Activision Removes Tiananmen Square Footage From Trailer

Activision has silently deleted its initial Cold War trailer. It featured an interview conducted of a former Soviet KGB informant and defector Yuri Bezmenov in 1984, where he talked about the US dominance and Russian Cold War.

The trailer also featured plenty of other genuine clips. Bezmenov spoke about a 4 stage Soviet strategy- demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization. These, he mentioned, were necessary to bring the US dominance to heel.

Many iconic clips also featured in the video- scenes from the Vietnam war, mass protests in the US, and others. In a blink and you miss fashion, the trailer included was footage of protestors atop an armored vehicle.

That still was from the famous Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The eagle-eyed netizens figured out the source of the image, and the outrage was almost instant and rather unsurprising.

The Tiananmen Square massacre remains one of the most heavily censored pieces of history in China. On June 4, 1989, Chinese troops fired live rounds on thousands of protestors at Tiananmen Square. The death count was in the thousands, and the arrests, even more so.

The Chinese government has enduringly censored this incident. The new Call of Duty title may suffer the same fate as many believe that the game might face a ban in China.

According to the South China Morning Post, Weibo went ballistic with discussions regarding the trailer. Local platforms censored the trailer almost immediately.

Activision to unveil new Call Of Duty today

The new Call Of Duty game is to be unveiled today. Activision has already removed the controversial trailer and replaced it with a minute-long video. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the new story will include China.

All the Call Of Duty games portray the United States in a dominating position. Fictional or otherwise, it begs the question of whether making hyper-realistic games around sensitive subjects is the right move.

Even if China bans the new game, it won’t be the first time. Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 was banned because it portrayed a fictional WWII US bombing in Beijing. This was back in 2018 during the crackdown on internet cafes in China.

Activision has also removed the mention of ‘Perseus’ from the trailer. Perseus was a Soviet spy connected to the Manhattan Project. Check out the deleted trailer below.

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