"We Did Not Intend to Evoke the Itaewon Tragedy," Call of Duty Developers Apologize After All

The footage will be removed in the November 12 update.

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4," which sparked controversy for using footage of the Itaewon tragedy in the game, will remove the footage.

Activision, the publisher of the "Call of Duty" series, said in a statement distributed to Korean media on October 30 that "the footage will be completely removed in a game update to be released on November 12."

A scene from "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4." Call of Duty official website.

The development team said, "We want to make it clear that using actual news footage in the game was in no way intended to evoke any tragic event, including the Itaewon tragedy, or to downplay the pain it caused." It added, "We offer our deepest condolences and sincere apologies to the bereaved families and victims who may have been deeply hurt by this incident, as well as to everyone who has been distressed by it."

A cinematic scene in "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4," released worldwide by Activision on October 23, showed about three seconds of broadcast footage from immediately after the Itaewon tragedy, in which emergency responders performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a person lying unconscious. The scene depicted civilian casualties in the aftermath of a war.

On October 28, the Bereaved Families Association of the October 29 Itaewon Tragedy and the Citizens' Countermeasures Meeting issued a statement saying, "Using the incident as material for a game intended for entertainment is itself highly inappropriate and lacking in common sense," and called for the scene to be removed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.