Modern Warfare 4 campaign achievements: all 18 and how to unlock them

Most of these are tied to one mission and can be done while you play it. Four are not: Scavenger, Noteworthy, Hold the Line and Was it Worth it?. This guide goes through all 18 in story order, then covers Realism. Where a step needs a code, the code is given.

All 18 achievements

On PlayStation these are 8 gold and 10 silver trophies, with no Platinum. Hold the Line and Was it Worth it? show as secret achievements until you earn them.

How to plan your two playthroughs

Run one is on Recruit, and the aim is everything except Was it Worth it?. Mission Select lets you replay finished missions, so nothing is lost for good if you miss it the first time. The difficulty can be changed before a challenge, so you can stay on Recruit and raise it only for Safety’s On, Revenge and Can’t Touch This.

Realism is locked until you have finished the game once. After that, run two is a clear of the whole campaign on Realism. Play it in story order from Mayhem to Greater Good, and if you go back to an earlier mission afterwards, play Greater Good again at the end. Realism takes away most of the HUD and turns on friendly fire. YOLO, which unlocks after a Realism clear, gives you one life for the whole campaign, but there is no achievement for it. Expect 16 hours or more for everything.

Skeet Shooting (Mayhem)

A paratrooper only counts if he dies before he lands. The achievement pops on the tenth, so you can stop the moment it does and leave the mission. The first wave comes down right over you when you reach the stadium field, and that is the easiest one to hit. Anyone who has already landed is a waste of ammo, so wait for the next drop. If too many reach the ground, reload the checkpoint.

Safety’s On (Out in the Cold)

This needs Hardened or higher, and your gun cannot fire at all. A takedown with a weapon in your hands is done by the weapon and does not count, so put it away and go in with your fists.

Take some bottles from the bar tables on your way. There are five enemies in the kitchen. Come through the door at the enemy on your right, stagger him with a bottle and take him down, then do the same to the two nearest. The last two are behind the counter, and you can punch them. One shot from your gun and you reload the checkpoint.

Can’t Touch This (Out in the Cold)

It is a duel with Makarov, so raise the difficulty to Veteran or higher before it starts. A single hit fails it. A red flash on the HUD means you took damage, and then you reload.

Block and wait for the gaps in the first half. In the second half he is faster, and holding block for too long stuns you, so let go and hit back between his attacks. Never attack while his guard is up. He will punish it.

No Harm Done and No Stone Unturned (Following Orders)

You can get both in one run. There are 4 pieces of contraband and 4 notes in total. Take the contraband first. The woman in the first house will talk to you, and the dialogue options that send her into the hallway with her husband are the right ones. Then question the man about each item. Never hit, grab or threaten either of them. The defector’s location unlocks No Harm Done once you have it without hurting anyone.

In the third house, use the dialogue option to call the woman out of the hatch. If she stays inside, you cannot reach the cellar and have to replay the mission.

Bullet Train (Hired Gun)

Only kills made while you are standing on a train car count, and the ground does not. Any car will do: flatbeds, open boxcars and hopper cars, moving or parked. You can collect kills from the start of the mission right up to the final fight with Graves, so shoot from the roofs and use the cars as cover.

Play it on Recruit. The other difficulties are less predictable, and some players shoot every enemy and still finish short of 50. If you get to the end without 50, replay the mission or go back to an earlier checkpoint and carry on.

Raining Thunder (Losing Ground)

This is the mortar near the end of the mission. The biggest wave arrives from the right, and that is when to start firing. Aim at clumps of enemies, not single soldiers, and try for about 5 kills a shot.

The game counts any three rounds in a row, so a bad first shot does not ruin the run. Keep firing until a run of three reaches 15 kills. If it does not, reload the checkpoint, and if that fails too, restart the mission.

Revenge and Pacifist (Assassins)

These conflict, so you need two runs of Assassins. Do Pacifist on Recruit, and Revenge on Hardened or higher.

Revenge. Start the mission on Hardened or Veteran. Shin dies in the library, and everything that moves after that has to die. The achievement unlocks on the last kill, so you can stop there and skip the rest of the mission. Clear one area before you move on to the next. In the garden, watch the stairs on your left as you walk in, and expect more enemies behind you when the bunker door opens. You have no armor on Hardened, so use the knife and throwing knives, and check an area again before you accept a checkpoint.

Pacifist. The mission sets up one kill for you in the scene with Shin, and that is the one you are allowed. Nobody else dies. In the kitchens, throw bottles to pull enemies away, hide in the storage if you have to, and crouch behind the counters.

In the garden, wait for the patrols to pass, stay low and keep out of the flashlights. The sniper in the middle is the main danger, so stay out of his sight and approach the statue from the back.

Time to Crate (Stranded)

There are 26 Yellow Supply Crates: 24 in fixed positions and 2 that move. The game keeps a Yellow Supply Caches Opened counter, so you can check how many you have left. Six of the crates sit behind keypads, and there are two more keypads with no crate. A Supply Tracker will help you find the hidden ones.

A missing crate is usually on something that moves or behind something you have to break. Look at the freight train, the truck patrolling the snow to the northeast, and the container behind the wooden crates at the artillery position. The Supply Tracker reading changes as you get closer if the crate is on a vehicle.

Incoming! (Stranded)

Explosive drones are the way to do this. They unlock after the jamming station mission, so leave the SAM Site until you have them, and carry around ten in case you miss. More are in the boxes around the statue.

From the SAM Site, face north and you will see the vehicles on the main road. Fly the drones into them while they are still driving in, and do not wait for them to arrive. The out of range warning is wrong and the drones reach further than it says. Stay away from the craftable anti-material rifle, because the soldiers get out the moment you hit the vehicle. The achievement unlocks when every vehicle and the BMP are destroyed.

Scavenger (Stranded)

Repair everything in Base Camp. You spend Supplies at the workbenches, and you find Supplies in cabinets, desks, hangar shelves and crates, so explore before you come back. You can return to Base Camp after the mission through Mission Select.

The rest of the repairs are the grenade launcher, tactical gloves, tactical boots, the snow ghillie suit, the APOC-338, the PM-40 Anvil and Dunn’s mortar launcher. The parachute, backpack upgrade, 2-plate vest and night vision goggles are free pickups.

If you have done everything and it has not unlocked, two items are the usual cause. The first is Semtex, the lethal you craft at the base. It does not show up if you already carry another lethal, so drop yours and look again. The second is the Vulcan sniper rifle’s suppressor. Pick up the Vulcan in front of the statue at the SAM Site, and a suppressor craft appears on the table under the ammo bag.

Noteworthy (Stranded)

You need 50 different notes out of the 64 in the campaign: 4 in Following Orders, 2 in Escape and 58 in Stranded. Stranded alone is enough. Of its 58 notes, 53 are out in the world and 5 come from the Base Camp workbenches, so you can miss 8 and still get it. Interacting with a Base Camp craftable counts its note before you craft anything.

Long Shot (Counter Attack)

Get to the roof of the hotel and use the sniper rifle there. Two mortar teams of two soldiers each spawn as you push through the objective, and all four have to die. The first team is on the left of the city hall. The second is a little further left, on the garage roof. When you kill one soldier on a mortar, the other runs, so shoot the second one quickly. If one escapes, reload the checkpoint. Do not use the rooftop missile launcher on them.

Never Forgotten (Escape)

Gaz’s Dog Tags are in a wall safe. The code comes from two notes. The first, the Confiscation Protocol Reminder, is on a desk in the office across from the cells at the start of the mission. The second, with the updated code, is in the security office past the guard checkpoint. The code is 8410.

Keep going, free Ghost and clear the barracks. Ghost then says you are not leaving without Gaz. The room with the safe is right there. Enter 8410, open it and take the Dog Tags.

Trench Broom (Entrenched)

You need 15 shotgun kills before you secure the Target Building. Equip the shotgun at the start and use only that through both sets of trenches. Do not secure the building until you have all 15. The narrow corridors and the two machine-gun bunkers in the first push are good for kills, and one enemy about halfway through carries a long-barrel shotgun that is worth taking.

Hold the Line and Was it Worth it? (Greater Good)

Both unlock when you finish the campaign, the first on any difficulty and the second on Realism. Finishing the first run also unlocks Realism.

Realism tips by mission

On any mission, use every armor plate and ammo box you find, keep your distance, stay behind cover and mount your weapon to peek. A weapon with a big magazine gives you more reserve ammo.

The rest of our guides for the game are on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 hub.