The Call Of Duty Alternate Ending That Went Missing For Almost 13 Years

Bad news for anyone who has trouble keeping track of time: The original "Modern Warfare 3" turns 13 this year. That's a tough pill to swallow, but hey, at least the game isn't old enough to drive yet (in most US states, anyway). We're not just here to ruin your day with a reminder about the inevitable march of time, though. We're also here to tell you about a glorious discovery that's recently made its way to the internet. A "Call of Duty" fan has managed to uncover a deleted scene that was originally planned as the post credits sign-off for the "Modern Warfare" trilogy. 

Parts of "Modern Warfare" 3 have aged poorly, but the original game had a pretty fantastic conclusion, its story culminating in Captain Price defeating Vladimir Makarov and smoking a celebratory cigar while lying injured on the floor. The newly-discovered deleted scene shifts the tone of that ending pretty dramatically, adding a much more bittersweet note to the end of the series. That might be why Infinity Ward cut it all those years ago, but it's also why fans are so excited to get to see it now.

The scene picks up right after the original game's ending. Price is sitting and smoking his cigar when a mysterious figure appears in the doorway behind Makarov's body. The mystery man is wearing a spiffy suit, and he stares at Price for a long moment without saying anything. Then the man walks away, and Price drops his cigar in a way that suggests he's losing consciousness. The theory that Price died at the end of "Modern Warfare 3" was already pretty common, and plenty of fans are now taking this deleted scene as confirmation that Price didn't make it. Some think the mystery man is a representation of the Grim Reaper coming to collect Price's soul. Another theory is that the man may be a reference to Zakhaev, another "Modern Warfare" antagonist who died at Price's hands. Now he, Price, and Makarov are meeting once more in the afterlife.

Of course, not everyone is willing to surrender Price to the ghostly beyond, nor do they buy that "MW3" suddenly got all supernatural in its final moments. Some think that this scene might have been designed to hint at a new villain for a game that would have continued the "Modern Warfare" story before the critically acclaimed reboot. Others agree that this scene confirms Price's death, but also believe that it was cut to leave his fate more open-ended. We'll probably never know the truth, but the emergence of this scene is a nice (and new) walk down memory lane, even if we don't want to think about how old those memories are.