Activision will remove real footage of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 in an update on 12 November. The decision follows protests from the families of the 159 people who died, who condemned the clip’s use in the game’s opening cinematic. The publisher apologised on 30 October, a week after launch, saying it had never meant to evoke or make light of any real tragedy. South Korea’s game regulator has made it clear, however, that taking the clip out will not settle the matter, and it is now looking at how the footage got past the country’s age-rating process.
The clip lasts about three seconds and appears in a montage of news reports about a fictional North Korean invasion of the South, which is how the campaign opens. Players identified it as real broadcast footage of people performing CPR on a victim in Itaewon on 29 October 2022. That night, a Halloween crowd crush in a narrow alley became one of the worst peacetime disasters in South Korea’s recent history. Modern Warfare 4 had launched worldwide on 23 October, only six days before the fourth anniversary, and its Korean War setting had already dragged the game into South Korean politics.
How the Itaewon families forced Activision to change course
The 10·29 Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Association and a coalition of civic groups issued a joint statement on 28 October. They said they could not help but be appalled that scenes of citizens performing CPR had been “used unchanged to create a scene in a game”. They added that many people who helped with the rescue, or simply witnessed the disaster, are still living with trauma, and called the use of the tragedy as entertainment highly inappropriate. The families also pointed to hateful comments online that mocked the disaster by linking the crush to the game’s war setting.
The Korea Game Users Association, which speaks for players rather than the industry, backed the demand on the same day. It said real disaster footage “unrelated to the game’s progression” had revived the families’ pain, and asked Activision to explain why the clip was needed, apologise to those affected and replace it. Activision’s first response, given to Yonhap News Agency, was far more guarded. It said a few real news scenes had been used to convey the game’s fictional story, and that it had no intention of referencing or trivialising the Itaewon disaster. It did not, however, say whether the footage would be removed.
The tone changed completely when Activision spoke again two days later, in a statement sent to Korean media on 30 October. It described Modern Warfare 4 as “a work of fiction created to provide realistic immersion” and apologised to the bereaved families and victims. It also said the footage “will be completely removed” in the 12 November update. Infinity Ward’s Season 1 patch notes, published on 5 November, contain only one line for the campaign, on performance fixes. They make no mention of the cinematic, which leaves next week’s update as the date to watch.
Why Korea’s game regulator says the removal is not the end
The row has also reached the government, which is where the bigger questions for Activision now sit. Yun Ho-jung, the head of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, told a press briefing on 29 October that including the footage amounted to “secondary harm” and that “appropriate sanctions should be imposed”. He added that any decision to punish the game or block access to it belonged to the relevant agencies. That phrase carries real weight in South Korea, where the Cabinet passed a revision to the Itaewon special act in February to give legal grounds for punishing the secondary victimisation of those affected by the crush.
The Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC), the state regulator, told the Korean outlet Sisaweek on 30 October that it had not concluded the problem was solved simply because the footage would be removed. It said it was reviewing the case closely and talking to the Game Content Rating Board (GCRB), the private body that rated Modern Warfare 4 as adults-only on 7 August, about preventing a repeat. The GCRB says the Itaewon clip was not among the material submitted for its review. One of its officials added that the GRAC has never adjusted a game’s rating after launch, so any action here would be a first.
Not everyone wants the state to go that far, though. On 3 November, the Korea Game Users Association welcomed the apology but said it firmly opposed the issue being “used politically” to justify censorship, or blocking and sanctions without a legal basis. After a legal review led by its president, the lawyer Lee Chul-woo, the association said the Game Industry Promotion Act gives no grounds to block or sanction the whole game over a three-second clip. That position puts the players’ group at odds with the Interior Minister, and much closer to the Culture Minister, who said before the Itaewon row that Modern Warfare 4 would not be censored.
Outside South Korea, the footage row has been only one part of a busy launch for Activision. Modern Warfare 4’s campaign has been widely praised by players and critics, and the game holds more than 11,000 user reviews on Steam alone. Season 1 went live on 6 November with new maps, weapons and a fresh Battle Pass, but in South Korea the update that matters most arrives six days later.
