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How to do a Modern Warfare 2 finishing move

Whether you're trying to unlock the Konig skin or just eliminate your opponents in style, here's how to perform a finishing move in Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2 finishing move: a female operator posing with a gun

There’s nothing quite like a Modern Warfare 2 finishing move to put your stamp on an unwitting opponent. However, while the game has a ton of finishing moves, and challenges associated with them, there’s not an obvious description of how to actually do one. It’s worth noting that you’ll pretty much have to find an enemy who’s totally oblivious to your whereabouts to trigger the animation.

It won’t be easy to locate such an opponent in the multiplayer game, but you’ll need to try and do so in order to unlock Modern Warfare 2 operators like Konig. And while these stylish ways of killing may not be rare in FPS games, COD has some of the best finisher animations. One of at least a dozen different contextual finishing move animations will play out differently depending on what stance your opponent is in, what weapon you’re holding, and whether or not you’ve purchased or equipped a bespoke finishing move from the store.

How to do a Modern Warfare 2 finishing move

All you need to do is get behind an enemy and hold your melee button. On PC, the default keybinds for melee are the V key or mouse button 4, while those using PlayStation and Xbox controllers will need to hold down the right analogue stick, known as the R3 button for PlayStation controller users.

If you find yourself swinging at thin air, then it’s probably just that you’ve missed the enemy’s hitbox, so keep trying to get a little closer while you’re behind them. The easiest way to execute a finishing move is to use a flash or stun grenade to incapacitate an opponent, then sprint behind them to perform the finisher.

And that’s how to do a finishing move in Modern Warfare 2. We’ve got plenty of other guides if you’re just jumping in, such as a rundown of the best Modern Warfare 2 guns, how to complete all of the Modern Warfare 2 camo challenges, and what the Tier 1 playlist is and why it might be handy for the multiplayer grind. We also have a guide to solving the puzzles with the MW2 raid code in Atomgrad. Happy hunting!