How to avoid and fix the “stuck in elevator” bug in Countdown in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Countdown is the 17th and final mission in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare campaign, and it all gets a bit Die Hard with some old-school, pre-aliens Rainbow Six thrown in for good measure. Your mission is to capture the elusive Hassan (again), and his even-more-elusive third missile. It seems like no matter how many terrorists you shoot in the face, something always seems to go wrong. First, Hassan manages to launch one of the missiles, and its target is Washington D.C. If that weren’t bad enough, you get stuck in an elevator. Not every player does, but we’re assuming you did, seeing as you clicked on this guide.

Related: How to avoid and fix bugs and glitches in Recon by Fire in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

How to avoid getting stuck in an elevator in Countdown

There are many bugs in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, some of which are more forgivable than others. This is one of the less forgivable ones because it happens when you do something very reasonable that the developers really ought to have anticipated. You fall down an elevator shaft, losing your weapon on the way down, then you dive head first onto the terrorist mastermind who’s just launched a missile attack on the heart of the free world. Next, you knock the missile controls out of his hands, pick them up, and run away. When you realize you’re running, unarmed, into the path of more terrorists, and that you need a safe place to hide, your first thought is to run into the elevator. For some reason, Infinity Ward didn’t expect you to do this, and that’s why you get stuck.

In other words, when you’ve got the missile controls and need a safe place to stop the missile from hitting D.C., don’t run back into the elevator. Instead, turn left out of the elevator, and keep going around the building until you’re well out of range of the enemy flashlights and have found a dark place to hide.

How to fix the “stuck in an elevator” bug

If you go to your last checkpoint, then you might be lucky and respawn outside the elevator, but you probably already tried that. Unfortunately, the only fix is to restart the mission and avoid returning to the elevator this time. You might also consider reporting the bug to Infinity Ward so that it gets fixed for the players that come after you.