Invasion

"City in a desert. Classic street to street firefights."

— Map description

Invasion is a medium sized multiplayer map featured in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It has street-to-street firefights, which works best for both long-range and short-range combat. The opposing teams are the U.S. Army Rangers and the OpFor.

Overview

Invasion is similar to the map Crash in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, featuring many elevated positions, close range fighting, and cover. Invasion is actually based off the area that Pelayo crashes in "Shock and Awe" in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. On the eastern side of the map, the street is exactly the same as the one that Jackson walked down to retrieve Pelayo from the helicopter.

Invasion is an excellent map for car bombing other players, as C4 can be hidden under the many Humvees on the bridge and in the city. There are a total of nine Humvees but only seven can be blown up as the two near the left side of the base are invincible. On Search and Destroy game modes players can immediately shoot at the enemy spawn with grenade launchers. This is especially devastating on hardcore.

Many streets and building provide excellent cover and combat, for as players can flank other players with several advantage points, along with blown out sections of buildings which is also good for sniping, or for long-range firefights. Although, assault rifles and submachine guns has good advantages for close-quarter battles, snipers could be hiding behind cover, walls, vehicles, and be hiding in grass, which would have a high chance of killing the players. At times, snipers are the best advantages for killing players, and are recommended at most times.

Invasion was also a planned multiplayer map in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Variety map pack. All that is known to prove its existence in Call of Duty 4 are two files called "loadscreen_mp_invasion.iwi" and "compass_map_mp_invasion.iwi" present in the game's source files.

Trivia

• There is a shop full of dummies used in "F.N.G." from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
• The player can find posters of Khaled Al-Asad in some of the streets.
• Similar to the map Afghan, the player is able to jump to the machine gun position on the Humvee.
• The cab seen at the beginning spawn point of the OpFor has the initials "IW", another one of Infinity Ward's hidden references.
• In most streets, newspaper articles with a picture of the nuclear bomb that killed Jackson and his squad in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare can be found although it is actually a picture of the Ivy-Mike explosion.
• Some portions of the map are taken from the level "Shock and Awe" from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
• In the room that appears to be a little restaurant with bar stools and a check out counter, there is a small dropped ceiling a player can get to. It is a formidable hiding spot for unsuspecting enemies. Simply jump up on the counter near the register, continue to jump and then crouch and the player will make their way on top. It's difficult for players to see anyone in that spot unless they are really looking.
• The building directly ahead from the gas station has a large glass window that the player can break. However the blinds prevent the player from going through easily.
• There is a green jeep on one of the streets with blood over the steering wheel and dashboard, this could be a reference to the mission "The Enemy of My Enemy", or the map designers at Infinity Ward decided to use the same jeep model as the one with Rook's splattered gray matter on the dashboard. There are also several other green jeeps with the same blood splatter near the gas station.
• It is possible to get out the map using super speed hack. The player needs to run at a carpet and land on top of the tallest building. He then simply jumps off using commando pro. It is also possible to get on a sky-walk.
• A very effective sniping spot is by the Humvees right of the Ranger spawn on the bridge.
• If the player looks over the bridge, he/she will see 3 destroyed tanks. These tanks appear to be from the single-player mission Team Player.
• Under the map on spectate there is a destroyed Russian jeep from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare just across the bridge along with some tanks.
• The large building in the northwest corner could be a reference to the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare map, Showdown.
• If the player goes toward the tanks that are across the river in spectator, one can see a large mosque outside of the map, but it's not solid.
• The Taxis at the OpFor spawn have advertisements for a hamburger called the "Tuesday Special."
• It is impossible to destroy the white van, even with C4.
• Under one of the tanks is a car door although there is no car it could have came from. It could be that a tank ran over the car door and was destroyed on top of it.
• Invasion and Favela were both cut from the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack.
• Standing still anywhere on the map, playing in either a private match or solo, the player can hear someone speaking in the background. It seems to be mostly gibberish.
• The rent-a-Johns in the army outpost have the name "Porter potty". The number on them is 1-800-555-DUMP.
• The M1 Abrams tank in the middle of the map seems to have no way to actually drive to where it is positioned, as all of the access routes are blocked.
• In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the stop signs were going to be written in Russian, but in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the stop signs are written in Arabic and English.