Things had been going rather well for Call of Duty this year. A top-tier entry, a solo campaign praised by press and players alike, strong review scores — in short, Activision could look ahead with a smile. And then along comes a controversy to spoil the picture. Rather like Kylian Mbappé, whose recent comments about Mao Zedong caused a stir in China, Activision's game now finds itself at the heart of a row that could easily have been avoided. The cause: a few seconds of very real footage slipped into the opening of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, which is now causing uproar on South Korean social media. It shows a victim of the Itaewon tragedy in Seoul, where 159 people lost their lives in a crowd crush in October 2022. The bereaved families are now asking Activision to remove the footage from the game.
Archive footage that hasn't gone down well
To set the tone for its new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, Activision chose to open the game with a montage of television news reports. While the story rests on a fictional scenario in which North Korea launches a full-scale invasion of South Korea, the footage itself is very much real. News images used to lend weight to the situation and to make you believe, for the length of the intro, that the conflict is genuine. Except that some of these clips aren't simply generic illustrations: South Korean players recognised an excerpt taken from reports on the Itaewon disaster of 29 October 2022. That night, a huge crowd became trapped in a narrow Seoul alleyway as large numbers of people celebrated Halloween. The crush left 159 dead and 196 injured — it remains all too fresh in the memory. In the game, you briefly see a first responder performing CPR on a person lying on the ground.
For the victims' families, this use is simply unacceptable. The association of families bereaved by the Itaewon disaster has issued a statement asking Activision to remove the sequence. As South Korean broadcaster SBS reports, it believes that using such an event in a game made for entertainment shows a lack of sensitivity. “If the game's developer has even a minimum of respect and empathy for the victims, it should take corrective measures promptly”, the association said, according to the English translation published by SBS. The Korea Game Users Association, a South Korean players' advocacy group, has also weighed in. It is demanding an explanation of how the footage came to be included in the game, as well as an apology to the families and to those affected by the tragedy. It is also calling for an update to replace the clip.
Activision attempts to defend itself
Contacted by SBS, Activision acknowledged having used footage from real news reports in the opening cinematic. The publisher explains that the clips were included to serve the game's fictional narrative, with no intention of referencing the Itaewon disaster or playing down the gravity of what happened. “We had absolutely no intention of referencing real-life tragedies, including the Itaewon disaster, or of treating them lightly”, the company said, again according to SBS's translation.
For the victims' loved ones, this footage is not simply archive material to be used to make a fictional scene more believable. It points back to a night that shattered hundreds of families and whose consequences are still painful. Finding those images in a war game, with no direct connection to the disaster itself, was only ever going to provoke a reaction like this. Activision has acknowledged what happened, but the publisher's statement doesn't say whether it intends to alter the introduction. Either way, the families are now waiting for a concrete gesture — and no doubt a more formal public apology...
