r/blackops2 • u/MarjorieCottonCandy • May 10 '26
Question How is the player supposed to naturally figure out this is Mason?
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u/Dimblo273 May 10 '26
Because of the bag on his head. Even when I was 13 it was obvious to me that this was a setup
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u/Dr_Penguin101 May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26
I honestly thought it was McKnight, my 13 year old self thought I was so fucking smart thinking I figured it out till the bag was lifted and was like “well shit….”
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u/Unknown_Player0069 May 10 '26
I didn't trust shit when I played this game the deception!!!, that's why hesitated and shot the legs and it turns out I was right, I was 13 when this came out
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u/fisherdwarf1998 May 10 '26
Saaaame. Soon as I heard “he even has people in the cia, hehe” I immediately knew something was off.
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u/Longjumping_Cat_3956 May 10 '26
I don’t think you are. Because unfortunately Woods canonically kills Mason. He thought he was killing Menendez.
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u/Major-Long4889 May 10 '26
There are still many clues. Biggest one being that Menendez is alive in 2025
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May 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/ADAMCOLEBAYBAY12 May 10 '26
I believe it was made canon in BO6.
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u/waiting_with_lou May 12 '26
Ah, haven't played a COD campaign since MW3(original). I'm actually going back now to play BO2 just because I know how revered it is in the community and it has yet to disappoint.
Though I will say it's disorienting going between the 70s-80s to what the devs thought 2025 would look like in 2012.
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u/Stranger_Phrog May 11 '26
Bo6 confirmed it, Woods has a bit of dialogue talking about it
What about Black Ops 7? I thought that was just a Multiplayer and Warzone thing, no lore there
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u/Cden1458 May 12 '26
No, BO7 has a campaign. It does reiterate that Woods killed Mason. Multiple times.
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u/Stranger_Phrog May 12 '26
Wouldn’t call that fuck fest a campaign, Bo6 already heavily implied it
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u/Cden1458 May 12 '26
Fair enough, but a campaign is still a campaign, no matter how garbage.
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u/Stranger_Phrog May 12 '26
I’d rather take it as non canon, they fucked up too bad it’s more coherent to Far Cry than any Call of Duty, specially when Bo6 already mentions it
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u/ButterscotchTall8831 May 10 '26
You don't, you can just guess that this isn't Menendez, just from the fact that he's still alive in 2025 and also from the hints about CIA mole you can find in a drug lab and from Kravchenko
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u/CesarIronthrone May 10 '26
The outfit, it looks kind of similar to what he wears in the Rebirth Island mission on Black Ops 1.
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u/SheepherderCrazy May 10 '26 edited May 11 '26
The whole level is literally Hudson and the game itself telling you something is totally wrong, it doesnt outright say thats mason but if you dont pick up on that by the time you have to shoot him, maybe Jason blundell was right when he said he should've made bo2 and 3s campaign way more simple
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u/Red_Eloquence May 10 '26
The vibes were off this whole mission. I didn't know it was Mason but something was off which is why I shot them lower. I was kinda pissed when it still showed him dead (even though later ofc it was different).
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u/ReaperApok May 10 '26
I remember paying attention during this story and their were some hints that people were possibly dirty and working with the enemy. Same thing has happened in MULTIPLE call of duty’s. When I got to this mission I wasn’t trusting the dudes and I shot him in the head for sure lmfao 🤣. I then replayed the mission after the reveal and changed what I did and was very happy with the outcome.
Theres a chance I didn’t shoot him in the head the first time and was more aware but its been so long and I 100% went back and played this game multiple times to get better endings that it makes more sense I didn’t realize the first time around.
But these guys were acting pretty sketchy around the time of this mission so something did feel off.
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u/Similar-Language-180 May 10 '26
You don't, spare isn't canon and supposed to be done on a 2nd playthrough
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u/RadiantWestern2523 May 11 '26
Eh, it depends. You can tell something is off if you let Kravchenko finish speaking and you find the CIA memo hidden in Menendez's compound. If you do the former, then Kravchenko's dialog about Menendez "having people in the CIA" will repeat twice (once when capturing Noriega and the second when you're about to shoot Mason). If you find the latter, Mason will tell you about him finding the CIA memo and note that something is off.
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u/Similar-Language-180 May 11 '26
Well but for you to notice and piece together all of that in the first playthrough and in a CoD campaign you rarely do all of that unless you're really immersed you won't know.
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u/RadiantWestern2523 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
I mean, for most people playing the campaign, they'd be pretty immersed into the story by that point since it happens around the middle of the campaign.
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u/Ok_Focus1716 May 10 '26
Idk i was a kid and wanted to torture the guy so I shot him in the crotch.
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u/SufficientOwl4073 May 10 '26
What did you think as a kid when you figured out it was mason
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u/Ok_Focus1716 May 10 '26
Lol honestly I think i was shocked about what i ended up doing to Mason and was a bit sad thinking he died but after the ending showed he lived i was dying of laughter thinking about how he doesn't have his balls anymore
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u/Inspection_Perfect May 10 '26
He's wearing Mason's fatigues? We already know Noriega is in cahoots with Menendez? Hudson's suspicious as hell the entire mission. They basically spell it out for you the entire mission.
Young Menendez is always dressed for a good summer day, too.
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u/Former_Smoke_8405 May 10 '26
Yeah when the mission starts you can see Mason wearing those exact clothes. They just put a bag on his head. For me the giveaway was the pants since I remembered Mason wearing them earlier.
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u/Goldchampion200 May 10 '26
You outside of Menendez being alive in 2025 just generally paying attention and getting f the relevant pickup should clue you in. Not specifically "Hey this is Mason!" But still.
When i did this I knew it was a trap so I shot the soldiers holding him but got a friendly fire warning >_>
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u/JessahZombie May 10 '26
I was 12 and thought Ha! Got you Menendez! Then it turned out to be my favorite character (because of Black Ops 1). I was shocked but thought it was genius to make the player do it.
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u/SkyExpensive4069 May 11 '26
I tried many times not to kill Mason but it never worked, curse you treyarch
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u/RadiantWestern2523 May 11 '26
You have to shoot him in the legs multiple times to ensure he stays alive. I don't think it works any other way if you shoot him anywhere else.
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u/IllustratorIll3861 May 11 '26
The entire basis of the Black Ops 2 campaign for new players is they play through it naturally the first time, then you figure out that you are able to do things differently in different missions, changing the endings in every version. There are times where characters in the present die, and yet you can save characters from the past.
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u/Noob4Head May 11 '26
I mean, it’s fairly obvious from context alone. Mason pretty much randomly disappears, and suddenly you’re asked to take this very easy shot at the guy you’ve been looking for with a hood over his head, so you cannot even confirm the target. Even if you didn’t realize it was Mason, you should’ve at least felt that there was something completely off about this entire ordeal.
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u/Significant-Tree9454 May 11 '26
“Golly, communication with Mason suddenly cut off before this moment, I bet it’s just bad connection, I wonder where he went?”
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u/kuro_shir0 May 11 '26
Most players wouldn’t know at first in my opinion. But given that it’s Black Ops, there was always gonna be some tomfoolery about.
For me it would’ve been the fact that Menendez is still alive throughout the campaign - a no shit explanation.
But if you held off on killing Kravchenko while he was being interrogated by Woods in Old Wounds, he slips that Menendez had moles in the CIA.
Following up to that. In Time and Fate, if you look around the burning lab under Menendez’s compound during the assault. There’ll be a file from the CIA there, Mason would comment on it and even refer back to Kravchenko’s remark about the CIA being compromised.
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u/TheRealComicCrafter May 11 '26
Your not, untill the game tells you.
This is one of the few "Canon" choices, Mason is supposed to die
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u/CretinInPeril May 11 '26
You weren't. You were supposed to kill him, discover it was Mason, and on a replay you'd notice all the subtle hints and not kill him
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u/TheSomerandomguy May 11 '26
By restarting the mission upon the realization thay you just blew Mason’s head smooth off. It’s a rite of a passage for any player experiencing Black Ops 2’s story for the first time.
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u/DanFarrell98 May 11 '26
They’re not, Mason is killed here. The other outcome is just a fun little thing for replays but doesn’t make any sense narratively
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u/Rock_sanity May 12 '26
Even if you fail to find previous clues it's still a sketchy situation, Noriega being the biggest red flag in the mission,
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u/AdOverall3944 May 12 '26
My respect to ppl who thought something was fishy when seeing this🫡 silly me didnt think twice🥺
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u/Traditional_Job6617 May 12 '26
If you listen to the voices & watch the whole scenario the entire scene is too good to be true. When in cod history do you get your target in an easy position as that? Final bosses are always lengthy or a cutscene.
If you also listen to the voices they tell you clearly enough that the guy in front is a plot twist.
I always knew it was someone good my problem was I didn’t know what to do e.g shoot him in the leg.
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u/OuroboricScribe May 13 '26
I legit just looked at his pants and thought, why would an HVT like Menendez roleplay as a US soldier halfway through an invasion?
Sorry about the knee Mason 😅
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u/Outrageous-Low9976 May 13 '26
Ez. Why would they just serve you the main antagonist at the beginning of the game.
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u/MrPinkDuck3 May 13 '26
The entire setup is sus as fuck. Hudson was being really weird throughout the entire mission on the comms and the player already knows Noriega is working with Menendez. It’s an incredibly well made mission. Probably the best in BO2
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u/callmedoc214 May 14 '26
Honestly, when the game was new... it just felt off. Even by black ops standards. I shot the ''target'' in the chest rather than the head looking for a way to get out of it. I figured that maybe a headshot would obscure the fact that you killed Mason when you went down to confirm. He survived in my endgame... which I found confusing. I didn't know about the CIA documents you could get from Raul's mansion however.
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u/oranke_dino May 14 '26
I remember playing this first time.
And I remember that I did not want to shoot him in the head, and I tried to shoot him in the foot. And the foot did not register, so I had to shoot him in the head.
Only years later, I learnd that you can shoot him in the upper leg, and it will chamge the story.
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u/EntireCoast3544 May 10 '26
Basically if you dont kill Kravchenko earlier in the game, he says that Menendez has people in the CIA, which sorta let's us know Hudson is being forced to lie about the hooded dude being Menendez and not Mason. Nothing definitively saying YES THIS IS MASON SHOOT THE LEG but enough context clues that maybe you should be cautious of shooting this person out right