Modern Warfare 4: Should You Kill Graves in Hired Gun?

⚠️ Spoilers ahead for Mission 4: Hired Gun and broader campaign story beats.

TL;DR

• Yes — you must shoot Graves. It’s the only way to complete Mission 4.
• If you don’t fire, Graves kills Price and the mission fails.
• There is no alternate route, no way to spare him, and no hidden outcome.
• This is not a real moral choice — it’s a timed prompt disguised as one.
• On YOLO difficulty, hesitating here ends your entire campaign run from Mission 1.
• Completing Hired Gun unlocks the Dallas Base Operator.

Should You Shoot Graves in Modern Warfare 4?

Yes. Shoot him.

Near the end of Mission 4 — Hired Gun — Captain Price stands over a wounded Phillip Graves in an industrial rail shed. The game then puts a prompt on screen asking whether you fire or hold back. It looks like a moral choice. It isn’t.

If you shoot, Price puts a round through Graves’ forehead and the mission ends. If you hold back, Graves takes advantage of the hesitation, disarms Price, and shoots him. That’s an instant mission failure.

There is no third option. No dialogue path that lets you spare him. No secret outcome if you wait just a little longer. Graves dies in every version of this story that moves forward. The choice is just about whether you’re the one pulling the trigger or restarting the checkpoint.

What Happens If You Shoot Graves?

Price presses the pistol to Graves’ forehead and fires. The mission ends. Laswell confirms Graves is dead at the start of the next mission, Traffic. You unlock the Dallas Base Operator and the campaign moves on to Mission 5, Losing Ground.

It’s a clean, cold execution. Graves had tried to bargain — offering to clear Price’s name in exchange for his life. Price didn’t take the deal. Unlike Graves’ fake-out death in Modern Warfare II, where he was never actually in the tank when it blew up, this time there’s no escape hatch. Price makes sure of it.

What Happens If You Don’t Shoot Graves?

Graves uses the pause against Price. He grabs the gun, turns it on Price, and shoots him several times. Mission failed. You’re sent back to the checkpoint just before the prompt and have to do it again.

There’s no alternative cutscene. No branching story. No version of events where Graves walks away. The game just makes you retry until you pull the trigger.

Modern Warfare 4 Should You Kill Graves in Hired Gun 2

What Happens If You Don’t Shoot Graves on YOLO Difficulty?

This is where it gets brutal. On standard difficulties, dying sends you back to the last checkpoint. On YOLO, dying at any point sends you all the way back to Mission 1, Mayhem — no exceptions.

So if you hesitate on the Graves prompt during a YOLO run, your entire campaign progress is wiped and you start over from scratch. It’s the kind of thing that stings hard after you’ve fought through 13+ missions clean.

The good news: the prompt is not a reflex test with a tiny window. You have a few seconds to react. Just don’t walk away from the screen or get distracted. When the prompt appears — fire.

For everything you need to know about YOLO and how the difficulty system works, see our COD Modern Warfare 4 all campaign difficulties guide.

Who Is Graves — and Why Does Price Kill Him?

If you haven’t played the earlier Modern Warfare games, Graves’ history with Task Force 141 goes back several years and it’s not a friendly one.

Phillip Graves is the founder and commander of Shadow Company, a private military company that worked closely with General Shepherd. In Modern Warfare II, Shepherd ordered Graves and Shadow Company to betray Task Force 141 — turning on Soap and Ghost mid-operation and nearly killing the squad. Graves was following Shepherd’s orders to bury a weapons smuggling operation that had gone wrong, and he didn’t hesitate to do it.

At the end of Modern Warfare II, Task Force 141 appeared to kill Graves in a tank fight. Except he was never in the tank. He was controlling it remotely from a safe location. Graves survived and came back as an uneasy ally in Modern Warfare III, where Soap and Price had to work alongside him to fight Makarov, despite everything that had happened between them.

By the time Modern Warfare 4 starts, Price has killed General Shepherd, gone rogue after Soap’s death, and is operating completely off the books. Graves and Shadow Company are still in the field. Their paths collide again in Hired Gun when Graves tries to intercept Price and Valeria’s weapons operation.

After a long fight — including taking down Graves’ armed helicopter with a grenade launcher and facing him on foot — Price finally has him cornered. Graves tries one last deal. Price is done dealing. This time there’s no remote-controlled tank escape. Price finishes it.

Does Killing Graves Affect the Rest of the Campaign?

Not in any branching story sense. Graves is dead after Hired Gun regardless of how you played — the only question is whether you completed the mission or retried the checkpoint. The campaign continues on the same path either way.

Laswell acknowledges Graves’ death at the start of Mission 5 (Traffic), and Shadow Company is no longer a factor in the rest of the story. The narrative then moves forward through Valeria’s involvement, the Korean Peninsula conflict, and the hunt for The Archer.

The campaign’s choices — in Hired Gun and elsewhere — shape individual scenes but don’t change the overall ending. For a full breakdown of every decision point in the campaign and what each one actually does, check our complete COD Modern Warfare 4 campaign rewards guide which covers what each mission unlocks as you push through the story.

What Do You Unlock for Completing Hired Gun?

Finishing Mission 4 (Hired Gun) — which means shooting Graves and completing the mission — unlocks the Dallas Base Operator. Dallas is one of eight Operators you can earn by completing campaign missions, and he’s usable in both Multiplayer and DMZ from October 23, 2026 onwards.

Every mission in the campaign rewards you with one item on completion, and difficulty doesn’t change what you get. Here’s what the surrounding missions unlock to give you context:

• Mission 3 (Following Orders): Double XP Token
• Mission 4 (Hired Gun): Dallas Base Operator
• Mission 5 (Losing Ground): Ready Line Loading Screen

For every mission reward across all 16 missions, see our full COD Modern Warfare 4 campaign rewards list.

Is There a Trophy or Achievement Tied to the Hired Gun Choice?

There’s no trophy or achievement tied specifically to the Graves execution prompt itself. However, Hired Gun does have a mission-specific trophy: Bullet Train (Silver), which requires killing 50 enemies while standing on train cars during the mission.

That challenge is separate from the Graves choice entirely — it’s about how you fight through the earlier sections of the mission, not the end scene.

Hired Gun also plays a role in difficulty-specific trophies. The Out in the Cold mission’s Makarov fight has specific achievements tied to Hardened and Veteran difficulty. If you’re working through difficulty runs and thinking about whether to use the pause-menu difficulty switch, check our campaign difficulties guide for tips on how to manage that cleanly.

For the full trophy and achievement list, our COD Modern Warfare 4 campaign trophy and achievement guide covers everything in one place.

How to Beat the Hired Gun Mission — Quick Tips

The Graves execution prompt at the end is simple once you know it’s coming. The fight to get there is the actual challenge. Here’s what to know:

• The helicopter fight: The mission gives you a PR-48 Anvil grenade launcher to take down Graves’ helicopter. Keep your distance, use flashbangs between shots, and let Valeria resupply you during the fight. Don’t try to rush it.
• The Bullet Train trophy: If you’re going for 50 kills on train cars, focus on staying on the rail cars during the big infantry sections early in the mission. Don’t drop off when it gets hectic.
• The Graves prompt: When it appears, press R2 on PlayStation or RT on Xbox to fire. Don’t hesitate, especially on YOLO.

Once Hired Gun is done, the campaign continues into Mission 5. For a look at what else happens across the full story — including who else dies and how — our COD Modern Warfare 4 all deaths guide covers every major and minor character death in order.

You can pick up the game on Steam, PlayStation Store, or Xbox Store.

Frequently Asked Questions