Decapitation is the second-to-last mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s campaign. It is the operation the whole Korean storyline has been building toward, a strike on the North Korean leadership meant to end the war before the peninsula falls. You play as Private Park Hyun-Min, a Republic of Korea Marine, alongside Task Force 141’s Ghost and Kai. The target is General Ri Jo-Young, who is hiding in a fortified palace complex in the snowy mountains. A full no-commentary run takes roughly 18 minutes, including a couple of deaths in the bunker.
Quick answer: Decapitation is mission 15 of 16. It is complete once Ri Jo-Young dies in the safe room behind the war room’s map wall, Kai radios “Jackpot,” and Park boards the extraction helicopter.
Decapitation in the Modern Warfare 4 campaign order
The campaign has 16 missions and moves between Captain John Price’s storyline and the war in Korea. Decapitation comes after Entrenched, a large ground assault to keep a nuclear power station out of enemy hands. It leads straight into the finale, Greater Good. It is also the last of several North Korea missions, following Following Orders, Assassins, Survivors, Stranded and Defection.
| Order | Mission | Setting |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | Escape | The Archer’s prison |
| 14 | Entrenched | South Korea |
| 15 | Decapitation | North Korea |
| 16 | Greater Good | Campaign finale |
The campaign is single-player only, with no co-op. Like the rest of the game, Decapitation can be played on Regular, Hardened, Veteran, Realism or YOLO, and you can change the difficulty from the pause menu.
Decapitation characters: Who is on the strike team
The mission opens with a “CURRENT DAY” tag and a mission card that reads “PVT PARK HYUN-MIN ROK.” Park starts out as a door gunner in an allied air assault. He ends up attached to the Task Force 141 team after a member of his squad is wounded.
| Character | Role in Decapitation |
|---|---|
| Pvt. Park Hyun-Min | Player character, ROK Marine |
| Lt. West | Runs the helicopter, reassigns Park |
| Ghost | Task Force 141, arrives by Little Bird |
| Kai | Leads the laser designator team |
| Lt. Ko Jin-Hyuk | North Korean defector, opens the bunker |
| Gen. Ri Jo-Young | The target |
Other names appear on screen as callsigns and squadmates, including Outlaw 2-4, Outlaw 2-5, Tiger 0-1, Dunn, Moon, Jae, Sgt. Noh and Cpl. Hyuk. Park joins Tiger-1 as a replacement shooter partway through the mission.
The helicopter assault on the palace
Decapitation starts in the air. Park’s squad rides in a transport helicopter over snowy mountains and water, and the soldiers trade comments about Ghost flying nearby in a Little Bird. Kai’s team splits off to set up a laser designator on a cliff above the palace. That calls in an airstrike that knocks out the compound’s first layer of defenses.
Once the strike lands, Lt. West puts Park on the door gun. The next couple of minutes are an on-rails shooting run over the palace plaza. You clear vehicles, roadblocks, infantry and RPG teams around a statue square while the helicopter circles.
The air section ends with an enemy Mi-24 Hind gunship cutting into the formation. Park has to keep the heavy machine gun on it until it catches fire and goes down. Nothing else in the mission needs that much sustained fire on a single target.
The helicopter then sets down on the palace roof. One of Park’s squadmates has been hit, so Lt. West sends Park to fill the empty spot on Tiger-1 with Ghost and Kai.
Inside the palace: Atrium, galleries and the hidden vault door
The objective switches to “Enter the Palace,” and the [F] Hook up prompt sends Park down a rope through the broken skylight into a multi-story atrium. Guards hold the grand staircase and the balconies above it. You fight them from the floor of the hall.
Next, Ghost and Kai meet Lt. Ko Jin-Hyuk. The squad advances through ground-floor passageways bordered by towering columns, state murals and display vehicles. The route feels like a showcase of the regime’s trophies, but enemies are concealed among the exhibits.
Heavy double doors swing open to reveal the museum wing, whose ornate galleries contain glass display cases and entrenched North Korean troops. Above ground, no other section has a longer close-quarters fight. The galleries lead to a dead end, where Lt. Ko opens a vault entrance masked by a portrait of the supreme leader. A staircase beyond descends into the bunker.
The Decapitation bunker: Night vision, guard dogs and server rooms
The underground section is where the mission gets tougher. Lt. Ko cuts the facility’s power, and the squad switches to night vision goggles to push through dark detention corridors. The Korean signs along the way label each part of the complex, which helps you keep track of where you are.
| Sign | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 수용구역 | Detention Area |
| 독방 (23, 27, 28, 32, 33) | Solitary Cells |
| 승강기 타는 곳 | Elevator Boarding Area |
| 통제실 | Control Room |
| 서버실 | Server Room |
| 비상구 | Emergency Exit |
Military guard dogs patrol the corridors along with regular soldiers. A dog can knock Park down around a blind corner and kill him outright. The run behind these frames died twice in this stretch before clearing it, once to a dog and once to rifle fire near a side door.
The game’s own hint after a dog death reads “Press V right before the dog goes for your throat.” Timing that melee prompt is what stops the attack.
Past the cells, Lt. Ko guides Park through a tight maintenance crawlspace full of utility pipes that comes out in the server facility. The firefight there takes place between tall server racks and glowing electronic cabinets. After that comes a control room and a set of back offices and corridors leading to the command bunker doors.
Ri Jo-Young’s war room and how Decapitation ends
The squad breaches the war room, a command chamber built around a huge glowing world map, and kills the remaining staff officers. Ri Jo-Young isn’t there. He is in a safe room behind a reinforced steel door hidden inside the map wall. The team blows it open, Ri Jo-Young opens fire, and the fight that follows plays out in slow motion until he goes down.
You know the objective is done when Kai radios “Jackpot” and confirms the target is dead while Ri Jo-Young lies on the floor. A short ending follows outside the burning palace. Lt. Ko turns down evacuation and chooses to stay in his homeland. Park says goodbye and climbs into the Chinook that flies the team out.
Weapons and controls seen in Decapitation
Park starts the ground section with a standard Marine loadout and picks up weapons as he goes, switching to a shotgun for the close bunker corridors. These are the weapons and keyboard prompts that appear on screen during the mission.
| Weapons | Prompt | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Patriot XMR | [F] | Hook up (rappel) |
| Rez 12 Enforcer | [V] | Mount |
| Kastov | [C] | Use Armor |
| Mojave .357 | [G] / [Q] | Frag / Flashbang |
One more loading-screen hint applies to the long sightlines in the war room and server halls: you can reload while still aiming down the sights, so you don’t have to unscope between enemies. Decapitation is part of Modern Warfare 4’s early access, which is live now. The full release is set for October 23rd, 2026, and Greater Good, the campaign’s final mission, comes right after the palace raid.
