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The safest way to clear Following Orders on Hardened or Veteran is to treat the first house as an evidence puzzle, use the nonviolent dialogue route, and slow down at the second house’s bedroom doorway. Search every room before questioning anyone, collect all four notes and four contraband items, and stay ready for the knife-counter prompt. That approach protects civilians, preserves achievement progress, and keeps the defector alive.
Following Orders is mission 3 of Modern Warfare 4. You play a North Korean soldier searching village homes for a defector during a regime transition, then regroup with Ko and Ri to extract that person. The mission is deliberately search-heavy rather than a continuous firefight, so careful positioning and observation matter more than a particular rifle or attachment.
What the mission requires
Following Orders moves through three village houses. Your squad searches rooms, gathers evidence, questions families, and follows leads toward the defector. The first house establishes the investigation, the second introduces the mission’s most dangerous reaction check, and the third contains the final notes needed to complete the evidence trail.
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Preparation for Hardened and Veteran
Use an evidence-first mindset
- Enter each house, identify every accessible room, and search containers before initiating dialogue.
- Keep the squad and objective marker in view; the mission does not provide a verified advantage for a specific weapon, optic, perk, or sensitivity setting.
- When a prompt appears, read the action before pressing a button. The bedroom counter in the second house is a reaction check, not a normal melee exchange.
- Do not fire into rooms containing civilians. The safest route depends on preserving noncombatants while you build the case.
What is and is not established about loadouts
Available mission guides do not establish a mission-specific weapon ranking, recoil table, enemy-health value, or optimal attachment combination. Claims that one rifle, perk, or sensitivity setting is mandatory for Following Orders are therefore unsupported. The reliable advantage comes from positioning, complete searches, and prompt recognition.
First house: complete the sweep before questioning
At the entrance, turn into the first room on the right. Do not walk past the red toolbox or begin the family interview immediately. The first house contains six important interactions, and collecting them before the conversation unlocks the safer evidence-based dialogue.
Room on the right: toolbox and first note
- Open the cupboard in the first room.
- Use the red toolbox there. Enter 214, or shoot the lock if you prefer not to solve it manually.
- Read Note From Your Friend.
- Confiscate the heart medicine.
The code is not random. A kitchen recipe later in the same house provides the sequence, so opening the box by force does not change its contents or the evidence route.
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- Move to the bathroom and open the wall cabinet.
- Take the MP3 player.
- Search the cabinet in the adjoining room and confiscate the western novel.
These objects count toward the mission’s searchable evidence and contraband total. If you leave them behind, you can still progress, but you will not have a complete collection for the investigation achievement.
Kitchen: solve the recipe clue
- Open the left kitchen cupboard and read Baekseolgi-Tteok Recipe.
- Take the rations from the adjacent cabinet.
The recipe says, flour, then water, then raisins — skip the salt. The listed quantities are rice flour 2, water 1, and golden raisins 4; salt is omitted. That produces the toolbox sequence 2-1-4. You can therefore solve the lock from the written clue or shoot it open without losing the items inside.
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- Game is playable on October 23, 2026. Digital code will be available on September 25th to redeem.
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- MULTIPLAYER BUILT ON CONTROL — Engage in grounded, precise combat where fluid movement, player choice, and refined mechanics give you greater control in every firefight.
Question the family without violence
Once the rooms are clear, speak to the family and choose the evidence-based, nonviolent options. Do not strike, threaten, grab, or shoot civilians if you are pursuing No Harm Done. Rushing the interrogation before collecting the evidence can remove dialogue options needed for the civilian-safe outcome, so the order of operations matters: search first, question second.
Second house: survive the bedroom ambush
Follow Ko to the second house and keep your attention on the bedroom entrance. This house has no collectible notes or contraband according to the 2026 mission counts, but it contains the mission’s most important combat reaction.
How the Veteran knife check works
A knife ambush triggers at the bedroom doorway. CODEX’s mission guidance identifies a counter prompt there, and missing it kills the player on Veteran. Do not sprint through the threshold while looking at the floor or inventory. Approach at a pace that leaves the prompt visible, keep your camera centered on the doorway, and execute the displayed counter input immediately.
On Hardened, the same habit prevents unnecessary damage; on Veteran, it is a survival requirement. This is not a reason to change to a particular weapon. It is a reason to preserve visual focus and avoid skipping the doorway animation.
Third house: recover the final notes
The third house completes the evidence chain. Search the bedroom first, then work toward the kitchen floor hatch.
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- Open the bedroom cabinet and collect A Note From Your Neighbor.
- Find the key hanging on the wall hook.
- Use the key to open the kitchen floor hatch.
- Enter the cellar or crawlspace and collect Note From Mom.
- Bring the woman beneath the hatch out safely if you want the final note and the complete nonviolent investigation.
The person under the hatch is not an optional target. Treat the extraction as a civilian rescue: hold fire, follow the interaction prompts, and wait for the safe exit rather than forcing the encounter.
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CODMunity’s 2026 mission count lists four notes and four contraband items. The first house contains six searchable items, the second house contains none, and the third house contains the final two notes. The following table places each known interaction in its correct location without assigning an unsupported contraband label to an individual object.
| Location | Interaction | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| First room on the right | Red toolbox; Note From Your Friend; heart medicine | Provides evidence and one of the searchable confiscation items |
| Bathroom | MP3 player in wall cabinet | Counts toward the house sweep |
| Adjoining room | Western novel in cabinet | Counts toward the house sweep |
| Kitchen | Baekseolgi-Tteok Recipe; rations | Recipe reveals the toolbox sequence; rations complete the first-house search |
| Second house | No notes or contraband listed | Focus on the bedroom knife counter |
| Third-house bedroom | A Note From Your Neighbor | One of the final notes |
| Third-house cellar or crawlspace | Note From Mom | Final note; requires safely bringing out the woman under the hatch |
No Stone Unturned
No Stone Unturned requires confiscating all contraband and reading all notes. The complete route is therefore a full sweep of the first house, the safe interaction under the third-house hatch, and the collection of both third-house notes. Skipping the second house’s empty search does not cost a collectible, but skipping any first- or third-house interaction can.
No Harm Done
No Harm Done requires obtaining the defector’s location without harming civilians. Use the evidence-based conversation in the first house, avoid every violent action against residents, and bring the woman under the third-house hatch out safely. CODMunity and CODEX list the requirement, while CODMunity notes that its trophy-list information is datamined and not yet confirmed by Activision; treat the achievement condition as reported rather than officially guaranteed.
Reward and platform value
CODMunity lists a Double XP Token as the mission reward. AllThingsHow’s 2026 Xbox guide reports that No Harm Done and No Stone Unturned are Silver achievements worth 50 Gamerscore each. Gamerscore values apply to the Xbox listing; other platforms may present the same milestones differently.
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- Game is playable on October 23, 2026. Digital code will be available on September 25th to redeem.
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Stealth and combat decisions that hold up on higher difficulty
Search while controlling exposure
Enter a room from an angle that lets you see the next doorway, then finish containers before moving deeper. This prevents a collectible sweep from turning into a blind sprint between objectives. In the first house, the evidence route is designed around this order, so searching is not merely optional flavor.
Keep civilians out of your line of fire
Following Orders places families in the spaces you must investigate. Treat every unconfirmed silhouette as a civilian until the game clearly identifies a hostile. If a dialogue scene is active, lower the urge to interrupt it with melee or weapon inputs. Civilian safety is a condition of No Harm Done, not just a role-playing preference.
Stay with Ko and Ri during transitions
The mission’s regrouping beats are part of the route. Follow Ko to the second house and remain close enough to see his movement and the next objective marker. Wandering away can make you enter the bedroom at the wrong angle or miss the counter prompt. After the third-house search, use the squad’s movement as your cue to leave rather than abandoning the evidence area early.
Prioritize reaction readiness over aggressive damage
Because no verified weapon or enemy-health data is available for this mission, the dependable combat plan is procedural: maintain cover or doorway visibility, keep the objective in view, and react to prompts. A slower approach that preserves awareness is more valuable than an unverified claim that a particular attachment makes the mission easy.
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Choosing between a fast route and a complete route
| Route | What you do | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence-first full sweep | Collect every first- and third-house item, then use nonviolent dialogue and complete the safe hatch interaction | Slowest approach, but best for both achievements and the Veteran-safe sequence |
| Objective-speed run | Move directly between marked rooms and conversations, taking only items required to continue | Faster, but risks missing notes, contraband, and dialogue options |
| Coercive conversation | Question the family before gathering evidence or use threats and physical force | May advance the mission, but conflicts with the civilian-safe achievement and can remove safer options |
For a first playthrough on Hardened or Veteran, the full sweep is the sensible default. A speed route is useful only after you already know the house layouts and no longer need achievement progress.
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Troubleshooting common failures
The toolbox will not open
Return to the kitchen and read Baekseolgi-Tteok Recipe. The quantities are flour 2, water 1, raisins 4, with salt skipped, so the code is 214. If you prefer, shoot the red toolbox lock; the contents remain available.
The family dialogue lacks a safe option
You probably started the conversation before completing the first-house sweep. Leave the dialogue area only if the game permits it, search the right-hand room, bathroom, adjoining room, and kitchen, then return with the note and household objects collected.
The Veteran knife prompt was missed
Reload the latest checkpoint and approach the second-house bedroom doorway again. Keep the camera on the threshold, avoid sprinting through it, and press the displayed counter input as soon as the ambush begins. No weapon-based workaround for this failure is established.
The final note is missing
Check the third-house sequence: bedroom cabinet first, wall hook key second, kitchen floor hatch third. The woman beneath the hatch must be brought out safely for the final note to appear as part of the complete route.
A civilian was harmed accidentally
Reload a checkpoint from before the incident if you are pursuing No Harm Done. Continuing from a state in which a civilian was injured can preserve the mission’s progress while invalidating the achievement condition.
Recommended one-run sequence
- Enter the first house and sweep every room before speaking to the family.
- Open the red toolbox with 214 or shoot its lock; read Note From Your Friend and confiscate the heart medicine.
- Collect the bathroom MP3 player, adjoining-room western novel, kitchen recipe, and rations.
- Use the evidence-based, nonviolent dialogue route.
- Follow Ko to the second house and execute the bedroom knife counter on Veteran.
- In the third house, collect A Note From Your Neighbor, take the wall-hook key, open the kitchen hatch, and retrieve Note From Mom.
- Bring the woman under the hatch out safely, then regroup with the squad and continue the extraction.
This sequence covers the mission’s known evidence, civilian-safety requirements, and higher-difficulty reaction point without relying on unverified loadout advice.
Quick Recap
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