Activision will remove real-world footage of the 2022 Seoul Halloween crowd crush from the opening cinematic of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, the publisher said in a statement that also apologized to the families of the victims. The edit arrives in a game update scheduled for November 12, so the current cinematic stays in the game until then.
The crowd crush happened in October 2022 during Halloween celebrations in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood. A surge in the narrow streets and alleys killed 160 people and left nearly 200 more injured.
Modern Warfare 4 uses video from that disaster in its opening to portray the immediate aftermath of a fictional North Korean invasion of South Korea, the premise of the game’s story.
Activision Responds to Complaints From Victims’ Families
Activision first said the footage was not meant to “reference or trivialize” the actual event and was used only “to establish the game’s fictional narrative.” Families of the victims rejected that explanation. In their statement, they called the use of the event in an entertainment product “highly inappropriate and senseless.”
The families also said that if Activision “has even a minimum of courtesy and empathy towards the victims, it should take corrective action without delay.” The publisher has now done that, a clear change from its first response, which defended the footage as part of the fictional setup.
“We offer our deepest condolences and sincere apologies to the bereaved families, victims and everyone who has been deeply hurt or distressed by this incident,” Activision said in its latest statement.
Modern Warfare 4 Cinematic Update Timing for Players
The announced change covers the opening cinematic only. Activision has not said that any other campaign content will be edited, and the statement does not describe what will replace the removed clips.
Players do not need to take any action. The edited cinematic will arrive with the November 12 update through the normal patch process, and anyone who replays the campaign opening after that date will see the revised version.
The change comes during the launch window of a release that peaked at 227,434 concurrent Steam players, so the original version of the opening has been in front of a sizable player base since launch. The footage remains in the game on all versions until the update installs.
Activision has not published patch notes for the November 12 update yet, so the full scope of that release beyond the cinematic change is not known.
