The opening moments of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 show a figure performing CPR on a victim lying in the street. Another sequence shows rows of bodies on the road as a victim is carried away on a stretcher. The scenes use real news footage from the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush, bereaved families in South Korea say.
The footage comes from the disaster during Halloween weekend in 2022, when a crowd crush in a narrow alley in Seoul's Itaewon nightlife district killed 158 people. Two further people have since been recognised as victims after dying from trauma caused by the disaster.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 was released with the footage incorporated into its opening cinematic. Players in South Korea recognised the clips after the release, and Korean broadcasters later placed the game scenes alongside footage filmed on the night of the crush.
On Wednesday, the bereaved families' council and a coalition of civic groups issued a joint statement demanding that the footage be removed. They said it had been used to depict civilian casualties during a fictional North Korean invasion.
The Korean Game Users Association has also called for an apology and for the footage to be replaced.
Activision told Yonhap news agency that some real news footage in the opening cinematic had been used as part of conveying the work's fictional story. The company said: “we had absolutely no intention of mentioning or treating lightly any actual tragic events, including the Itaewon tragedy”.
Modern Warfare 4 follows a South Korean marine private fighting a North Korean invasion through recognisable Korean streets. It topped South Korea's sales chart on Steam within days of its release.
The demand has come as South Korea marks the fourth anniversary of the crush on Thursday. It remains unclear whether Activision will remove or replace the footage.
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