SEOUL — Activision Publishing said Friday it would delete real news footage of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 after families of the dead objected, according to Yonhap News Agency and The Korea Herald^1,3.

Yonhap reported that a short clip of a paramedic performing CPR on a person lying in the street appeared in the game's opening and was used to show civilian casualties in a fictional war with North Korea¹.

The Korea Herald said the latest installment depicts a fictional all-out war on the Korean Peninsula and that Activision sent a statement to MBC promising a full removal in a game update scheduled for Nov. 12³.

Yonhap quoted Activision as telling local reporters, "We deeply apologize to the victims and their bereaved families who must have suffered, as well as to everyone who we have caused concern"¹.

The publisher said the footage would be removed in that Nov. 12 update and that it had not planned to evoke the Itaewon crush or other tragedies when it used news video, nor to ignore the pain the accident caused^1,3.

A total of 159 people were killed in a narrow alley in Seoul's Itaewon nightlife district during Halloween events on Oct. 29, 2022^1,3.

Yonhap said bereaved families criticized the publisher for using the clip and demanded that it be taken out entirely¹. The Korea Herald likewise reported an outcry from families of the victims and civic groups after the footage was found in the game³.

What remains unstated in the Korean accounts is whether the Nov. 12 patch will replace the sequence with other imagery or leave a gap, and whether families consider the apology sufficient^1,3.