Activision has apologized for using footage from the Itaewon disaster in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and will remove the clip from the game, the publisher said on October 30.
According to a report by Dispatch carried on Naver, the roughly three-second segment will disappear through a game update scheduled for November 12. The footage appeared in the game’s opening cinematic and drew outrage after viewers linked it to real news video of the rescue effort during the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush.
The new Call of Duty title was released on October 23. It imagines a fictional war on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea invades South Korea. Dispatch reported that the source description attached to the clip even referred to a large-scale crush in South Korea in which at least 153 people died.
In its statement, Activision said: “We offer our deepest condolences and apologies to the bereaved families and victims who were deeply hurt by this incident, and to everyone who was troubled by it.” The publisher added that the game is a fictional work built on realistic immersion, with no intention of evoking the Itaewon disaster or belittling the pain surrounding it, and confirmed the footage will be fully deleted.
On October 28, the Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Council said it was horrified that a scene showing citizens performing CPR, with victims lying on a cold street, had been lifted wholesale into a game. The council called using a tragic disaster as entertainment material an act that disregards the dignity of the victims, describing it as highly inappropriate and lacking common sense.
The government also weighed in. At a press meeting on October 29, Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-jung characterized the incident as secondary harm and said he believed appropriate sanctions should be imposed on the game.
The background explains the reaction. The Itaewon disaster took place on October 29, 2022, in Itaewon-dong, Yongsan, Seoul, when Halloween crowds surged and a deadly crush followed. Dispatch put the death toll at 162. The apology arrived just one day after the fourth anniversary of the disaster.
The November 12 update is promised, but the families’ criticism shows that, for many in South Korea, the issue was never only about three seconds of video: it was about whether real grief should ever become background material for a war game.
