Families demand removal of Seoul crowd-crush footage from Call of Duty

Bereaved families and civic groups in South Korea have demanded the removal of footage appearing to show Seoul’s 2022 crowd crush from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, The Guardian reported on October 29, 2026, as the country marked the disaster’s fourth anniversary.¹

Real images in a fictional conflict

According to The Guardian, clips lasting several seconds appear in the game’s opening sequence and are used to depict civilian deaths during an imagined North Korean invasion. The New York Times also reported that the title uses actual images from the Halloween crowd crush in South Korea.¹²

South Korean players identified the images, and Korean broadcasters compared them with recordings made during the disaster, The Guardian reported. The footage includes people performing CPR, bodies and a scene involving a stretcher, according to the newspaper’s account.¹

The crush occurred in 2022 in a narrow alley in Itaewon, Seoul’s nightlife district, during Halloween weekend. The Guardian reported that 158 people were killed and that two others were subsequently recognised as victims. The New York Times described a death toll exceeding 150.¹²

Families challenge the use of the footage

A council representing bereaved families joined several civic organisations in opposing the game’s inclusion of images showing victims and rescue operations. According to The Guardian, they said people who had helped with rescues or witnessed the crush continued to experience trauma.¹

The groups also said hateful online comments about the victims were circulating in connection with the game’s premise, The Guardian reported. In a separate response, the Korean Game Users Association requested an apology and asked that different material be used in place of the footage in the opening sequence.¹

Publisher explains its intent

Activision acknowledged that actual news footage had been included in the opening cinematic to communicate the fictional narrative, according to The Guardian. Its explanation addressed the purpose of using those images and denied an intention to refer to or diminish real disasters.¹

“We had absolutely no intention of mentioning or treating lightly any actual tragic events, including the Itaewon tragedy,” Activision said in the statement reported by The Guardian.¹

According to The Guardian, the game centres on a private in South Korea’s marine corps fighting invading forces from the North in familiar-looking streets around Korea. The newspaper also said the title reached the top of South Korea’s sales chart on the PC gaming platform Steam within days of release.¹