MW4 equipment list: Items and uses

Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4 equipment: Ascender, Flare, Parachute, Sledgehammer, Karambit Knife, Armor Plates and Night Vision Goggles, and what each does.

10/16/2026MW4 Wiki TeamLast updated: 10/23/20267min read

FAQ

What equipment is in Modern Warfare 4?

The documented Modern Warfare 4 equipment list is Ascender, Flare, Parachute, Sledgehammer, Karambit Knife, Armor Plates and Night Vision Goggles. Gunsmith, weapon levels and the customization items are covered on separate pages.

What does the Ascender do in Call of Duty?

The Ascender lets the player ascend or traverse across rope to reach higher or lower altitudes. It appears in Modern Warfare 4 and in most modern-era titles, and in Warzone it can be found in various highrise buildings.

Is the Sledgehammer a melee weapon in Modern Warfare 4?

Yes. The Sledgehammer is a melee weapon that makes a brief appearance in Modern Warfare 4. It was introduced in Call of Duty: WWII as a Halloween event item, with variants including Hammerhead, Skeleton Key II, Hard-Hitter and the base Sledgehammer.

Modern Warfare 4 carries seven documented equipment items. Each does something specific that no other item does, which is what makes the equipment list short and worth memorising.

Two masked UCTF soldiers in black tactical gear advance down concrete steps with rifles ready. — Equipment loadout in the field Screenshot © Activision / Infinity Ward, via Steam. Used for editorial commentary; not an endorsement.

A soldier in scuffed digital camouflage and body armor sits with head bowed and a rifle across their chest inside a dark, teal-lit military transport. — Flares, parachutes and the gear that gets you there Screenshot © Activision / Infinity Ward, via Steam. Used for editorial commentary; not an endorsement.

The equipment list

Item	Type	What it does	MW4 status
Ascender	Traversal	Ascend or traverse across rope	Confirmed
Flare	Utility	Light a dark area, signal, mark targets	Confirmed
Parachute	Tactical	Drop in and descend	Confirmed
Sledgehammer	Melee	Breaching and melee	Confirmed (brief appearance)
Karambit Knife	Melee	Fast melee	Confirmed (brief appearance)
Armor Plates	Utility	Extra health	Confirmed
Night Vision Goggles	Optic	See in little to no light	Confirmed

Ascender

The Ascender allows the player to ascend or traverse across rope to get to higher or lower altitudes. It has been in the series since Call of Duty: Ghosts and appears in Black Ops 4, Mobile, Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare II, Warzone 2.0, Modern Warfare III, Warzone Mobile, Black Ops 6, Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

Where it shows up:

Game	Where
Ghosts	The Ghosts team uses it in the campaign level “Atlas Falls”
Black Ops 4	A variant called the Zipline Handle can be obtained in the Zombies map Tag der Toten
Mobile	Zipline Handle usable in Battle Royale, Undead Siege, Ground War, Chase and DMZ: Recon
Warzone	Found in various highrise buildings
Black Ops Cold War	Usable in Combined Arms Multiplayer, and in the Zombies maps Mauer der Toten and Forsaken
Modern Warfare II	Used in the campaign
Modern Warfare 4	Confirmed

The “highrise buildings” note matters for MW4 specifically: on large-scale maps with verticality, the Ascender is a mobility tool that shortens a rotation, not a novelty.

Flare

The Flare is the series’ oldest utility item and appears in nearly every Call of Duty, including Modern Warfare 4.

What a flare does has changed very little across two decades:

Game	Use
Call of Duty 3	“The Crossroads” — provides light in a darkened, collapsed building. “The Mace” — green flares signal the advancing Canadian Army. “Chambois” — flares mark targets for airstrikes
Call of Duty 4	Seen in campaign; very blinding to players wearing Night Vision Goggles
Modern Warfare / MW2 / MW3 and onward	Campaign, multiplayer and the standard lighting tool for dark interiors

The NVG interaction is the detail worth knowing: a flare that would help you in a pitch-black building will blind you if you have night vision equipped. That is a genuine trade-off, not a bug — flares for visibility, night vision for depth perception, and you cannot have both at full effect at once.

In MW4 this matters most in DMZ, where running dark with a flare to find loot is a real tactic, and where the SAS night raids in Mumbai set up low-light encounters.

Parachute

The Parachute is tactical equipment present in the original Call of Duty and every major entry since, including Modern Warfare 4.

Its use across the series:

Game	Where
Call of Duty	“Pathfinder” — Martin begins the level parachuting into a field in Normandy; later, Heath is found dead hanging in a tree by his parachute
United Offensive	“Bomber” — Doyle is pulled from a shot-down plane; in “Train Bridge” he starts the level stuck in a tree
Call of Duty 4	“Ultimatum” — Soap and the rest of Charlie Six begin the level parachuting
Black Ops III and onward	Standard deployment across campaign and multiplayer
Warzone, MWII, MWIII, BO6, BO7	Present
Modern Warfare 4	Confirmed

The parachute is also an emblem tier in the modern era — the Parachute emblem appears in the MW4 customization list, and the emblem shares its name with the equipment because the symbol is drawn from it.

Sledgehammer

The Sledgehammer is a melee weapon introduced in Call of Duty: WWII as part of the Halloween Scream event, and it has appeared in Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard, Modern Warfare III, Mobile, with brief appearances in Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare II and Modern Warfare 4.

In Modern Warfare, the Sledgehammer is used by some NPCs for breaching doors — it was set dressing before it was a weapon.

The WWII variants show how the item has been monetised since:

Variant	Rarity	Perk
Hammerhead	Epic	10% bonus Soldier XP
Skeleton Key II	Heroic	15% bonus Soldier XP
Hard-Hitter	Epic	10% bonus Soldier XP
Sledgehammer	Rare	10% bonus Soldier XP — exclusively a Quartermaster Contract reward

Karambit Knife

The Karambit Knife is a melee weapon in Black Ops, Modern Warfare Remastered, Mobile and Modern Warfare III, with brief appearances in Black Ops II, Modern Warfare, Vanguard, Black Ops 6, Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

Black Ops — used in “Executive Order” to kill a Russian soldier instantly, allowing Mason and Woods to take their uniforms and infiltrate the launch site.
Black Ops II — its only appearance is Woods using it to torture Kravchenko in “Old Wounds”.
Modern Warfare Remastered — available as a standalone melee weapon, referred to as the Diabolical, added with the May 2, 2017 update.
Black Ops 4 — available as a sidearm to the Ballistic Knife.

The “brief appearance” pattern for both melee weapons in MW4 is worth flagging: if you are looking for a melee slot in your MW4 loadout, the confirmed list is thin, and this legacy equipment list must be distinguished from the dedicated melee weapon named in the launch roster.

The other two

Armor Plates grant an extra 150 health and are covered in full on the equipment and mechanics page — including the 8-plate satchel cap and the Buy Station prices, because in Warzone 2.0 the armor economy is a mechanic in its own right.

Night Vision Goggles — the AN/PVS-7B — are covered on the same page, along with the flare blindness interaction described above.

What is not confirmed

MW4’s full equipment and tactical-item roster is not published. The list above is what is confirmed for MW4; the series carries more equipment than this, and additional items will appear through the beta and launch period.

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