Wondering what the deal is with the new Modern Warfare 2 Invasion mode? Whether you’ve just dropped in for a match and aren’t sure what the objective is, or you’re questioning why some enemies are so easy to kill, then that’s more than understandable as Invasion is a totally new mode for the storied multiplayer game series.
It’s a 20v20 player mode set on massive Ground War-size maps with vehicles, buildings you can enter, and dozens of different pathways. However, there are a lot more than 40 combatants on the field, and that’s because in addition to the 20 players on each team there are also 20 AI soldiers on each side, for a total of 80 soldiers. The AI soldiers all wear similar outfits and should be easy to spot, and you can usually tell them apart as they can be seen dropping into the match via helicopter transports.
What is Modern Warfare 2 Invasion?
The objective is very simple: it’s a team deathmatch mode. Each team is effectively racing to meet the total kill count before the match timer runs out. The score that you need to reach is 2,000 points. That ‘points’ part is important because kills are counted differently depending on whether you kill a player-controlled enemy, or an AI one. You get 5 points for the former and 1 for the latter. Interestingly, killstreaks will grant a multiplier, but you can only earn killstreaks by eliminating player-controlled enemies.
Also, it’s worth noting that there are periodic upgrades throughout the game. After a certain amount of time all AI soldiers start spawning with armour, armoured jeeps will spawn for each team, then armoured light tanks, and there are also occasional care package airdrops to keep an eye out for.
Invasion is played on the same maps as Ground War, and at launch, the FPS game has a total of 5 Invasion maps, including:
- Sa’id
- Sariff Bay
- Santa Sena
- Zarqwa Hydroelectric
- Al Bagra Fortress
If you notice that some of these can also be found in core multiplayer then don’t worry as their Invasion counterparts are massively expanded.
It may be a bug, but at the time of writing you can earn roughly equivalent weapon XP from killing AI-controlled enemies in Invasion as you can from player-controlled ones, so if you want to level up fast in Modern Warfare 2 then you can max out your weapons in Invasion. Oh, and make sure to equip some Modern Warfare 2 double XP tokens to make things even faster.
And there you have it, everything you need to know about the new Modern Warfare 2 Invasion game mode. For more help starting out, check out our rundown of the best Modern Warfare 2 guns, start grinding towards our best Modern Warfare 2 M4 loadout, and collect all of the best perks in the game. Every little helps on your journey to maxing out every weapon in the game.