Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will remove real-world footage of the 2022 Seoul crush incident after severe backlash in South Korea. Bereaved families issued a statement yesterday condemning the inclusion of these videos, and Activision has since vowed to cut them from the title.
The game is set in the Korean Peninsula, and real-world footage of several events is shown in the opening cutscene as a means to ground its narrative in reality.
Among the videos are scenes of the 2022 Seoul crush incident, which happened during a Halloween celebration on Oct. 29 in Itaewon, when a crowd suddenly surged and began to trample or crush those within it. Around 160 deaths were confirmed, most of whom were young adults, making it one of the deadliest events in South Korean history.
Families of those who perished or were injured in the incident issued a statement yesterday condemning the inclusion of this footage, telling the BBC they were “appalled.”
“We cannot help but be appalled that the chaotic and desperate scene, in which many citizens at the site performed CPR to save one another and victims lay on the freezing street, was used to create a scene in a game,” they said.
“Using such an event as material for a game made for entertainment is in itself highly inappropriate and senseless,” they added.
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Activision has since responded to the backlash, promising to cut the scenes entirely in the game’s next update on Nov. 12. The company told the BBC it never “intended to reference or trivialize the Itaewon disaster or any other real-world tragedy in any way, shape or form,” but merely used real-world footage to frame the game’s fictional story.
The Modern Warfare franchise, both the original trilogy and these new games, is well known for its shocking and mortifying scenes. However, the difference here is that, while the most horrific moments in the games were all fictional, Infinity Ward used real footage of a tragedy. We can debate whether showing it here was distasteful or dehumanizing or reductive, but I can see where these families are coming from.
If we start drawing lines in the sand too much, though, art will have no way to push forward, and addressing reality will become impossible. Someone somewhere is going to be inevitably offended by your story, your characters, and what you’re saying, or rather, what they’re saying about the state of the world, but I think that is ultimately a fair price to pay.
