´re a pc player, but it is extremely common on console tho. Once you have entered the heli at the end of the level, Griggs can block the entrance and not allow the rest of the team to enter the heli, softlocking the game.

How to Prevent:

The main goal of Griggs' team (The guys from the heli) is to make sure you get to the heli, so they will follow you until you enter it, the problem is that sometimes they go inside the heli while trying to escolt you, but there is a solution, if they are fighing with someone they will not move, so shooting them before entering the heli should prevent the softlock.

If you think you already shooted a friend before in the mission and can get friendly fire doing that strat, you can try this one:

#The Sins of the Father

TSOTF1:

When the ambush starts, Griggs usually throws a grenade, and sometimes it lands inside the tower, killing you as a consequence.

How to Prevent:

When it happens, throw the grenade away, but be careful, depending on where you are in the tower, griggs can block you before you can grab it (This is shown in the last clip).

TSOTF2:

When you are going up in the building to retreat Viktor Zakhaev, the chopper can accidentally kill him (The clip is from CoD4Remastered but it will work the same way for OG cod4).

How to Prevent:

You need to get to Viktor before the chopper starts shooting, so just practice this mission till you can do this section fast enough to not get the softlock.

#Ultimatum

U1:

The sniper team don't spawn in the last section, making the dialogue that finishes the mission impossible to start.

How to Prevent:

We don't know why it happens, and because of that we don't know how to avoid it. We believe it can be caused by Price or Griggs getting stuck somewhere and because of that the trigger of sniper team spawning never gets activated. This softlock is really rare, you shouldn't worry about it, just play the mission normally.

#No Fighting in the War Room

NFITWR1:

Before entering the bunker, Price or Griggs can get stuck on a friendly or enemy ai and never go to the Bunker door.

How to Prevent:

We don't have confirmed ways of getting out of it yet, as we only have one footage of it happening, but a potencial way (not confirmed yet) would be making an explosion near them.

How to get out of it:

Throw grenade near Price and he will resume movement.

NFITWR2:

Very similar to the last one, but this time Price/Griggs will get stuck/freezed in the bunker door. It happens when one of the friendly ai don't despawn in the start of the mission, making Price to freeze in the door as he thinks there are friendlies still in danger.

How to Prevent:

As far as we know, not going too fast makes it to not happen, but this softlock is still a big mistery in the community and no one was able to find a 100% sure answer to it. As explained by Surviv0r in the clip below, shooting Price's leg may fix the softlock if you get it, but if not you can restart the last checkpoint.

NFITWR3:

After breaching the wall and going to the war room, there is a chance you finish clearing it and for some reason, the trigger for using the laptop never activates.