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Some scenes are too real for a video game. Activision has apologised and promised to remove genuine footage of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, after bereaved families in South Korea condemned its use — just days before the fourth anniversary of a disaster that killed 159 people.
The footage will be taken out in a game update scheduled for 12 November. Until then, it remains in the game exactly as it shipped — which means the real images of a real tragedy will have been on screen for 20 days, including the anniversary itself.
What the game actually shows
Modern Warfare 4, which launched worldwide on 23 October, opens with a montage of news reports about a fictional North Korean invasion of South Korea. Buried in that montage are a few seconds of real broadcast footage from the night of 29 October 2022 in Seoul's Itaewon district: a paramedic performing CPR on a person lying in the street, victims carried away on stretchers, and bodies lined up along the road.
The clips were regraded with monochrome tones and noise filters, so that at first glance they look like the aftermath of the game's fictional attack. South Korean players recognised them anyway. Broadcaster SBS reported that players had identified the footage as images from the Itaewon disaster, and MBC exposed the inclusion three days before Activision's apology.
The crush itself happened during Halloween celebrations in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district, when a dense crowd surged through narrow alleys. Mostly young people in their twenties and thirties, 159 were killed and nearly 200 injured.
Why families demanded it be removed
On 30 October, the 10.29 Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Association and the Itaewon Disaster Citizens' Countermeasures Committee released a joint statement demanding immediate corrective action. "We cannot help but be appalled that footage of the chaotic and desperate scenes of the disaster… was used directly to recreate a scene in a video game," the groups said. "Using such a tragedy as material for a video game for entertainment purposes is highly inappropriate and thoughtless."
The timing made it worse. The game reached players only six days before the fourth anniversary of the crush, and bereaved families from overseas were in South Korea for the memorial ceremony when the discovery broke. The Korea Game Users Association also called on Activision to apologise, saying there had to be "a clear explanation of the circumstances and an apology regarding the fact that tragic disaster footage unrelated to the game's progression context was used". South Korea's interior minister, Yun Ho-jung, said he believed "appropriate sanctions should be imposed", warning the footage caused "secondary harm" to victims and families.
What Activision said — and what it did not say
Activision first told South Korean media that the footage had been used "as an element to convey the fictional story depicted in the game". In its statement to MBC on 30 October, the publisher went further: "We offer our deepest condolences and sincere apologies to the bereaved families, victims and everyone who has been deeply hurt or distressed by this incident." It confirmed the footage would be "completely removed" through the update releasing on 12 November.
At the same time, Activision maintained that Modern Warfare 4 is "a work of fiction created to provide realistic immersion", and that it never intended to reference or trivialise the Itaewon disaster or any other real-world tragedy. The company has not said what will replace the removed clips, and the change covers the opening cinematic only.
That framing has not settled the matter. The bereaved families' association welcomed the decision to remove the footage — but told the BBC it had not received a direct apology from the publisher. A statement issued to the press is not the same thing, in the families' eyes, as an apology delivered to them.
The bigger question games keep dodging
This is not really a story about one cutscene. It is about where the games industry draws the line when "realistic immersion" meets real suffering. Modern blockbusters routinely borrow the visual language of real wars and real disasters: shaky newsreel footage, emergency broadcasts, body bags on cold streets. The technique works precisely because the images carry the weight of something that actually happened — and that is exactly why using them without consent feels like a second injury to the people who lived through it.
The Itaewon case is unusually clear-cut because the footage is identifiable, recent, and tied to named victims whose families are still seeking accountability — nearly two dozen officials face charges in the investigation, and three former police officers have been jailed. But the same question applies more broadly: if a game needs real tragedy to feel real, has it failed at its own craft? Stock footage, staged scenes and original cinematography can all establish a fictional war without borrowing a night when 159 people died.
There is also a practical lesson here for every major publisher. Modern Warfare 4 is one of the biggest entertainment releases of the year, and the footage still slipped through whatever review process was supposed to catch it. The fix — a patch 20 days after launch — arrives only after the anniversary has passed and the damage has been done. A sensitivity check before release would have cost a fraction of what the apology now costs in trust.
For more on how real-world conflict is portrayed in games and media, read why Ukraine's Patriot interceptors are running critically low and Iran's new shipping-attack tactics. For how a different tech giant handled a backlash this week, see Meta's voluntary-exit offer after the Google layoffs.
When the 12 November update lands, the Itaewon footage will be gone from Modern Warfare 4 — but the argument it started will stay. Games are now the world's biggest entertainment medium, and with that scale comes a responsibility the industry is still learning to carry: realism is a craft choice, not an excuse, and no fictional war is worth re-staging a real one. Sources: Polygon, Mathrubhumi.