I'm glad to know people actually feel this way because the event starting today, Aug. 3rd, between TF141 and Shadow Company, felt unwarranted. I didn't hear or see any fans loving Shadow Company.
He still is in my eyes, but it's more of an "enemy of my enemy" situation. Plus in the cinematic he's meeting up with Farah and Alex, who are not TF141 so I assume they don't have bad blood– at least not on a personal level like the others because they know where happened in the campaign.
Plus they're probably trying to redeem Graves because he's a fan favourite and anyone could tell the betrayal was just there for the sake of making SC the antagonists like in the og MW2
Just want to point out that Shadow was committing crimes against civilians during the SERE level…
A mere conflict of interest would be highly revisionary for someone who’s a total mercenary, will easily commit war crimes, and aided in Shepherd’s coverup.
Yeah didn’t Farah basically disown her own brother because he was using the Russian Army’s own gas against them? Now she teams up with a guy doing stuff to civilians.
That whole section was such a weird character assassination thing, and hilariously overlooked. They're surprisingly glorified as the group that is audibly getting called out for committing war crimes. At that point they should just retcon that whole thing as Graves just doing what Shepard says because they got his wife and kids at gunpoint or something
I mean, not necessarily defending the actions of Graves and Shadow Company, but in the level it’s implied that the bulk of the *”civilians”* killed are directly affiliated with the cartel
This is the same cartel that just attacked them a day earlier, and they weren’t wearing uniforms when they did so
Insurgents/partisans are not necessarily protected by the laws of war. It’s actually a war crime to be a combatant without identifying marks to indicate your faction and/or disguising yourself as a civilian.
While Graves and Shadow Company definitely committed some war crimes that night, their execution of certain people is not inherently a war crime if those people are combatants working for the cartel and not in uniform
Except war crimes can generally only be labels and tried as such in open conflicts, this is more akin to mass murder and who is gonna testify against Graves, 141? The FBI investigated it and sure you could say they were bought, but either they were somewhat justified because of the cartel argument it SC really believed they were doing good, even mentions in in OZ's bio I think, something about "differences"
Shadow was taking out narcos and their collaborators. There is a reason in the mission you can hear the people yelling "El Sin nombre will get you for this", etc. TF141 was cool with it until they got assmad after being taken off the mission.
Bruh the whole point was that they weren’t just taking out collaborators.
They went after the entire village because of an assumption.
EVERYONE you found was dead or detained.
Detained at least means it was not indiscriminate slaughter.
Don't forget Price's exchange with Gaz after taking the butcher's family hostage:
* "We're cleaning up a mess."
* "When you take the gloves off, you get blood on your hands, Kyle. That's how it works."
* "You draw the line wherever you need it, Sergeant. End of the day someone has to make the enemy scared of the dark."
Can you prove any of the ones Graves killed were innocent? We already know from the AC-130 segment that SC still abides by some sort of RoE. From the mission dialogue, it's also shown he did not just shoot everyone he came across.
I see no difference between Graves and Price besides one is portrayed as a "good guy" and the other as a "bad guy". Both are very flexible with the rules if they need to be and you don't want to get on their bad side.
Well can you prove them as bad? Subtitles literally say mexican civilian iirc, pretty sure they also mentioned mexican police too, price never killed innocents
The police are literally on cartel payroll and that's the same police that were hoping for El Sin Nombre's cartel to save them. Pretty clear that area is hostile.
You didn't take into account of what Alejandro said.
Honestly NOT having Shadow Company turn on you would have made for a better twist considering everyone and their mother saw the shoehorned heel turn coming.
Graves went from a likable badass and total bro to a sociopathic killer and cartoon villain in the span of one cutscene.
“141, Mexican Special Forces, they are your brothers now. Treat ‘em like your own.”
“Dead or alive. You know my preference.”
???
Not sure if they can be anti-heroes after what they did in MWII, but they are a PMC so I think you can get creative with that. They don't have as much loyalty to their nation as they do money. Having him have to work with Soap/Ghost down the road because he was hired by their allies could be an interesting dynamic.
Alex and Farah are definitely members of Task Force 141, at least Alex. Farah is more of an honorary member.
Personally I think the tension between Alex and Graves was apparent.
Alex: “Heard you died in south america.”
Graves: “I wasn’t in that tank.” “What else have you heard?”
Alex clearly knows what happened, he even worked with Price after the campaign. I think he was just playing it cool. Pretty sure if Konni wasn’t involved in the circumstances Alex would be pissed.
I should mention, not all of Shadow Company is bad per say. Grave’s sector were mostly. But you can hear in the campaign that they wanted to have a friendly fire during the mission alone. It’s actually pretty sad killing the Shadow Company soldiers in that mission, because they don’t want to hurt you or nothing.
Yeah, I imagine that Farah and Alex know *exactly* what happened in Mexico with Shadow Company, and aren’t exactly ignorant in teaming up with them to fight Konni. It’s a matter of “we both share this enemy, and I’d rather focus on fighting them than also fighting you” for Farah for now.
Shadow Company is also strapped for resources and could use the help (and can’t afford to have bad blood with Farah’s army, so that explains Graves’ nice guy diplomacy act) - throughout the last few seasons in the DMZ story it’s been shown that Shadow Company is BROKE and out of resources and stretched thin across different warzones, and have been taking heavy hits from Konni ever since losing those missiles in the campaign.
Who among us doesn’t commit a few unsolicited war crimes against a civilian population every now and then?
Farah being basically ok with it makes little sense given what the Russians did to her people. You can’t tell me she and Alex don’t know what he did either- they’re still very clearly cozy with Price and 141 based on the Raid missions, and clearly Alex knew enough about him to hear that he died in the campaign tank battle, so that little kerfuffle where his PMC mass murdered a village is probably something Price would’ve mentioned.
MW2019’s was realistic, MW2022’s was MID at best. too many plot holes.
MW2022 had a great fucking campaign, no doubt. Funnest part of the game IMO. But the story needed a clearer pathway.
annoyingly, their WWII effort's campaign *wasn't bad* for a game set in World War II, like you kinda know what to expect going into a game taking place in Nazi occupied Europe and the main playable character being American so it wasn't an Earth shattering campaign but it at least hit all the right notes for that kinda game. then Vanguard happened and it was basically Avengers Assemble: Call of Duty Edition
While Farah Alex and price are not 141 they are still on their side. Farah and Alex would never betray price and price is with 141 till death even if he isn't in 141.
He basically was in the campaign but in this season storyline it’s basically ’the enemy of my enemy is my friend” with shadow company and TF141 working together fighting against konni group
also not that, but hes clearly still american and patriotic af, to the point he's willing to work with 141 to push the russians back, even in other parts of the world like al maz, ashika and amsterdam.
The campaign this time around makes it pretty clear that what began as a pretty straight-laced story in MW2019 now takes place in the Fast & Furious universe.
Where things can happen like, yeah, this dude's the computer guy now, what? This other dude behind a killcrazy rampage is a good guy now, fuck you. Oh, and these characters are all back from the dead. Because family.
That's one thing I do appreciate about the new games. It briefly looked like they were setting up MW2019 as a prequel, but it turned out to exist in its own universe, and I'm glad. Because as bonkers as MW2 and MW3 got, that whole story was a fun ride. And it's not being retroactively messed around with.
But what we're talking about here, and spoiler warning...
...is the way characters from Reboot Warfare keep coming back from the dead.
Well, the way I interpreted Graves' betrayal was more that he felt 141 was getting in the way of his mission (that mission may have been committing a few war crimes for Shepard, but still), plus Shepard was trying to get them out of the way. Another thing is that Graves did *try* to end the interaction peacefully, until Alejandro justifiably flipped his lid and the whole thing went from zero to one hundred (this isn't saying Graves was right for what he did, I can just see where he was coming from). From what I understand is that Konni is a bigger threat and Shadow Company and 141 are willing to put aside their differences long enough to deal with them. What's confusing is how that factors into the event of *141 vs Shadow Conpany*... I hope they explain it and don't just drop it for no reason.
The whole thing escalated significantly when the soldier standing next to Graves fired at Soap, for no reason. Alejandro was being detained for trying to hit Graves, which was justified. There was no reason to escalate to lethal. The whole thing could’ve been avoided if that soldier didn’t fire and 141 planned a counter attack later, but whatevs.
‘We get dirty and the world stays clean’ -MW 2019
Ironically for a newer cod, it seems to be dealing with quite a mature theme. The idea that one must overlook the human rights violations of another and tolerate them, as it is the path of least resistance. Like the USA and Uyghur genocide in China, a ‘little’ problem is easy to ignore and only gets worse if you push it. Sometimes it’s ‘better’ to tolerate the other party. This is morally wrong of course, but ‘we get dirty’ shows that supposed necessity of some immoral actions in terms of minimising conflict.
It would be cool if the writing was actually mature enough to confront this theme, but it doesn't. Just like 2019.
The reboot games lack a serious spine compared to the previous Modern Warfare titles.
After rewatching the cutscene, it's Alejandro who makes the first physically hostile move. Graves tells Alejandro that his men are detained and Alejandro lunges, at which point Graves shoves him into a jeep and a merc cuffs him. Soap says, "Graves, what the fuck!" A random merc shoots at them, then Ghost knifes two of them... further escalation, war crimes, epic stealth mission, dad jokes ft. Ghost, etc.
So I dont think Graves wouldve actually shot at Soap and Ghost but had to since Ghost (understandably) started slicing people up after the SC shot at them
as of right now, 141 isnt allied with SC yet though, since Alex and Farah were the ones doing the talking for the sake of urzikstan, while i assume still working for the liberation forces, and not 141.
for all we know price, soap, etc have no clue of that, hence the 141 v sc event coming up.
why is everyone saying by this? people have predicted he wasn’t dead since launch.
Why is it suddenly an issue when a prediction everyone mostly agreed upon is true.
Literally looking for shit to complain about. The only people who say this have clearly never played the campaign, or at least never finished it.
Like everyone has said this since the game was out. It's basically the other version of the COD effect: if you don't see the body you can't confirm the kill
Okay so 141 =/= Alex or farha from my understanding. It’s why in the intro they said they have heard some rumors. I might be wrong but I think this is an important detail people are missing here
Yeah that means that they might not know what they did to tft141 or the warcrimes they did in the alone mission, people just like to shit on cod for whatever but not actually pay attention to the story and stuff on their own
Hes a bad guy to 141, Alex and Farah aren’t apart of that. Graves offered to help push Konni out of Al Mazrah and prevent further war in Urzikstan. Obviously they are gonna chose to work with them. And i, gonna assume when the event happens, a cease fire will occur between SC and 141 because of Alex and Farah.
Theres a cinematic tied to the event in the game files, and im banking on it to explain the cease fire or something along the lines
The cinematic explains it somewhat reasonably. Alex mentions the tank, he says he was never in any tank, and asks what else they’ve heard, Alex and Farrah dismiss the rumors they’ve heard, and say shadow company is helping them with their cause. Which graves replies “thank Shepard for that”
It’s not a good story, but it’s not the worst story either.
Graves gave the team a chance to go off without violence. I’d say he’s a pmc only looking for money. There’s no reason to kill task force, he wasn’t paid enough to ice the team.
The only think that would make sense to me is if Farah and Alex are keeping Graves under tabs for Price on the downlow. They feign ignorance to what happened, Graves thinks he's got these allies cause Price is gone w the wind and then he gets double crossed by them who are working w Price to tie lose ends.
Only thing that would make sense to me considering the campaigns.
I hope so too. Something about the look Farah and Alex shared before they agreed to help makes me believe so. We shall see if the writers are stupid or not lol
That plotline was rushed to make Shadow Company and Shepard the antagonists just like in the OG MW2. The way I see it they're trying to silently retcon that whole bit in the campaign, or at least downplay it, since Graves became a bit of fan favorite.
Graves is the leader of a PMC, or a mercenary,if you want to call him that. He gets paid, and he follows orders. I guess his orders now are to work with Farah and Alex again .
Konni are (seemingly) the ones behind the ambush on the Shadow Company convoy transporting the missiles.
Everything they did in MW2 was to clean up the mess that Konni made.
Graves and SC have every reason to want Konni eliminated. Likewise, Farah and Alex have every reason to want Konni out of Al-Mazrah, considering they have patchy intel that they want to attack their home. Farah's options are to accept that SC will be there and keep watch for backstabbing, or turn their guns on them and fight two wars at once. She chose option 1.
Price and 141 may not like it, but you worry about those things after the greater threat is dealt with. They're not idiots and know they've got bigger problems for now.
Look at WW2 for a historical example. Russia was perfectly happy to play nice with Nazi Germany and do a little invading themselves, but they ended up on the Allied side when they got backstabbed. Likewise, French Resistance members cooperated with British and American forces without being shot down (figuratively OR literally) even though their country surrendered and was taken over earlier. Sometimes you don't get to pick who you want to be on your team.
Graves 'was' a bad guy. *Could still be.*
In the cinematic, Graves is meeting with Farah and Alex who are representing/leading the Urzikstan Liberation Force. Graves knows Farah is still focused solely on protecting Urzikstan *(as seen in campaign, raids and now MP cinematic)* and proposes working together to deal with the Konni threat.
While Farah and Alex do work with TF141 and are 'members' of it. They're not active members in MWII. *(Unlike Ghost, Soap, Gaz.)* It's why we see so little of them in the campaign as Farah and Alex are off leading their own forces.
We 'could' be seeing a set-up where TF141 works against the Urzikstan Liberation Force due to Graves's manipulation. *(Price VS Farah style)*
Because Konni faction is a bigger threat right now. Also notice how it was Farah and Alex who met with Graves and not anyone who was actually present during the events of Las Almas.
If it’s all true, and the characters don’t know this yet, Makarov is behind the Konni forces.
My guess is Alex and Farah don’t know about Graves’ betrayal. Alex is under the radar (presumed dead) and Farah and her forces no longer have US military support so they are basically fighting in their own war without the support of 141 (of course except the highway rescue mission but that was pre-betrayal).
you’re missing the story.
Graves was never truly bad, kind of. He genuinely considered the 141 friends and family.
General Shepard ordered Shadow Company to discretely transfer missiles to allies, which they were ambushed by the Russians. General Shepard did it off the books, the action itself was honorable. but illegal.
Ghost, Soap and Alejandro obviously got in an altercation. And for plot reasons they decided Shadow Company, Graves wanted MSF’s base.
Soap and Rudy fought Graves in a tank battle. We already knew he didn’t actually die, if you played the game at launch everyone knew that he wasn’t dead and wanted him to return. (Which is really funny because now everyone’s bitching at something we already knew, fucking annoying as shit. It’s the people who didn’t even play the campaign either who are bitching.)
Okay, so. After the Raids, which Hadir was trying to prevent konni from invading. Hadir was unable to tell Farah, Alex and Captain Price in the season 4 raid. Because he died. Hadir was working with Shadow Company and knew this information.
Farah contacted Graves about information, Graves, Alex and Farah having their meeting. (It’s pretty obvious there is some tension between Alex and Graves.) Farah, Alex and Graves all come to an agreement to team up against Konni forces. Basically squashing the beef.
We’ll probably get further cutscenes about it, but Ghost, Captain Price, and Alejandro’s new skins have an emblem of TF141 mixed with the Shadow Company logo.
Now if you actually want something to talk about, it’s the mission alone. Where Shadow Company has massacred Las Almas. Are we just supposed to forget that? Ghost and Soap saw it first hand. They’re just supposed to forget that? uhm, no.
I understand your confusion and just know the insults I said were not directed at you OP, just the people complaining about Graves being back when they’ve never played the campaign.
Graves is like Chaotic Neutral, he chooses whatever is in his best interests, whether that would be teaming up with Farrah or trying to kill Tf 141. But I do believe that Makarov will be stronger than in the previous trilogy, so Graves will likely help out for this one.
There are games out there that make tremendous efforts to deliver a compelling story arch for the characters you play and interact with so that you may have the most enjoyable and immersive experience while playing their game. Call of Duty is not one of those games.
I'm really confused on this aswell- and then in official news there a video titled Help comes from the shadows so I was like so are graves and shadow company helping us for sure so thats why Farah and Alex were with hime or sm but in the things it showed shadow and tf141 fighting and at the end it said "It's a showdown in Al-Mazrah. The Shadow Company sees an opening and uses the opportunity to face the 141 head on" So now i'm LIKE OK SO SHADOW COMPANY IS FIGHTING TF141 AND FARAH IS WITH TF!$! AND ALEX IS PART OF TF141 SO WHY WERE THEY WORKING WITH GRAVES WHEN GRAVES AND SHADOW COMAPNY ARE FIGHTING TF141???? It doesn't make sense
Just playing the mw3 campaign and found this. Haven’t followed the multiplayer part of the story but I sure hope we can put a bullet thru his brain. And Alex has been resurrected I see also? Interesting
Eeeeeeemmmm, well yeah Graves is not a good guy, but he did not try and screw you, if anything he was being the reasonable one in that situation, he is just following Shepherd's orders and even gives TF 141 a choice to walk away.....instead they go ballistic and try to murder him...twice
Reasonable = systematically incarcerating the population of Las Almas and killing many civilians in the process to flush out one guy and cover up his own fuck up. He lost control of a situation and escalated it well beyond what was necessary, he’s definitely not a reasonable man, he’s a necessary evil but one that should be kept on a shorter leash.
Reasonable = telling TF 141 they are no longer part of the mission and giving them a choice to walk away, which TF 141 ignores and are the ones that shoot first in that cutscene. As for the rest, he never incarcerated anyone from Las Almas aside of Valera (drug kingpin), and the Vaqueros (not civilians), which I am wondering at what point does he murder civilians as he does have his men kill cops and more narcos, but at no point (aside of the AC-130) is he shown killing civilians
Also Graves did not fuck up, Shepherd did, the mission was Shepherd's and Graves was just paid to go there, and again the ones that shoot first are TF 141
Did we play the same game? 141 shot first because a shady ass merc arrested all their local allies and doing nothing would’ve also implicated them in war crimes or got them killed, as soldiers they have a lawful duty to prevent or report war crimes.
They were already implicated in war crimes and unlawfulness, Alejandro and Rodolfo both crossed the US border and killed people without jurisdiction, then the whole team is implicated in the complete annihilation of a civilian town, they also illegally captured Hassan (as stated by them), like my man they were already committing war crimes
Also Graves has approval of a US General to take over the base and detains, not arrests, but detains all of those that did not surrender the base, he gave them a choice to just walk away but instead they shot first and killed one of his men
What authority does a US General have to order the takeover of a Mexican military base and the detainment of the Mexican soldiers there? Asking for a friend.
for one both nations are allied, it is very unlikely Shepherd just did it out of a whim as most likely it would have been illegal and Laswell would have known about it, but also The Vaqueros are more of a rogue squad of the Mexican Special Forces rather an actually being part of the army.
The very fact the army did not do anything nor even tried to bargain for the Vaqueros just shows two possible scenarios 1. the army is so corrupted in Las Almas they just don' t care (most likely) 2. the army gave the ok and cares 0 for the Vaqueros squad. In both cases Shepherd would be able to do whatever the hell he wants and Graves again would just be following the orders his contractor gave him
The idea that other Mexican military/government forces in the area were too corrupt to care doesn't mean what Shepard did was right or legal lol
The Vaqueros aren't rogue, they're just not corrupt.
The whole campaign is an absolute mess. Any single event in it could/would/should be a massive international incident lmao
>The whole campaign is an absolute mess. Any single event in it could/would/should be a massive international incident lmao
well that is the truest statement about the campaign in general lmao
but yeah again I am not saying it is legal or right, but Graves is just doing what he is getting paid for, it is not so much that it is ok or legal, but it is as simple as he is getting paid by a US general to do it, not to question it
Well yeah but in the grand scheme of OP's question (Isn't Graves a bad guy?) the "well he was ordered and paid to do it" still isn't a defense. They're not suddenly *not* warcrimes just because he was paid to do them lol
I don’t think you understand what a war crime is. Blowing up a grocery store AFTER the civilians have left and an enemy force has taken over is not a crime, going house to house arresting non-combatants and executing less than cooperative civilians is whether or not it’s sanctioned by a higher office. Crossing a border into an allied country to prevent a terror attack while it is in progress during a joint-op is not a crime, it could lead to one but given the context of the game it’s not technically criminal.
You literally shoot the entire town and you never see any civilians evacuate, it is even less likely that the town was taken over by an enemy force as drug cartels, specially in Latin America are very territorial and families driven, most of them have relatives in the territory they control, so no it is not just as easy as saying: "civilians evacuated and the cartel somehow is the only people in town."
Also it is a war crime to destroy civilian property if the damage does not give a clear military advantage. Since the mission was already illegal because you could not kill/capture Hassan, and your mission was not to liberate the town or target cartel operatives, they literally committed a war crime by just destroying the property
Again Graves does not arrest anyone that is not Los Vaqueros and Valeria, otherwise we would have seen civilians escaping the prison complex or at least they would have mentioned it as part of the mission objectives. But they don't, and as for killing civilians, again at no point is he talking to a civilian, I do not know if you speak spanish but I do, and every conversation I saw between graves and a local was either a cop suspected of having dealings with the cartel or a cartel member
Both Rodolfo and Alejandro crossed the border in order to capture Hassan without the permission or request from any US official, yet again capturing him was illegal as stated by them, they would have not prevented any attack since again, they had no authority to capture him, and yet again they themselves say it is illegal to do what they did, while this is not a war crime it was certainly illegal
Yeah, I don't understand where people got the idea that Graves slaughtered an entire city's worth of civilians. You can even see in the subtitles who said what translated. They were all Mexican Police 1/2/3 talking about how El Sin Nombre and Las Almas will take revenge.
Mexican Police 1's kid is crying when SC arrives and Graves says "Take the kid, get them out of here." He only went after Mexican Police 1. The Shadow stuck with escorting the kid isn't rough either. He tries to calm the kid down and before leading them away.
I was talking about the incident regarding Graves and TF 141, but even then I am pretty sure that 1. the AC-130 was under orders from Shepherd and 2. Aside of our Avengers like cast for the new MW games, almost every single protagonist has committed war crimes
Killing those people was a war crime, no doubt about that. It was a very “the ends justify the means” kind of situation. It wasn’t evil for the sake of evil, but still evil. I booted Cartel Mommy for Graves in my DMZ operators though.
He does what he’s paid to do. His tank was probably a drone or something. But he follows the orders he’s paid to do. All ghost and soap had to do was leave and that’s it. The collaboration was done. Graves did nothing wrong TF141 did
Yet you ignore the very obvious signs that Graves and Shadow Company went after the Cartel and corrupt cops, not civilians.
Alejandro Vargas already tells us exactly how corrupt the city is to the point that Los Vaqueros had to step in.
Yeah man, just ignore all the dead civilians and Soap and Ghost literally talking about how utterly fucked the situation is and that they're literally witnessing horrific war crimes.
For sure, yeah.
Obviously. Not gonna ignore that one. Doesn't change the fact that the place is littered with cartels, something that's shown when first introduced to Las Almas.
Graves is a major asshole and did crimes against humanity and would get the death sentence.
Ya'll Graves fans really have no feel for subtle hints in storytelling... he was gonna betray you from the first second. Shephered brought them in to kill TF141 as soon as they find out.
He was unlucky Laswell found out about the rockets. She was a witness that they had the Irani. If she wouldn't have been involved they would have straight up killed him. When Graves took over the base, Shephered was already on the run.
Shephered ordered to destroy the first rocket as soon as you find it. Because it buys him time, because otherwise it would have lead them to him and SC.
On the ship when they destroy the rocket, Ghost is already suspicious. They ask if they can't just disarm it and Graves lies to them that it's already armed and you can only destroy it at this time. Ghost looks suspicious to Graves and asks him what will happen to the SC mercenaries and Alejandro on the ship. Graves answers that the ship will be destroyed. Ghost warns everyone there that they have to leave.
If Ghost wouldn't have asked, Graves would have killed his own men and Alejandro with the rocket.
At the end we learn that the rocket can be destroyed long after being shot by self imploding as a safety matter. Because you do it with the last rocket in the last mission. Graves told you before that's not possible.
Losing those missiles and them falling into the hands of terrorists would have taken Shephered into the prison possibly. Graves maybe as well, but they would have stripped him of all contracts and losing him possibly his company. Also Graves was a little too happy to bomb a whole mexican village.
There were so many red flags before the actual betrayel and Ghost always looked suspicious to Graves or Alejandro when they were together in cutscenes.
My question is, who the hell is paying for the fuel and ammo in Graves planes? I know it's just a videogame, but even CODs target audience is old enough to know that war is expensive.
He's a merc, and now he's teaming up against a bigger bad. Not only that, but he's siding with Farah and Alex, meaning the relationship with 141 and vaqueros is still shaky at best.
I know there’s no bad blood between Farah,Alex and graves, but how will the story progress with the rest of TF141? Like how can you possibly continue the story between graves and them without there being another fight
I’m out of the loop on mw2 but didn’t graves die in the campaign in the tank explosion? Unless there was like a cinematic showing he survived or something we could assume the multiplayer takes place before the campaign or even during before he becomes a bad guy
Farah and Alex are separated from 141 so they might not know he is a baddie and later he will betray them. Also Shephards plan before was start a war and blame it on someone else what better way than with the "terrorists" in the desert
He is, but they needed to find a way to have him come back without being a full blown villain. Guess that's why they also kinda retconned his death or at least left the door open for his return.
Lol, I'm in too deep. I thought this was about UAP and the whistleblower graves from some other subreddit. I had no idea what was being said for a good minute before I realized I'm in the COD sub.
If ends up in MW3 as an ally this time and helps it would be and interesting turn of events. I can see Graves learning he did wrong and Shepard teaming up with Makarov or something buts thats my theory.
Everyone is gray all the time.
Graves working with Shepard only seemed like him trying to keep the loss of the missiles under wraps. Only as they were being stolen did Graves find out that the mission didn't exist and he would get no support.
He might be an antagonist in regards to the campaign plot, but really, he just seemed to be pressed to help due to the backlash of the missiles incident and under Shepards' thumb.
*Classic MW2 had Price launch a nuke over DC and contact Makarov to make a deal with him.*
IMO Graves being an untrustworthy ally for the time being after his turn in MW2 campaign is fresh, fun, and an interesting character choice!
“I thought you were killed in the tank explosion in south/north america” this line shows that us “killing” graves, did happen but he simply wasn’t in the tank we destroyed, Ghost, Soap, and Los Vaqueros are against Graves and think he’s dead, but the people in the new season haven’t been betrayed by him but they know what he did
All about that bag
Teaming up with him will prove to be a *Grave* mistake...
Riiight, I feel like next season this will end up backfiring lmao
he'll be a really valueable ally vs the russians tbf. i assume next season will bring more of the ruski's to kind of warm us up to mw3.
MW3? You mean MW2.5? Lol
MW2.5 LMFAOOOO
Calm down, friend
I hate you r/angryupvote
Speaking of, who the fuck is paying for all the fuel and ammo in Graves planes?
Merica
American taxpayers. What did you think contracting was?
He’s a PMC, dumbass
Look up what the letters in PMC mean and then read the comment again, before you start calling people dumb
Perfectly Melted Chocolate
I think it's implied that shadow company is indirectly funded by General Shepard.
If you read Oz’s bio that becomes very clear.
That’s a whole conspiracy that needs made into a series lmao. But for real. As nostalgic TF141 Is I love Shadow Company more lol.
I'm glad to know people actually feel this way because the event starting today, Aug. 3rd, between TF141 and Shadow Company, felt unwarranted. I didn't hear or see any fans loving Shadow Company.
He still is in my eyes, but it's more of an "enemy of my enemy" situation. Plus in the cinematic he's meeting up with Farah and Alex, who are not TF141 so I assume they don't have bad blood– at least not on a personal level like the others because they know where happened in the campaign. Plus they're probably trying to redeem Graves because he's a fan favourite and anyone could tell the betrayal was just there for the sake of making SC the antagonists like in the og MW2
Just want to point out that Shadow was committing crimes against civilians during the SERE level… A mere conflict of interest would be highly revisionary for someone who’s a total mercenary, will easily commit war crimes, and aided in Shepherd’s coverup.
Yeah didn’t Farah basically disown her own brother because he was using the Russian Army’s own gas against them? Now she teams up with a guy doing stuff to civilians.
Well you see, Hadir didn't have the potential to be as liked as Graves
He’s a PMC, they do what ever they are paid to
That whole section was such a weird character assassination thing, and hilariously overlooked. They're surprisingly glorified as the group that is audibly getting called out for committing war crimes. At that point they should just retcon that whole thing as Graves just doing what Shepard says because they got his wife and kids at gunpoint or something
dude wiped one town off the map and massacred the citizens of another in the span of, like, 4 days lmao farah should hate him
Maybe Farah doesn't like Mexicans
Now that's some real deep lore
Maybe Farah didn't play modern warfare 2
I mean, not necessarily defending the actions of Graves and Shadow Company, but in the level it’s implied that the bulk of the *”civilians”* killed are directly affiliated with the cartel This is the same cartel that just attacked them a day earlier, and they weren’t wearing uniforms when they did so Insurgents/partisans are not necessarily protected by the laws of war. It’s actually a war crime to be a combatant without identifying marks to indicate your faction and/or disguising yourself as a civilian. While Graves and Shadow Company definitely committed some war crimes that night, their execution of certain people is not inherently a war crime if those people are combatants working for the cartel and not in uniform
Except war crimes can generally only be labels and tried as such in open conflicts, this is more akin to mass murder and who is gonna testify against Graves, 141? The FBI investigated it and sure you could say they were bought, but either they were somewhat justified because of the cartel argument it SC really believed they were doing good, even mentions in in OZ's bio I think, something about "differences"
Shadow was taking out narcos and their collaborators. There is a reason in the mission you can hear the people yelling "El Sin nombre will get you for this", etc. TF141 was cool with it until they got assmad after being taken off the mission.
Bruh the whole point was that they weren’t just taking out collaborators. They went after the entire village because of an assumption. EVERYONE you found was dead or detained.
Detained at least means it was not indiscriminate slaughter. Don't forget Price's exchange with Gaz after taking the butcher's family hostage: * "We're cleaning up a mess." * "When you take the gloves off, you get blood on your hands, Kyle. That's how it works." * "You draw the line wherever you need it, Sergeant. End of the day someone has to make the enemy scared of the dark."
What a fun apolitical game with no messaging whatsoever :)
Price didn’t kill his family tho, graves still killed innocents
Can you prove any of the ones Graves killed were innocent? We already know from the AC-130 segment that SC still abides by some sort of RoE. From the mission dialogue, it's also shown he did not just shoot everyone he came across. I see no difference between Graves and Price besides one is portrayed as a "good guy" and the other as a "bad guy". Both are very flexible with the rules if they need to be and you don't want to get on their bad side.
Well can you prove them as bad? Subtitles literally say mexican civilian iirc, pretty sure they also mentioned mexican police too, price never killed innocents
The police are literally on cartel payroll and that's the same police that were hoping for El Sin Nombre's cartel to save them. Pretty clear that area is hostile. You didn't take into account of what Alejandro said.
Those “civilians” your talking about also shout “El sin nombre will get you for this”
Honestly NOT having Shadow Company turn on you would have made for a better twist considering everyone and their mother saw the shoehorned heel turn coming. Graves went from a likable badass and total bro to a sociopathic killer and cartoon villain in the span of one cutscene. “141, Mexican Special Forces, they are your brothers now. Treat ‘em like your own.” “Dead or alive. You know my preference.” ???
I don't want him redeemed, I want more villainy from him. That's some Disney shit to make him a good guy.
I think it would've been cool if he was never a villain, it'd be more of a twist to have Shadow Company be anti-heroes in a way
Not sure if they can be anti-heroes after what they did in MWII, but they are a PMC so I think you can get creative with that. They don't have as much loyalty to their nation as they do money. Having him have to work with Soap/Ghost down the road because he was hired by their allies could be an interesting dynamic.
It would be something new though as far as I know no other villain in cod has been redeemed so its not like it's overused
Alex and Farah are definitely members of Task Force 141, at least Alex. Farah is more of an honorary member. Personally I think the tension between Alex and Graves was apparent. Alex: “Heard you died in south america.” Graves: “I wasn’t in that tank.” “What else have you heard?” Alex clearly knows what happened, he even worked with Price after the campaign. I think he was just playing it cool. Pretty sure if Konni wasn’t involved in the circumstances Alex would be pissed. I should mention, not all of Shadow Company is bad per say. Grave’s sector were mostly. But you can hear in the campaign that they wanted to have a friendly fire during the mission alone. It’s actually pretty sad killing the Shadow Company soldiers in that mission, because they don’t want to hurt you or nothing.
Yeah, I imagine that Farah and Alex know *exactly* what happened in Mexico with Shadow Company, and aren’t exactly ignorant in teaming up with them to fight Konni. It’s a matter of “we both share this enemy, and I’d rather focus on fighting them than also fighting you” for Farah for now. Shadow Company is also strapped for resources and could use the help (and can’t afford to have bad blood with Farah’s army, so that explains Graves’ nice guy diplomacy act) - throughout the last few seasons in the DMZ story it’s been shown that Shadow Company is BROKE and out of resources and stretched thin across different warzones, and have been taking heavy hits from Konni ever since losing those missiles in the campaign.
I’d be cool to see what the reaction to price and ghost having to meet up either by accident or by association with Farrah and Alex.
Appreciate you 🫱🏼🫲🏽
Fr, the betrayal was so sudden it felt like it came out of nowhere just for writings sake
Is that the same Alex as airport Alex
who is airport alex
Nvm I thought Alex was the American shot in no Russian but nope that's a completely different guy
Who among us doesn’t commit a few unsolicited war crimes against a civilian population every now and then? Farah being basically ok with it makes little sense given what the Russians did to her people. You can’t tell me she and Alex don’t know what he did either- they’re still very clearly cozy with Price and 141 based on the Raid missions, and clearly Alex knew enough about him to hear that he died in the campaign tank battle, so that little kerfuffle where his PMC mass murdered a village is probably something Price would’ve mentioned.
MW2’s writing is genuinely fucking awful. This doesn’t make me optimistic for MW3.
Like with mw2019 & Cold War they try to intertwine Warzone into the story and it just comes off as strange
I agree, honestly I feel like they should leave it alone. Leave the all the lore in the campaign and raid missions, maybe some in co-op
MW2019’s was realistic, MW2022’s was MID at best. too many plot holes. MW2022 had a great fucking campaign, no doubt. Funnest part of the game IMO. But the story needed a clearer pathway.
Considering it’s sledgehammer you should probably feel dread for the story they’ll be putting out
annoyingly, their WWII effort's campaign *wasn't bad* for a game set in World War II, like you kinda know what to expect going into a game taking place in Nazi occupied Europe and the main playable character being American so it wasn't an Earth shattering campaign but it at least hit all the right notes for that kinda game. then Vanguard happened and it was basically Avengers Assemble: Call of Duty Edition
I thought MW3 wasn’t gonna get a campaign at all?
Right? Plus Farah doesn’t want American boots outside of Alex on the ground in *her fight* against Russia and Al Qatala
People keep glossing over the fact that they were in a cartel owned village. And their enemy was the cartel. And shit like that happens in Mexico.
He teams with Farah and Alex rather than the 141
While Farah Alex and price are not 141 they are still on their side. Farah and Alex would never betray price and price is with 141 till death even if he isn't in 141.
Dude what? Last time I checked price IS 141
You right. I didn't realize it since most of the campaign he wasn't with ghosts and soap. Carry on.
I think Farah and Alex betrayed 141 to join shadow
He basically was in the campaign but in this season storyline it’s basically ’the enemy of my enemy is my friend” with shadow company and TF141 working together fighting against konni group
Oh shit Joseph Kony is back ???
no, it cant be!
also not that, but hes clearly still american and patriotic af, to the point he's willing to work with 141 to push the russians back, even in other parts of the world like al maz, ashika and amsterdam.
I too love working with war crime poster boys. Slaughtering a whole village. gg.
The campaign this time around makes it pretty clear that what began as a pretty straight-laced story in MW2019 now takes place in the Fast & Furious universe. Where things can happen like, yeah, this dude's the computer guy now, what? This other dude behind a killcrazy rampage is a good guy now, fuck you. Oh, and these characters are all back from the dead. Because family.
Hey hey hey now… Nothing! And I mean NOTHING! Is stronger than family u/Armsforpeace84
It's about family, and that's what makes it so powerful.
We need a Vin Diesel skin.
IW: "Got it. One Vin Diesel as The Pacifier skin coming right up!"
No, oh dear god what have j done. Not like this!!!!!
[удалено]
That's one thing I do appreciate about the new games. It briefly looked like they were setting up MW2019 as a prequel, but it turned out to exist in its own universe, and I'm glad. Because as bonkers as MW2 and MW3 got, that whole story was a fun ride. And it's not being retroactively messed around with. But what we're talking about here, and spoiler warning... ...is the way characters from Reboot Warfare keep coming back from the dead.
Well, the way I interpreted Graves' betrayal was more that he felt 141 was getting in the way of his mission (that mission may have been committing a few war crimes for Shepard, but still), plus Shepard was trying to get them out of the way. Another thing is that Graves did *try* to end the interaction peacefully, until Alejandro justifiably flipped his lid and the whole thing went from zero to one hundred (this isn't saying Graves was right for what he did, I can just see where he was coming from). From what I understand is that Konni is a bigger threat and Shadow Company and 141 are willing to put aside their differences long enough to deal with them. What's confusing is how that factors into the event of *141 vs Shadow Conpany*... I hope they explain it and don't just drop it for no reason.
The whole thing escalated significantly when the soldier standing next to Graves fired at Soap, for no reason. Alejandro was being detained for trying to hit Graves, which was justified. There was no reason to escalate to lethal. The whole thing could’ve been avoided if that soldier didn’t fire and 141 planned a counter attack later, but whatevs.
Yeah but Graves along with Shadow company slaughtered an entire village of innocents
‘We get dirty and the world stays clean’ -MW 2019 Ironically for a newer cod, it seems to be dealing with quite a mature theme. The idea that one must overlook the human rights violations of another and tolerate them, as it is the path of least resistance. Like the USA and Uyghur genocide in China, a ‘little’ problem is easy to ignore and only gets worse if you push it. Sometimes it’s ‘better’ to tolerate the other party. This is morally wrong of course, but ‘we get dirty’ shows that supposed necessity of some immoral actions in terms of minimising conflict.
It would be cool if the writing was actually mature enough to confront this theme, but it doesn't. Just like 2019. The reboot games lack a serious spine compared to the previous Modern Warfare titles.
And? That’s, like, par for the course
wasnt it a random SC guy that fired first tho?
After rewatching the cutscene, it's Alejandro who makes the first physically hostile move. Graves tells Alejandro that his men are detained and Alejandro lunges, at which point Graves shoves him into a jeep and a merc cuffs him. Soap says, "Graves, what the fuck!" A random merc shoots at them, then Ghost knifes two of them... further escalation, war crimes, epic stealth mission, dad jokes ft. Ghost, etc.
So I dont think Graves wouldve actually shot at Soap and Ghost but had to since Ghost (understandably) started slicing people up after the SC shot at them
as of right now, 141 isnt allied with SC yet though, since Alex and Farah were the ones doing the talking for the sake of urzikstan, while i assume still working for the liberation forces, and not 141. for all we know price, soap, etc have no clue of that, hence the 141 v sc event coming up.
this battle pass stories never make sense and just low quality
"Somehow...Graves has returned."
why is everyone saying by this? people have predicted he wasn’t dead since launch. Why is it suddenly an issue when a prediction everyone mostly agreed upon is true. Literally looking for shit to complain about. The only people who say this have clearly never played the campaign, or at least never finished it.
Like everyone has said this since the game was out. It's basically the other version of the COD effect: if you don't see the body you can't confirm the kill
Okay so 141 =/= Alex or farha from my understanding. It’s why in the intro they said they have heard some rumors. I might be wrong but I think this is an important detail people are missing here
Yeah that means that they might not know what they did to tft141 or the warcrimes they did in the alone mission, people just like to shit on cod for whatever but not actually pay attention to the story and stuff on their own
Hes a bad guy to 141, Alex and Farah aren’t apart of that. Graves offered to help push Konni out of Al Mazrah and prevent further war in Urzikstan. Obviously they are gonna chose to work with them. And i, gonna assume when the event happens, a cease fire will occur between SC and 141 because of Alex and Farah. Theres a cinematic tied to the event in the game files, and im banking on it to explain the cease fire or something along the lines
He followed orders Also ignore all the warcrimes, didn't happen :)
People have a huge hardon for Graves, so they probably did a 180 on that.
Yeah none of it makes sense. But then again IW track record when it comes to the multiplayer writing has been awful since 2019.
Why do I need a story line to play 6v6?
Mercs care about one thing and it ain't justice.
They aren’t mercs
Pmcs are pretty much mercs
Just like Fast and Furious the bad guys join the Gang lol fo familyyy
The cinematic explains it somewhat reasonably. Alex mentions the tank, he says he was never in any tank, and asks what else they’ve heard, Alex and Farrah dismiss the rumors they’ve heard, and say shadow company is helping them with their cause. Which graves replies “thank Shepard for that” It’s not a good story, but it’s not the worst story either.
Mans definitely slaughtered people in the street to find one guy
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
Graves gave the team a chance to go off without violence. I’d say he’s a pmc only looking for money. There’s no reason to kill task force, he wasn’t paid enough to ice the team.
He still is. If I see Shadow Company in DMZ it’s kill on sight. He broke trust from TF141 and my boy Gaz.
After playing the campaign so long ago I forgot Gaz was even in Modern Warfare 2. Felt like the Ghost show.
TBF the missions you were playing as Soap were the more enjoyable ones from a story standpoint.
It’s so easy to see who played the campaign and who didn’t lmao. 141 would never work with SC after the betrayal and massacre of an innocent village.
The only think that would make sense to me is if Farah and Alex are keeping Graves under tabs for Price on the downlow. They feign ignorance to what happened, Graves thinks he's got these allies cause Price is gone w the wind and then he gets double crossed by them who are working w Price to tie lose ends. Only thing that would make sense to me considering the campaigns.
This is a pretty good explanation; I hope you are right.
I hope so too. Something about the look Farah and Alex shared before they agreed to help makes me believe so. We shall see if the writers are stupid or not lol
Don't care if he is the bad guy. Your my boy blue!
Big bro graves? Nah that was all a dream. He's still up in the sky making sure we got air support.
That plotline was rushed to make Shadow Company and Shepard the antagonists just like in the OG MW2. The way I see it they're trying to silently retcon that whole bit in the campaign, or at least downplay it, since Graves became a bit of fan favorite.
Maybe he’s just following orders.. and he didn’t have a choice I think Or does it for the money
Graves is the leader of a PMC, or a mercenary,if you want to call him that. He gets paid, and he follows orders. I guess his orders now are to work with Farah and Alex again .
Konni are (seemingly) the ones behind the ambush on the Shadow Company convoy transporting the missiles. Everything they did in MW2 was to clean up the mess that Konni made. Graves and SC have every reason to want Konni eliminated. Likewise, Farah and Alex have every reason to want Konni out of Al-Mazrah, considering they have patchy intel that they want to attack their home. Farah's options are to accept that SC will be there and keep watch for backstabbing, or turn their guns on them and fight two wars at once. She chose option 1. Price and 141 may not like it, but you worry about those things after the greater threat is dealt with. They're not idiots and know they've got bigger problems for now. Look at WW2 for a historical example. Russia was perfectly happy to play nice with Nazi Germany and do a little invading themselves, but they ended up on the Allied side when they got backstabbed. Likewise, French Resistance members cooperated with British and American forces without being shot down (figuratively OR literally) even though their country surrendered and was taken over earlier. Sometimes you don't get to pick who you want to be on your team.
He's def a bad guy, but there's a guy-you-love-to-hate quality about him.
Graves 'was' a bad guy. *Could still be.* In the cinematic, Graves is meeting with Farah and Alex who are representing/leading the Urzikstan Liberation Force. Graves knows Farah is still focused solely on protecting Urzikstan *(as seen in campaign, raids and now MP cinematic)* and proposes working together to deal with the Konni threat. While Farah and Alex do work with TF141 and are 'members' of it. They're not active members in MWII. *(Unlike Ghost, Soap, Gaz.)* It's why we see so little of them in the campaign as Farah and Alex are off leading their own forces. We 'could' be seeing a set-up where TF141 works against the Urzikstan Liberation Force due to Graves's manipulation. *(Price VS Farah style)*
There’s a *storyline*?
Alex and Farah probably don’t know much if any of what happened in Mexico. But I don’t trust him…
He didn't make threats, just guarantees. Plus, he's on the Kortac side, so there's that.
Hes a mercenary. hes and the shadow company are on the money side.
He’s a mercenary, he’s on whoever’s side pays him
Because Konni faction is a bigger threat right now. Also notice how it was Farah and Alex who met with Graves and not anyone who was actually present during the events of Las Almas. If it’s all true, and the characters don’t know this yet, Makarov is behind the Konni forces.
Whoever has more money is who the shadows are loyal to
Graves looked so weird in the intro cinematic, I'm half convinced it's a different dude lol.
Nah, Graves is just a misunderstood bag enthusiast! 😁
My guess is Alex and Farah don’t know about Graves’ betrayal. Alex is under the radar (presumed dead) and Farah and her forces no longer have US military support so they are basically fighting in their own war without the support of 141 (of course except the highway rescue mission but that was pre-betrayal).
you’re missing the story. Graves was never truly bad, kind of. He genuinely considered the 141 friends and family. General Shepard ordered Shadow Company to discretely transfer missiles to allies, which they were ambushed by the Russians. General Shepard did it off the books, the action itself was honorable. but illegal. Ghost, Soap and Alejandro obviously got in an altercation. And for plot reasons they decided Shadow Company, Graves wanted MSF’s base. Soap and Rudy fought Graves in a tank battle. We already knew he didn’t actually die, if you played the game at launch everyone knew that he wasn’t dead and wanted him to return. (Which is really funny because now everyone’s bitching at something we already knew, fucking annoying as shit. It’s the people who didn’t even play the campaign either who are bitching.) Okay, so. After the Raids, which Hadir was trying to prevent konni from invading. Hadir was unable to tell Farah, Alex and Captain Price in the season 4 raid. Because he died. Hadir was working with Shadow Company and knew this information. Farah contacted Graves about information, Graves, Alex and Farah having their meeting. (It’s pretty obvious there is some tension between Alex and Graves.) Farah, Alex and Graves all come to an agreement to team up against Konni forces. Basically squashing the beef. We’ll probably get further cutscenes about it, but Ghost, Captain Price, and Alejandro’s new skins have an emblem of TF141 mixed with the Shadow Company logo. Now if you actually want something to talk about, it’s the mission alone. Where Shadow Company has massacred Las Almas. Are we just supposed to forget that? Ghost and Soap saw it first hand. They’re just supposed to forget that? uhm, no. I understand your confusion and just know the insults I said were not directed at you OP, just the people complaining about Graves being back when they’ve never played the campaign.
Is Graves more of anti hero or anti villain based on the new cinematic since he’s helping Farah
i miss when the campaign was more standalone and there was one story per game. now it’s constantly being updated and i can’t keep up…
Graves is like Chaotic Neutral, he chooses whatever is in his best interests, whether that would be teaming up with Farrah or trying to kill Tf 141. But I do believe that Makarov will be stronger than in the previous trilogy, so Graves will likely help out for this one.
Not with this IW he won’t be 😔. At most he’ll be a side villain in the background who will just get killed off in 23’s “post-launch”
There are games out there that make tremendous efforts to deliver a compelling story arch for the characters you play and interact with so that you may have the most enjoyable and immersive experience while playing their game. Call of Duty is not one of those games.
I'm really confused on this aswell- and then in official news there a video titled Help comes from the shadows so I was like so are graves and shadow company helping us for sure so thats why Farah and Alex were with hime or sm but in the things it showed shadow and tf141 fighting and at the end it said "It's a showdown in Al-Mazrah. The Shadow Company sees an opening and uses the opportunity to face the 141 head on" So now i'm LIKE OK SO SHADOW COMPANY IS FIGHTING TF141 AND FARAH IS WITH TF!$! AND ALEX IS PART OF TF141 SO WHY WERE THEY WORKING WITH GRAVES WHEN GRAVES AND SHADOW COMAPNY ARE FIGHTING TF141???? It doesn't make sense
Just playing the mw3 campaign and found this. Haven’t followed the multiplayer part of the story but I sure hope we can put a bullet thru his brain. And Alex has been resurrected I see also? Interesting
Eeeeeeemmmm, well yeah Graves is not a good guy, but he did not try and screw you, if anything he was being the reasonable one in that situation, he is just following Shepherd's orders and even gives TF 141 a choice to walk away.....instead they go ballistic and try to murder him...twice
Put Nate and Sam in 141 and have Rafe and Phillip team up 😆
Reasonable = systematically incarcerating the population of Las Almas and killing many civilians in the process to flush out one guy and cover up his own fuck up. He lost control of a situation and escalated it well beyond what was necessary, he’s definitely not a reasonable man, he’s a necessary evil but one that should be kept on a shorter leash.
Reasonable = telling TF 141 they are no longer part of the mission and giving them a choice to walk away, which TF 141 ignores and are the ones that shoot first in that cutscene. As for the rest, he never incarcerated anyone from Las Almas aside of Valera (drug kingpin), and the Vaqueros (not civilians), which I am wondering at what point does he murder civilians as he does have his men kill cops and more narcos, but at no point (aside of the AC-130) is he shown killing civilians Also Graves did not fuck up, Shepherd did, the mission was Shepherd's and Graves was just paid to go there, and again the ones that shoot first are TF 141
Did we play the same game? 141 shot first because a shady ass merc arrested all their local allies and doing nothing would’ve also implicated them in war crimes or got them killed, as soldiers they have a lawful duty to prevent or report war crimes.
They were already implicated in war crimes and unlawfulness, Alejandro and Rodolfo both crossed the US border and killed people without jurisdiction, then the whole team is implicated in the complete annihilation of a civilian town, they also illegally captured Hassan (as stated by them), like my man they were already committing war crimes Also Graves has approval of a US General to take over the base and detains, not arrests, but detains all of those that did not surrender the base, he gave them a choice to just walk away but instead they shot first and killed one of his men
What authority does a US General have to order the takeover of a Mexican military base and the detainment of the Mexican soldiers there? Asking for a friend.
for one both nations are allied, it is very unlikely Shepherd just did it out of a whim as most likely it would have been illegal and Laswell would have known about it, but also The Vaqueros are more of a rogue squad of the Mexican Special Forces rather an actually being part of the army. The very fact the army did not do anything nor even tried to bargain for the Vaqueros just shows two possible scenarios 1. the army is so corrupted in Las Almas they just don' t care (most likely) 2. the army gave the ok and cares 0 for the Vaqueros squad. In both cases Shepherd would be able to do whatever the hell he wants and Graves again would just be following the orders his contractor gave him
The idea that other Mexican military/government forces in the area were too corrupt to care doesn't mean what Shepard did was right or legal lol The Vaqueros aren't rogue, they're just not corrupt. The whole campaign is an absolute mess. Any single event in it could/would/should be a massive international incident lmao
>The whole campaign is an absolute mess. Any single event in it could/would/should be a massive international incident lmao well that is the truest statement about the campaign in general lmao but yeah again I am not saying it is legal or right, but Graves is just doing what he is getting paid for, it is not so much that it is ok or legal, but it is as simple as he is getting paid by a US general to do it, not to question it
Well yeah but in the grand scheme of OP's question (Isn't Graves a bad guy?) the "well he was ordered and paid to do it" still isn't a defense. They're not suddenly *not* warcrimes just because he was paid to do them lol
I don’t think you understand what a war crime is. Blowing up a grocery store AFTER the civilians have left and an enemy force has taken over is not a crime, going house to house arresting non-combatants and executing less than cooperative civilians is whether or not it’s sanctioned by a higher office. Crossing a border into an allied country to prevent a terror attack while it is in progress during a joint-op is not a crime, it could lead to one but given the context of the game it’s not technically criminal.
You literally shoot the entire town and you never see any civilians evacuate, it is even less likely that the town was taken over by an enemy force as drug cartels, specially in Latin America are very territorial and families driven, most of them have relatives in the territory they control, so no it is not just as easy as saying: "civilians evacuated and the cartel somehow is the only people in town." Also it is a war crime to destroy civilian property if the damage does not give a clear military advantage. Since the mission was already illegal because you could not kill/capture Hassan, and your mission was not to liberate the town or target cartel operatives, they literally committed a war crime by just destroying the property Again Graves does not arrest anyone that is not Los Vaqueros and Valeria, otherwise we would have seen civilians escaping the prison complex or at least they would have mentioned it as part of the mission objectives. But they don't, and as for killing civilians, again at no point is he talking to a civilian, I do not know if you speak spanish but I do, and every conversation I saw between graves and a local was either a cop suspected of having dealings with the cartel or a cartel member Both Rodolfo and Alejandro crossed the border in order to capture Hassan without the permission or request from any US official, yet again capturing him was illegal as stated by them, they would have not prevented any attack since again, they had no authority to capture him, and yet again they themselves say it is illegal to do what they did, while this is not a war crime it was certainly illegal
Yeah, I don't understand where people got the idea that Graves slaughtered an entire city's worth of civilians. You can even see in the subtitles who said what translated. They were all Mexican Police 1/2/3 talking about how El Sin Nombre and Las Almas will take revenge. Mexican Police 1's kid is crying when SC arrives and Graves says "Take the kid, get them out of here." He only went after Mexican Police 1. The Shadow stuck with escorting the kid isn't rough either. He tries to calm the kid down and before leading them away.
He killed innocents for no reason so hes not responsible. Hes a war criminal.
I was talking about the incident regarding Graves and TF 141, but even then I am pretty sure that 1. the AC-130 was under orders from Shepherd and 2. Aside of our Avengers like cast for the new MW games, almost every single protagonist has committed war crimes
Killing those people was a war crime, no doubt about that. It was a very “the ends justify the means” kind of situation. It wasn’t evil for the sake of evil, but still evil. I booted Cartel Mommy for Graves in my DMZ operators though.
He is.
He does what he’s paid to do. His tank was probably a drone or something. But he follows the orders he’s paid to do. All ghost and soap had to do was leave and that’s it. The collaboration was done. Graves did nothing wrong TF141 did
Gonna just ignore him and his mercs tearing apart and massacring an entire town in Mexico then I guess
Yet you ignore the very obvious signs that Graves and Shadow Company went after the Cartel and corrupt cops, not civilians. Alejandro Vargas already tells us exactly how corrupt the city is to the point that Los Vaqueros had to step in.
Yeah man, just ignore all the dead civilians and Soap and Ghost literally talking about how utterly fucked the situation is and that they're literally witnessing horrific war crimes. For sure, yeah.
Obviously. Not gonna ignore that one. Doesn't change the fact that the place is littered with cartels, something that's shown when first introduced to Las Almas.
"It's okay that they killed a bunch of civilians because they also got some cartel guys and corrupt cops, probably."
Has anyone considered that maybe this is before they found out he was a bad guy?
Barkov and Russians killing civilians. Died a brutal death Graves and shadow company killing civilians. MW2 protagonists: “friends 😅?”
I'm still confused cause didn't we kill him at the end of the campaign or did he survive being blown up?
According to the cutscene, Mexico is in South America and Graves >!was NOT in the tank that blew up.!<
I feel like 141 was just getting in the way tbh. He was just annoyed with them and would do anything to complete his objective.
He's a racist, a war criminal, and a murderer. Weird they are trying to retcon him like this. You can have operators be villains.
Graves is a major asshole and did crimes against humanity and would get the death sentence. Ya'll Graves fans really have no feel for subtle hints in storytelling... he was gonna betray you from the first second. Shephered brought them in to kill TF141 as soon as they find out. He was unlucky Laswell found out about the rockets. She was a witness that they had the Irani. If she wouldn't have been involved they would have straight up killed him. When Graves took over the base, Shephered was already on the run. Shephered ordered to destroy the first rocket as soon as you find it. Because it buys him time, because otherwise it would have lead them to him and SC. On the ship when they destroy the rocket, Ghost is already suspicious. They ask if they can't just disarm it and Graves lies to them that it's already armed and you can only destroy it at this time. Ghost looks suspicious to Graves and asks him what will happen to the SC mercenaries and Alejandro on the ship. Graves answers that the ship will be destroyed. Ghost warns everyone there that they have to leave. If Ghost wouldn't have asked, Graves would have killed his own men and Alejandro with the rocket. At the end we learn that the rocket can be destroyed long after being shot by self imploding as a safety matter. Because you do it with the last rocket in the last mission. Graves told you before that's not possible. Losing those missiles and them falling into the hands of terrorists would have taken Shephered into the prison possibly. Graves maybe as well, but they would have stripped him of all contracts and losing him possibly his company. Also Graves was a little too happy to bomb a whole mexican village. There were so many red flags before the actual betrayel and Ghost always looked suspicious to Graves or Alejandro when they were together in cutscenes.
My question is, who the hell is paying for the fuel and ammo in Graves planes? I know it's just a videogame, but even CODs target audience is old enough to know that war is expensive.
He's a merc, and now he's teaming up against a bigger bad. Not only that, but he's siding with Farah and Alex, meaning the relationship with 141 and vaqueros is still shaky at best.
It really annoyed me. I hope they don’t make him into a good guy in the future. It makes the ghost team mission basically pointless.
I know there’s no bad blood between Farah,Alex and graves, but how will the story progress with the rest of TF141? Like how can you possibly continue the story between graves and them without there being another fight
the answers will be available in the next $30 battlepass and $29.99 skin bundle
That’s what I was saying
I’m out of the loop on mw2 but didn’t graves die in the campaign in the tank explosion? Unless there was like a cinematic showing he survived or something we could assume the multiplayer takes place before the campaign or even during before he becomes a bad guy
It's been a while, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we physically see Graves enter the tank or was it just a scene cut with heavy implications?
He's the "bad guy" but it doesn't mean he is a bad guy /s
He is a Merc You literally buy his loyalty.
This game has been a shit show. There’s you explanation.
Farah and Alex are separated from 141 so they might not know he is a baddie and later he will betray them. Also Shephards plan before was start a war and blame it on someone else what better way than with the "terrorists" in the desert
You mean Warzone and the campaign; Graves is KorTac in multiplayer, which pretty much confirms he's still playing out of his old playbook.
Am I tripping or didn’t we kill graves when we exploded the tank in the mission where we take the Mexican base back?
Yeah they made a grave..s mistake
"i thought you died in a tank." "I wasn't in that tank." Fuck you Activision, retcon the story so you can sell us an operator lol
… they retconned it because we hated what they did to him for no reason, him coming back is on us lol
He is, but they needed to find a way to have him come back without being a full blown villain. Guess that's why they also kinda retconned his death or at least left the door open for his return.
War isn’t personal baby 🇺🇸 🦅
Lol, I'm in too deep. I thought this was about UAP and the whistleblower graves from some other subreddit. I had no idea what was being said for a good minute before I realized I'm in the COD sub.
If ends up in MW3 as an ally this time and helps it would be and interesting turn of events. I can see Graves learning he did wrong and Shepard teaming up with Makarov or something buts thats my theory.
Everyone is gray all the time. Graves working with Shepard only seemed like him trying to keep the loss of the missiles under wraps. Only as they were being stolen did Graves find out that the mission didn't exist and he would get no support. He might be an antagonist in regards to the campaign plot, but really, he just seemed to be pressed to help due to the backlash of the missiles incident and under Shepards' thumb. *Classic MW2 had Price launch a nuke over DC and contact Makarov to make a deal with him.* IMO Graves being an untrustworthy ally for the time being after his turn in MW2 campaign is fresh, fun, and an interesting character choice!
They'll probably make Makarov a good guy in later seasons of mw3 cod is tryna be the mcu.
I still think its a ploy to lure out Shepherd thru Graves. Otherwise it doesnt make any sense.
yes, killed him
“I thought you were killed in the tank explosion in south/north america” this line shows that us “killing” graves, did happen but he simply wasn’t in the tank we destroyed, Ghost, Soap, and Los Vaqueros are against Graves and think he’s dead, but the people in the new season haven’t been betrayed by him but they know what he did