Activision will remove real archival footage of the deadly 2022 Itaewon crowd crush from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 following fierce backlash from bereaved families and civic groups in South Korea who called its use in an entertainment game insensitive.
When players booted up the newly launched Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which arrived on October 23, 2026, across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2, an opening cinematic sequence featured real news coverage of paramedics performing chest compressions on the streets of Seoul. The brief clip, lasting about three seconds, was intended to establish a fictional North Korean invasion storyline. Instead, it used actual documentation of a national tragedy that claimed 159 lives in the narrow alleys of the Itaewon district during Halloween celebrations on October 29, 2022.
The tragedy took place four years ago when more than 100,000 people visited a district known for its nightlife, bars, and restaurants to celebrate the first unrestricted Halloween festivities since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The streets became so tightly packed that people could not move, and crowds suddenly began to surge in different directions at 10 pm, causing people to lose their footing on the slope. Individuals knocked each other over, piled on top of one another, and were unable to breathe. Social media footage from the night showed those caught in the crowd trying to escape by scaling adjacent buildings, as the streets were so congested that emergency workers could not reach the injured. The archived footage used in the first-person shooter showed emergency personnel who managed to reach those in the crowd performing CPR on victims in the streets, along with people being removed on stretchers and body bags on the street.
Bereaved Families Condemn Usage as Insensitive
The families expressed deep distress that frantic moments of citizens performing emergency resuscitation on freezing pavement were repurposed for a commercial entertainment product. In a joint statement, they argued that using such an event as material for a game made for entertainment is in itself highly inappropriate and senseless. The incident had nothing to do with North Korea or a foreign invasion.
Activision Removes Controversial Footage in November 12 Patch
The publisher explained that the archival news clips were chosen to establish the game’s fictional narrative involving combat in Seoul, maintaining that there was no intent to trivialize real-world tragedies.
not intended to reference or trivialize the Itaewon disaster or any other real-world tragedy in any way, shape, or form.
Activision, via Korea Herald
Following the public outcry, the publisher issued formal apologies and confirmed that an upcoming software update scheduled for November 12 will scrub the controversial footage from the game entirely. While the 10.29 Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Association welcomed the decision to pull the clip, they noted that they had not received a direct apology from the company.