Activision apologises for ‘insensitive’ depiction of Quran in Call of Duty

CALL of Duty: Vanguard is under fire just a week after launch for its ‘disrespectful’ depiction of the Quran in the game.

Indie dev Rami Ismail shared a tweet showing off screenshots of text from the Islamic holy book on the ground.

Could we -please- just not put text from the Quran on the ground or on places people where people can walk on it. Even if you think religion is nonsense, there’s just no reason to be disrespectful towards two billion people’s culture & beliefs in a videogame for a throwaway asset https://t.co/a1fzv8EVwN

— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) November 10, 2021

“Could we – please- just not put text from the Quran on the ground or on places people where people can walk on it,” he pleaded.

“Even if you think religion is nonsense, there’s just no reason to be disrespectful towards two billion people’s culture & beliefs in a videogame for a throwaway asset.”

The original tweet was posted by @BKTO0R and reads (via Google Translate):

“Brothers, I see pages of the Qur’an on the ground in the zombie map. I see that it should be removed as soon as possible if it is correct.

CoD and Battlefield leaker Tom Henderson replied shortly afterwards, saying he’d made Activision and Sledgehammer aware of the issue.

Happily, it seems that the studio may have already implemented an update.

Twitter account @BrhmVG shared screens of what appears to be the same location in the game, and the pages are now blank.

“Images of Quran pages have been removed from the game in less than 24 hours,” they said (via Google Translate).

However, they say that quietly updating the game with no acknowledgement of the problem “is not enough.”

They go on to call for an apology from the developer.

Reactions to the scripture being featured in such a manner were on the same page for the most part.

But a few people in the thread dismissed it as a non-issue, with little concern for the franchise’s problematic history with Middle Eastern representation or the responsibility Activision has in its portrayal of cultures outside of the US.

In a statement to The Sun, Activision said:

“Call of Duty is made for everyone. There was insensitive content to the Muslim community mistakenly included last week, and it has since been removed from the game.

“It should never have appeared as it did in game. We deeply apologize. We are taking immediate steps internally to address the situation to prevent such occurrences in the future.”