American video game publisher Activision said Friday that it was removing controversial footage from its newly released “Call of Duty” game after an outcry in South Korea over the inclusion of real-life footage from a deadly 2022 Halloween crowd crush in Seoul.Last week’s global release of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4” came days before the Oct.
29 anniversary of the disaster in the South Korean capital’s nightlife district of Itaewon, where a crowd of tens of thousands of partygoers surged beyond control in a narrow alley, causing nearly 160 deaths.The game, which takes place amid a fictional North Korean invasion of the South, features about 10 seconds of heavily edited footage of the tragedy to illustrate what the aftermath of a Pyongyang attack might look like, though it does not refer to the Itaewon crowd crush directly.Groups representing families of the crowd crush victims had demanded that the footage be removed, saying it was appalling that the game had directly reproduced actual scenes of people performing CPR “while victims lay on the cold streets amid chaos and desperation.”Police reveal chilling new details about Seoul stampede01:02“If the game developer has even the slightest sense of respect and empathy for the victims of the Itaewon disaster, it should promptly take corrective action,” the Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Association and Itaewon Disaster Citizens’ Countermeasures Committee said in a joint statement Friday.The California-based game publisher, Activision, apologized in a statement and said the footage would be completely removed through a game update scheduled for release Nov.12.“This game is a fictional work created to provide a realistic and immersive experience,” the company said, according to the South Korean public broadcaster MBC.
“In using actual news footage in the game, we never intended to evoke any tragic incident, including the Itaewon disaster, or to trivialize the suffering associated wit...