— Cole, briefing Campo and Blackburn
Night Shift is the ninth mission in the singleplayer campaign of Battlefield 3. Misfit 1-3 and 1-4 embark on a mission to bring down Faruk Al-Bashir and topple the PLR in Iran.
Synopsis[]
Clearing the way for the Marines[]
The mission starts out with Henry Blackburn and Steve Campo on a building overlooking the landing zone of Cole's assault unit, Misfit 1-4. The player is ordered to shoot out the streetlights illuminating the LZ, allowing an V-22 Osprey to offload 1-4. Misfit 3-1 engages a PLR lookout before Cole and the squad move to OP Bravo.
Stealth priority[]
Once Cole relocates, Blackburn and Campo rappel down to the street level and make their way to RV Bravo. During this section, the player must avoid being seen by PLR foot and vehicle patrols, as it is required for the player to sneak through checkpoints undetected. Blackburn and Campo shoot an enemy sentry while making their way through back streets, before reaching the rooftop designated RV Bravo. They are tasked with covering Cole's team as they cross a street, taking out a PLR patrol in their path. Once across, Misfit 1-3 moves on again. As before, they must avoid discovery by the PLR, using an overpass to circumvent an enemy truck convoy. While moving through an apartment building, a struggle ensues with a guard who alerts nearby soldiers, forcing the player to flee into a sewer channel opened up by the earthquake. On street level, a short gun battle erupts before Cole prompts the team to hasten to the mall observation post.
Al-Bashir's location[]
Cutting through an adjacent building, 1-3 finds the place where Jonathan Miller was executed. Exiting the building, the team links up with Cole and 1-4 outside the mall. The team is instructed that Al-Bashir is needed alive, and that the mall will be used as a fallback position if "things go sideways". Blackburn and Campo take up positions in a destroyed apartment, positioned to assist with Misfit 1-4's assault on Al-Bashir's presumed location. Cole makes the breach, and PLR forces begin pouring into the area. It takes several enemy waves as the location is systemically searched, during which time Blackburn eliminates several priority targets such as RPG gunners and a technical. While fending off the PLR, Al-Bashir tries to escape in a vehicle. Blackburn sprints across rooftops to intercept him at an intersection, raking the car with bullets and causing it to crash. Al-Bashir is thrown from the vehicle and critically injured. Campo is forced to carry him as he and Blackburn conduct a fighting retreat back to the mall.
Defending Campo and the HVT[]
On the second floor of the mall, Blackburn and Campo fight a defensive battle with the oncoming PLR forces while awaiting extraction with the insensible Al-Bashir. Blackburn has Claymore mines to assist in this task. As PLR forces break away from combat with 1-4 and begin filtering in through the second and third floor entrances, Campo relocates the Al-Bashir to another storefront. After some time, Razorback 2-2 lands in the plaza outside the mall. Campo carries Al-Bashir to the craft while the rest of the Marines are ordered to hold back the PLR for a little while longer. Blackburn and Cole's team finally extract on board the V-22 Osprey, but Al-Bashir is found to be on the verge of death despite medical aid. After rambling about Solomon and how he betrayed Al-Bashir to obtain the portable nuclear devices, and alluding to the time and method of transport used in his plan to detonate them, he dies. Campo and Blackburn are left only with his cellular phone for intel on Solomon's plot.
Related Achievements and Trophies[]
The following achievements/trophies can be completed on this mission.
Walkthrough[]
Trivia[]
- During part of the mission, Cole states that he does not want a "Bin Laden style resolution", which is a reference to how the US Navy killed Osama bin Laden during a kill/capture mission.
- If you shoot out all the lights with only 4 bullets of your sniper rifle, you can earn the Army of Darkness Achievement/Trophy.
- There is also another Achievement/Trophy, called Twofor, which is obtained by shooting two enemies with one bullet. It is very easy to get as there is a scripted event where two enemies are standing next to each other side-by-side, a perfect opportunity in other words.
- When you and Campo are in the room where Miller got executed, you can see his dinosaur toy on the floor near the chair. Campo will examine it, then leave it behind.
- There is one point in the game where you have to knife a guard. If you come too close to him or wait too long, you randomly die. Approaching the guard while crouch-walking will also cause a failure, as the Quick Time Event is only scripted for a basic knife attack.
- Despite the objective instructing the player to flee, it is possible to stay in the building and kill the incoming PLR forces.
- At the mall, you can see in some stores that there are boxes on sale packaged with the Frostbite 2.0 logo.
- Somehow at the start of the mission when the two soldiers are on the rooftop, if the player goes forward to the wall and uses the knife in front, sound effects and sprites initiate as if it was an invisible wall. Also, this invisible wall can be found when on the rooftop area on the second mission.
- Dogs can be heard barking several times during the mission, such as when fleeing from the PLR after the knife struggle with the guard or after leaving the sewer, creating the illusion the PLR have attack dogs. However, none are seen during the mission.
- If you use your thermal scope while inside the mall, you can see several paintings and bags light up with heat signatures. This is probably just a visual glitch.
- The MP7 in this level has a combination of attachments that is impossible to get in multiplayer, as the Suppressor and Extended Magazines cannot be mounted at the same time.
- If you turn back after the knife animation and run the stairs of the building back down there are two PLR that immediately start shooting you and cannot be killed.
- There is a bug that may occur at the door directly before coming upon Cole and his team at the mall. When Campo opens the door, the next part of the mission may not load correctly, and the land seems unrendered, and Campo will sprint straight on, with his body diagonal but still moving in a straight line from the door. He runs toward the end of the map, never stopping. Reloading the last checkpoint will not fix this, forcing the player to restart the mission (confirmed on PS3).
- Another bug is that shooting Al-Bashir's vehicle will force it to crash, but will still display the message that he escaped and results in a mission fail. This bug also needs a mission restart to be fixed.
- There is a rare bug that may occurs if Campo is killed. After reloading the checkpoint, the player won't see Campo and the HVT though his voice can still be heard. This results in the objective not updating with the only possible fix being to restart the mission.
- There is a typo in on of the objectives, where it says, "Meet up with Misfit 4-1" rather than Misfit 1-4.
- It is possible to get in the technical that appears in this mission. While providing overwatch for the Marines clearing the apartment complex, run to the right of the building, but not past the stairs. If the player jumps on the railing and walks to the corner of a shed that is connected to the railing, they should quickly jump onto the top of the shed and down onto the ground. If executed correctly, the player should be able to run to the other side of the building and the technical will be waiting. If you choose to do this after you get into overwatch position, you can still enter the vehicle but the PLR will be driving and gunning. It is, however, possible to use the machine gun on the back of the technical to kill the driver and gunner.
- This is the only mission that includes Misfit 1-3 but not Montes.
- In the game files this level is named SP_Sniper.
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