Assassins is the eighth mission of the Modern Warfare 4 campaign, and it hands you a role the series rarely gives out. Instead of a soldier, you play North Korean Supreme Leader Ri Seung-ho on the night a coup tears through his own palace. It is a stealth-driven escape sequence set “1 day before invasion,” and it ends with one of the campaign’s sharpest gut-punches.
Quick answer: Assassins puts you in the shoes of Ri Seung-ho as he flees his palace during his sister’s coup. He reaches a hidden bunker, only to be ambushed and executed there by Ri Ju-Young and a mercenary named Archer.
Who you play and when Assassins takes place
You control Ri Seung-ho, shown in a tailored dark suit rather than combat gear. In first person, you see black suit sleeves and bare hands, which sets the tone for a mission built around hiding and running instead of fighting head-on. The mission card frames the events as happening “1 day ago,” placing this escape in the campaign’s recent past.
Assassins sits between Gone Dark and Survivors in the mission order. It is single-player only, like the rest of the Modern Warfare 4 campaign, so there is no co-op option here even though allied characters move alongside you during parts of the escape.
The coup that opens the mission
The opening cutscenes set up the betrayal before you ever take control. Seung-ho’s sister, Ri Ju-Young, convinces him that traitors inside the regime need to be dealt with, then has Sergeant Ko Jin-Hyuk summon the senior council. Her warning about defectors is the pretext for what follows.
Inside the council chamber, Ri Ju-Young accuses the assembled officials of being compromised and orders her soldiers to shoot everyone in the room. Ko finishes off an official hiding beneath the table. It is a cold, one-sided massacre that marks the real start of her takeover.
You pick up control in the palace memorial gallery, where Seung-ho pauses before a portrait of his father and reflects on the family legacy with his aide, Shin. That quiet moment breaks the instant gunfire erupts through the palace and the assault reaches the corridors.
Escaping the palace
Once the title card drops, the mission becomes a tense flight through a building full of hostile commandos. Early on, Seung-ho is pinned down and has to crawl prone beneath an ornate display case while attackers sweep the room. Sergeant Ko arrives, clears the immediate threat, and takes the lead.
The route soon leaves the interior. Ko directs Seung-ho out a window to shimmy along a decorative masonry ledge on the outside of the building, slipping past lit windows and guarded corridors below. It is one of the mission’s quieter set pieces, trading combat for careful movement.
Back inside, Seung-ho forces his way into the security room, takes an FPSH-41 submachine gun, and eliminates the troops stationed there. Ko gives him a radio earpiece and combat knife, then stays behind to direct the escape using the palace’s CCTV cameras while Shin leads Seung-ho out on foot.
That partnership does not last. After passing the boardroom full of the slaughtered council, Shin is ambushed and killed in a hallway, leaving Seung-ho alone with only Ko’s voice over the radio. From there, the escape pushes through a multi-tiered library, down red-lit stairwells into the kitchens, and out into rain-soaked gardens patrolled by guards and a sniper in a gazebo.
The gardens close with a dive into an ornamental pond, swimming underwater past the sniper toward a massive statue of Seung-ho’s father. The bunker entrance is hidden at the base of that statue.
The keypad codes along the route
Four locked doors gate the escape, and Ko reads out the code for each one over the radio as Seung-ho reaches it. The codes are fixed, not randomized, so they appear in the same order every time the mission plays.
| Door | Code |
|---|---|
| Security room exit | 0919 |
| Library service door | 5523 |
| Kitchen corridor exit | 7632 |
| Underground bunker hatch | 9103 |
The bunker, Archer, and the double betrayal
The bunker should mean safety, but it doesn’t. Seung-ho climbs down the ladder and follows the tunnel to the secure office at its far end, where guards waiting for him immediately tackle him to the floor.
A foreign mercenary named Archer corners him, and Ri Ju-Young steps in to explain her vision of a stronger regime before shooting her brother point-blank. She and Archer then arm a case of warheads to begin the invasion, with Archer confirming his contract is done.
The final beat reframes the whole mission. Security monitors cut to Sergeant Ko Jin-Hyuk watching the execution on CCTV with a smirk. The guide who walked you through every corridor, fed you every door code, and handed you your weapons was in on the plot the entire time. Ko reappears later in the campaign as a defector liaison in the “Stranded” mission, which keeps that betrayal in play.
Trophies tied to Assassins
Two trophies are reported for the mission. Pacifist, a gold trophy, is earned by finishing Assassins with only one enemy killed, which pushes you toward the stealth route the level is built around. Revenge, a silver trophy, requires killing every enemy after Shin dies, on Hardened difficulty or higher.
The two objectives conflict, requiring a separate run for each. Modern Warfare 4’s campaign became available in early access on October 16, 2026, ahead of the full launch on October 23, 2026, and details about Assassins continue to emerge as players reach it.
