Store Page
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
All Discussions Screenshots Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Store Page
Call of Duty: Black Ops II > Guides > MisterTenBel0w's Guides
553 ratings
(SPOILERS) How To Get The BEST ENDING Possible!
By MisterTenBel0w
In this guide, I will be showing you how to get the best ending on Black Ops II.
29
7
4
24
6
4
2
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
Created by
MisterTenBel0w
Offline
Category: Achievements, Characters, Maps or Levels, Secrets, Story or Lore, Walkthroughs
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
11 Mar, 2017 @ 5:55am
24 Mar, 2023 @ 11:05am
24,141 Unique Visitors
1,061 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
With this ending, you will: 
ALL STRIKE FORCE MISSIONS MUST BE COMPLETED! 
Chapter 1: Pyrrhic Victory 
Chapter 2: Celerium 
Chapter 3: Old Wounds 
Chapter 4: Time And Fate 
Chapter 5: Fallen Angel 
Chapter 6: Karma 
Chapter 7: Suffer With Me 
Chapter 8: Achilles Veil 
Chapter 9: Odysseus 
Chapter 10: Cordis Die 
Chapter 11: Judgment Day 
Thank you! 
Comments
With this ending, you will:
Save Alex Mason and Woods, and stop Menendez's Invasion to save the world!
ALL STRIKE FORCE MISSIONS MUST BE COMPLETED!
This is very important if you want to achieve the best ending, complete any Strike Force Mission when given the chance!
Chapter 1: Pyrrhic Victory
You play and beat this chapter normally.
Trivia: Black Ops II features the choices you can make in the franchise for the first time.
Chapter 2: Celerium
You play and beat this chapter normally.
In-Chapter Easter Egg: Thor's hammer can be found near the start of the chapter inside a small dark cave standing upright on a rock, and there's a way to interact with it (Video below).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2q9a_gRPlI
Chapter 3: Old Wounds
After you hold off the Russian attack at the end of the chapter, you will start interrogating Kravchenko, and Mason will be very tempted to kill him. You will need to resist by spamming the use key in order to learn about the mole in the CIA. (This part is crucial for doing the next step in the following chapter 'Time And Fate'.
In-Chapter Easter Egg: In the beginning after the initial Soviet attack, you will plant a cratering charge to blow up the entrance of the ruins, if you go prone and take a closer look at the charge, you will see the following text "FOR MAKING BIG HOLES ONLY, NOT FOR AHOLES, DONT BE AN AHOLE WITH EXPLOSIVES, COVER YOU AND YOUR BUDDY'S EAR"
Chapter 4: Time And Fate
In Time And Fate, after entering the cocaine bunker, you will have to find the intel file which contains information about the CIA Mole, search quickly or the file will burn.
Trivia:. Black Ops II is the first Call Of Duty to feature custom loadouts for the campaign.
Chapter 5: Fallen Angel
Throughout Fallen Angel, you will have to record Raul Menendez, DO NOT LOOK AWAY, you need to learn as much information as possible! (3 Intel Recordings must be acquired).
In-Chapter Trivia: In the driving sequence, if you accidentally burn Harper's face, it will only change certain dialogue in the following mission, while the ending will remain unaffected.
Chapter 6: Karma
At the end of Karma, you have to kill DeFalco before he escapes with Karma. If you fail at doing so, you will trigger a new Strike Force mission called 'Second Chance', in which you get the second chance to save Karma. Saving her is very important.
Trivia: In the main menu, the background will often change, depending on how far along the player has progressed in the story.
Chapter 7: Suffer With Me
Towards the end of this chapter, you will get to a rooftop with Noriega, and will be ordered by Hudson to kill Nexus target who's confirmed to be Menendez, it's not him, It's Mason, you will need to shoot him in the leg, when you do, Hudson will again order you to shoot him in the head, don't, shoot his leg again, and the next cutscene will trigger.
Trivia: The character Manuel Noriega is actually a real person. In fact in July of 2014, he sued Activision for the false portrayal and use of him in the game.
Chapter 8: Achilles Veil
Once you meet with Menendez at the Citadel, he will shoot down Harper's VTOL and capture him. You're then ordered to execute him, killing Harper is necessary, otherwise Farid's cover will be blown.
Easter Egg: Once you finish the campaign, there is a cutscene of the metal band Avenged Sevenfold appearing in the game with the song "Carry On".
Chapter 9: Odysseus
The only thing you need to do here is to shoot Admiral Briggs in the leg, after that, he survives. With Karma on his side and the SDC, the Obama will be successfully protected from Menendez's attack.
Trivia/Reference: In the Avenged Sevenfold easter egg cutscene, you can see aged Alex Mason and Viktor Reznov dancing. In the next cut Reznov is gone and Mason is looking around confused. This is a reference to Black Ops I, in which Mason saw Reznov in his mind throughout the game, thinking he was actually there.
Chapter 10: Cordis Die
You play and beat this chapter normally.
Trivia: There is an actual Youtube channel called cordisdie with 1 video uploaded (4 months before the release of the game) titled "A New World", which connects to the cutscenes we've seen in the game of Menendez's propaganda video. In the campaign it's titled "A Newer World".
Chapter 11: Judgment Day
And finally when you get to decide Menendez's fate at the end of the final chapter, you will ultimately have to capture him.
Easter Egg: You can see a very young Jimmy Kimmel at the end of the game (only if you kept Menendez alive). He is seen on the tv during the jail cell scene.
Thank you!
Well, there you have it! The best ending for Black Ops II.
Thanks a lot if you read my entire guide, it took me hours to make!
Be sure to leave a rating and comment down below your opinion.
If I made a mistake somewhere be sure to correct me by leaving a comment!
Thank you again!
162 Comments
< >
MisterTenBel0w  [author] 21 Jul @ 10:29am 
@lotuspulse, great idea, will add that soon
TheMEA 21 Jul @ 4:46am 
the best ending is the one where woods finds his smokes
lotuspulse 17 Jul @ 5:04pm 
This is a great guide. Maybe you could update it to say the canon choices are now to shoot Mason and shoot Menendez, per the Bo6 timeline
cluxx 7 Jul @ 1:32pm 
You'll still get the best ending if you save her in the strike force mission.
cluxx 7 Jul @ 1:31pm 
You have to save her in the strike force mission if you failed to save her the first time.
ClassicSaucer 7 Jul @ 1:55am 
do you need to do the strike force mission on karma in order to get the best ending?
gamer nerd 30 Jun @ 3:12pm 
this ACTUALLY means something to me, as menendez was the bad guy i hated the MOST because he got you to kill mason, and do so much shit, and no matter what you did, shit just got worse, but THIS time, it went well! and i can throw that part of me away. i turned 30 years the 29th june, and was pretty bummed, but this helped me, and made me find some peace i didn't know i needed. :) thank you forever. may your life always "get back up", no matter how bad it gets! :)
Combo Breaker 4 May @ 5:21pm 
@chev you have to do the strike missions so that China will come to your aid and stop the drones from bombing the USS Obama. Without them intervening, Karma and everyone on board will die and they can't stop the cyber attacks later. The CIA intel is necessary for providing an actual reason for Woods not to trust the prisoner swap and ignore Hudson, with Kravchenkos quote running through his head.
chev 28 Feb @ 5:08am 
After reading the comments on this guide, the ending you should get after all the steps is mason reunites with david and woods, karma stops the cyber attack, menendez rots in jail (he doesn't break out because of karma stoping the cyber attack) and since he doesn't die riots in the USA don't happen. Yet still i don't see why this ending cant be achieved by sparing mason, saving karma. killing harper, sparing menendez. no need for strike missions or cia intel OR even sparing briggs. doing strike missions and sparing briggs is only for player and lore enrichment it seems. and cia intel is a lore reason why NOT to shoot mason when its thought to be menendez.
GenericGeorge 9 Feb @ 9:37am 
@GOLD3N 4RM I followed this guide to the letter and all are alive. If you kill mason during the mission where you aim at him as woods with a sniper rather than graze him that brings the ending you are talking about.