Entrenched is the Modern Warfare 4 campaign mission set during North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. It runs about 20 minutes and moves from World War I-style trench fighting to a highway drive in an armored vehicle and then into a nuclear reactor that is about to fail. It was also the first campaign mission ever included in a Call of Duty beta, in August 2026, so many players have already seen part of it. The full version is now in the shipped campaign.
Quick answer: Entrenched has you play as Pvt. Park Hyun-bin. The mission ends once you have manually opened the yellow coolant valve, been revived, climbed to the roof, and reached the extraction helicopter before the plant explodes.
Entrenched mission facts in Modern Warfare 4
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Setting | South Korea, Current Day |
| Playable character | PVT Park Hyun-bin (ROK) |
| Squad | Sgt. Jae, Cpl. Dunn, Lt. West |
| Enemy | North Korean forces |
| Typical length | About 15–25 minutes on Regular |
| Co-op | None, single-player only |
| Beta appearance | August 2026 beta |
Digital pre-orders got early access to the campaign on October 16, 2026. Modern Warfare 4 launches for everyone on October 23, 2026. Your squadmates are AI-controlled, and no part of the mission supports a second player.
Entrenched story setup: a sabotaged nuclear plant
Enemy forces from North Korea now hold South Korean positions and have tampered with a nuclear power plant. Park’s Republic of Korea unit, alongside American personnel, must climb through enemy trenches and get to the plant before the opposing force takes complete control. As the attack unfolds, the facility itself becomes a hazard.
Several radio callsigns come up along the way. Hellhound 1-1 delivers the opening close-air strike on the trench line. Col. Shaw orders the squad into the reactor building. Angel-5 is the extraction helicopter. The final cinematic ends with Lt. West picking up radio traffic from Zulu 1-1.
How the Entrenched mission plays out
Trench assault and relay station
The mission opens with the squad taking cover while an airstrike hits the northern trench line. After that, Park drops into snowy, muddy trenches with the objective “Reach the end of the trench.” This first stretch is close-range fighting around corners, with friendly armor rolling past overhead. Enemies keep spawning as long as you hold one position, so the fighting only moves forward when you do.
Sgt. Jae spots a hostile machine-gun bunker, so the squad uses grenades to clear it. The bunkers contain ammunition, armor plates, and frag grenades. Later, a knife-wielding enemy rushes Park, but a squadmate kills the attacker. Beyond Bravo trench, the squad deploys smoke and sprints over exposed ground to a relay station. Its terminals display Korean alerts: the reactor is unstable (“원자로 불안정”), and emergency cooling is offline.
Vehicle 307 highway drive
Once the objective switches to “Follow the vehicles,” Park mounts and drives vehicle 307. It is an armored combat vehicle with an autocannon and anti-vehicle missiles. It drives with W and S on PC, fires the cannon with the left mouse button, and fires missiles with the right mouse button. The convoy works its way down a highway full of abandoned civilian cars, destroying technicals, rooftop shooters, and enemy armor.
At the plant gates, 307 destroys an enemy tank and is then knocked out by incoming fire. The squad leaves the burning vehicle and continues on foot.
Substation yard and the BMP
The plant’s transformer yard is the longest infantry fight in the mission. North Korean riflemen hold positions among the electrical equipment, and an enemy BMP guards the way in. The supply crates in the yard contain anti-armor options, including an RPG-8 launcher, Thermite, and C4. Any of these can be used to destroy the BMP. Once it is gone, the objective becomes “Regroup at entrance to the Reactor Building.”
Reactor pool and SCRAM failure
Before entering, the squad puts on gas masks and radiation blockers. Inside, the facility is lit in red. In a circular cooling pool chamber, enemy soldiers are executing plant technicians, and the squad shoots them from across the water, with thermal optics available. A metal staircase then leads up to the second-floor control room.
The plant engineer has the squad look for the SCRAM switch to shut down the reactor. Park finds it and activates it, but the automatic shutdown fails. The only option left is to open the coolant tank valves by hand and flood the reactor core.
Coolant valve, collapse and extraction
The objective “Follow Jae to the pump release valves” leads through catwalks to reactor two. That area is burning, and ruptured tanks have flooded the lower deck. Park follows the yellow emergency pipeline into a submerged crawlspace. The grey pipes around it are not part of the route. At the valve wheel, the prompt reads “HOLD TO OPEN VALVE [F].” Holding it until the objective updates sends coolant water into the core.
As water and steam fill the area, Park passes out on his way back. The objective changes to “Return to Jae and Dunn,” and the two of them give him CPR on the burning lower deck. With the exits blocked, the escape goes up through the building. The squad pushes a metal crate to reach vertical pipes, climbs through collapsing catwalks, and boosts each other onto the roof using the “[F] TO HELP PUSH” and “[F] BOOST” prompts. A catwalk falls apart during the final run to the helicopter. Park, Dunn, and Jae are pulled aboard as the plant explodes.
In the beta version, the mission ended when the roof gave way under Park before he could board, and it cut to a montage of campaign footage and the title card. The full campaign version ends with the extraction and the outro cinematic.
Entrenched weapons and equipment
| Type | Names seen in the mission |
|---|---|
| Firearms | Han 86, Type 73, FINN LMG, SANG 9MM |
| Launcher | RPG-8 |
| Throwables | Frag Grenade, Flash Grenade, smoke |
| Explosives | Thermite, C4 |
| Survival | Armor Plate (USE ARMOR [3]) |
Shotguns are available in the trench section, too. Datamined trophy lists include a reported award, Trench Broom (Silver): score 15 shotgun kills during Entrenched, then secure the Target Building. Activision has not confirmed the trophy.
Modern Warfare 4 difficulty options for Entrenched
- Recruit, Regular, Hardened and Veteran are available from the start.
- Realism unlocks after you finish the campaign on any difficulty.
- YOLO unlocks after you finish the campaign on Realism.
Regular is enough to see everything in Entrenched. Mission checkpoints appear as “CHECKPOINT REACHED,” and the sections that follow the trench line move the story along quickly, from the vehicle drive to the valve to the roof. The mission is complete when the helicopter flies out of the blast radius and the outro cinematic with Lt. West plays.
