Activision has apologized for including real news footage of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush in the opening of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. The company says the Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon footage will be removed in an update on November 12.
The clip appears in the title sequence and lasts only a moment. Still, it shows a real disaster in which 159 people died. Activision used it without warning in a game about a fictional war on the Korean peninsula.
What the opening sequence shows
Modern Warfare 4 centers on a conflict between North and South Korea. Its intro is a montage of news reports covering the game’s fictional premise: a full-scale North Korean invasion of the South Korean mainland.
Newsreader voiceovers play over archival clips taken from real broadcasts. One brief shot shows a paramedic performing CPR on a person lying on the ground.
Players identified that shot as footage from Itaewon, a nightlife district in Seoul. During the 2022 Halloween celebrations, a crowd surge in a narrow alleyway killed 159 people and injured 196.
Families and player groups push back
Once word of the Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon clip spread online, two groups issued statements. The October 29 Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Association and the Korea Game Users Association both asked Activision to take the footage out of the game.
The bereaved families group is named after the date of the disaster. It has campaigned for accountability over the crowd crush since 2022.
After those statements, South Korean outlet Inven reported that Activision had responded with an apology and a commitment to remove the clip.
Activision’s statement on the Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon clip
Activision sent a statement to South Korean media, which Inven translated. In it, the publisher said: “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is a work of fiction created to provide realistic immersion. We make it clear that in using actual news broadcast footage within the game, we never intended to evoke or trivialize any tragic event, including the Itaewon crowd crush.”
The company then confirmed when the Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon footage will go. “The video footage in question will be completely removed through a game update scheduled for distribution on November 12,” it said.
The statement closed with a direct apology: “We bow our heads in deep sympathy and apology to the bereaved families and victims who were deeply hurt by this incident, as well as to everyone we have caused concern.”
Real-world material in Call of Duty
This is not the first time a Call of Duty campaign has drawn criticism over how it handles real events. In 2019, the Modern Warfare reboot faced complaints over its “Highway of Death” mission. The mission borrowed the name of a 1991 Gulf War attack and placed it in a different context.
That case involved a story choice. By contrast, the Modern Warfare 4 Itaewon complaint concerns a few seconds of broadcast footage from a civilian disaster. The clip was background texture in a montage about an invented war.
Activision has not said how the clip ended up in the sequence. It also has not said whether it will review other archival footage in the game. For now, the November 12 update is the only confirmed change. Until it goes live, the shot remains in the game for anyone who starts the campaign.