CoD Modern Warfare: Curse of Khandor Hideout

It was a Saturday and my friend and I should play xbox. We had just done the new update on call of duty: Modern warfare and both of us were excited to play the new map – Khandor Hideout.

“Let’s make a custom game and play against bots.” I suggested, to save us having to wait for the map to come up in rotation.

“Ok.” Said my friends.

We created a lobby and were having a great time on this new map when the update finally downloaded. We were on a team and were eagerly taking out bots left and right. Even though the bots were set on hard mode, we were satisfyingly defeating them easily, and I was just one kill off my latest killstreak, and advanced UAV. I ran into the warehouse into the room with the big machine in, and as I was checking the doors, something shot me in the face. I died, and lost my killstreak.

“What?!” I cried in rage.

“What happened?” My friends asked.

“Somebody killed me, where were they?” I cursed.

“Watch the killcam.” My friends suggested helpfully.

I did watch the kill cam, and saw that I had been shot by a bot using an M4 assault rifle. What was weird was where the bot had been when he killed me. He had been standing in a little doorway in the side of the room that I hadn’t even noticed before. It was on the left side of the room.

“Wow I didn’t even notice that doorway before.” I laughed. Then I noticed something a little strange. It was the name on the bot’s killcame – it was one I didn’t recognize. It said “TheCursed1”. That was very strange, as I didn’t even know that could happen as usually the bots just have normal human names like real life. I quickly checked the scoreboard, but I didn’t see “TheCursed1” anywhere. Wow that’s weird, I thought. I figured it must be a killcam glitch however to do with new map, and that one of the other bots must have killed me.

We continued playing the game and having fun, and pretty soon after we reached the score limit kicking the bot’s asses. My friends logged off, but I wanted to explore the new map a little more, so I created a private match with just me and no bots or enemies. I loaded into the map, and had a fun time running around and locating all the spots where I could camp and quickscope.

I ran into the warehouse, and I was jumped up in shock as I died again. I had been shot from the same spot as before.

“What the heck?” I yelled. I watched the kill-cam in shock. I was it was TheCursed1 again that had killed me … but there wasn’t even supposed to be bots in the match.

I quickly ran back to the doorway where I had been killed. It was empty. I tried to step into the doorway but found myself blocked by an invisible wall. As much as I tried to run into the doorway I couldn’t get through. There was nothing visible blocking me, and I could see just a little into the corridor beyond. It just seemed like an ordinary corridor. Quickly I ran outside to the front of the building – there was a pair of blue doors that looked like where the corridor would emerge. They were visibly the type of doors that you should be able to interact with – in this game, doors that you couldn’t interact with looked different. But when I ran up to the doors, I didn’t get a prompt, and I couldn’t open the doors whatsoever. Even when I sprinted into them, they didn’t burst open like an interactable door usually would.

“Wow this is a weird glitch!” I though. I ran back around into the warehouse to look at the corridor from the other side again. I could see inside. Just as I was standing there, I heard something weird. It was a gun clicking like it was being reloaded. I could hear small movements coming from inside the corridor, like there was another player in there.

Thinking quickly, I tossed my tactical grenade into the corridor. It was a snapshot grenade. That was able to pass through the invisible wall, and clattered down the corridor and exploded, providing a view of the section of corridor that was just out of view through the wall. Sure enough, there was another soldier down there. His outline glowed orange in the snapshot grenade’s snapshot. But there wasn’t supposed to be any other players in the lobby – and how did he get inside this corridor that was impossible to access?

In frustration, I threw a frag grenade down the corridor. It exploded, and sure enough I got a hit marker, and an XP signal telling me I had got a kill. In the kill feed, it came up that I had killed TheCursed1. I laughed in relief, thinking I had just got some weird bot by mistake, and they clearly weren’t a hacker. Just then, another message came up on my screen. In the game, new camo or weapon unlocks appear on the screen during the match when they’re achieved, and this was very similar – but instead it said “New map unlock”, and above it showed a picture of Khandor Hideout at night with a caption saying Khandor Hideout (Night). There were many night modes of other maps, but not one for Khandor Hideout that I knew of. It must have been some secret challenge I had achieved by killing that hidden player!

Quickly, I pulled out google to see if anyone else had found this Easter Egg yet. There were loads of people talking about the mysterious door with the invisible wall and the strange corridor beyond it, but nobody had tried what I had it looked like. I was so excited to be the first!

I quit the lobby and started a new lobby, and sure enough when I checked the map list, I could selected “Khandor Hideout (Night)”.

“Wow cool!” I thought, and waited for the map to load. We drove into the map on the truck and I climbed out in the main street. It was dark, even more than most night maps, as there weren’t even streetlights on, only a few building lights and my night-vision goggles. I ran down the main street, checking out the new map. I was very excited to be possibly the first person to play on it. Then I saw something that made my blood run cold, and all my excitement drain away. The blue doors on the outside of the warehouse were open slightly. I went over to them. It was impossible to see what was beyond them, with only blackness showing up in my night-vision goggles. But this time, a prompt for opening the door showed up. With some apprehension, I pressed it, and the door creaked open. I stepped inside. The corridor inside was nearly pitch black, even in the night-vision goggles.

Suddenly, I got a beep, like in the night-infected mode, and the icon on the bottom of the screen flashed red to indicate I was out of batteries on my night-vision goggles. Even though I knew it was just a game, I still cried out in instinctive dismay. The night-vision goggles went dead, and I turned back round to see the sliver of light from the street disappearing as the door slammed shut behind me.

It was pitch black. The only things on screen were the HUD elements. I couldn’t even tell what direction I was facing. I didn’t move for a second, sitting in silence. My heart jumped as I heard it – footsteps racing towards me.

Instinctively I pressed the left bumper, and my player tossed the Molotov cocktail I had equipped. It smashed on the floor, and for a fraction of a second, I saw something in the light of the flames. It was a man – or something like one. It didn’t look like any model from the game – it was out of place, crude, like it was a model from a much older game. The sharp polygons made it looks like almost something from a PS1 game. I only saw it for a few frames, before it reached my player – and the screen went red with a horrible crunch. I was dead.

The killcam was pitch black, but I could hear that things weird fast footsteps. I pressed X to respawn, but the game froze. After ten seconds, I was booted back to the title screen – and I saw a message:

“Your data is corrupt and didn’t download properly. You must reset your ranks and unlocks to continue.”

I cursed as I had a lot of gold camos, and sure enough when I pressed OK my character had been totally reset. When I checked the map list, Khandor hideout had gone. I threw the controller down in frustration, and turned off the xbox.

In frustration, I went to the internet, to see if anyone else had experienced the bizarre Easter egg. I hunted down all I could to do with Khandor hideout and the details behind the creepy corridor. There were very few details about the weird location, and even less to do with anyone finding another player in there, or why the corridor might have been left like that.

I was almost ready to give up when I found a blogpost from the official Infinity Ward site. It was from before the games release, and even though it was before Khandor hideout had been released, it must’ve been in development still. It was all about a research trip the level designers had took to Pakistan to help them capture the feel of the middle-eastern locations. There were lots of photos.  One of them was of a street, and I recognized it instantly. Even though it was slightly different in real life, it was clearly the warehouse from Khandor hideout. I could even see the blue doors.

The blog post gave the Pakistani street name, and I put it into google street view. Sure enough, I found myself exploring the real-life Khandor Hideout. The doors were there. I wondered what had made the developers choose this street in particular, as it looked like almost any other ordinary middle eastern street. I googled the street name – there was only one result.

It was a news article from last year, in the Pakistani language. I put it through google translate, and found out it was about a murder. Late at night, a soldier on patrol had been lured into a warehouse to investigate gunshots and had his neck snapped. The warehouse from Khandor hideout. Through those very same blue doors I had stepped through, virtually. The crime had been linked to an obscure secret sect that were violent in the area, and were viewed by other Muslims as cursed.

I don’t know what linked the map with that horrifying killing, whether it was some kind of deliverate twisted reference to the secret real life history of Khandor hideout by the devs, or whether it was something more. I do know that Infinity Ward quickly addressed the issue. The first patch placed big boxes in the doorway so it was impossible to see into the corridor – or impossible for anything to shoot out from it. A long time later, in the latest patch, they’ve stopped whatever the problem was in that inaccessible corridor. The doors now open like any others in the game, and the corridor doesn’t lead anywhere but that doorway inside the warehouse, and its fully accessible. But as much as I search for videos of Khandor Hideout before the patch, I still haven’t been able to find anyone who’s been there at night.