Modern Warfare 4 Under Fire for Using Real Itaewon Crowd Crush Footage

Activision has apologized and is removing real footage of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush disaster in Seoul from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, after backlash from victims' families and South Korean civic groups.

What players found in the game

According to The Korea Times, which first reported the story on October 28, 2026, players identified what appeared to be real news footage of bystanders performing CPR within Modern Warfare 4's opening cinematic. That sequence, a newsreader-style montage depicting a fictional all-out war on the Korean Peninsula, reportedly includes roughly three seconds of footage from the Itaewon crush, including a shot of a paramedic giving CPR to someone on the ground, according to Video Games Chronicle.

The families' response, then Activision's

The October 29 Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families Association, together with a coalition of civic groups including the Korea Game Users Association, issued a joint statement on October 28 demanding the footage be removed, objecting to scenes of citizens performing CPR to try to save one another being reused this way.

Asked by Yonhap before the backlash grew, Activision initially acknowledged that "some actual news footage" appeared in the opening cinematic, without committing to removing it. The publisher later apologized, in a statement reported by broadcaster MBC and relayed by The Korea Herald on October 30: "We offer our deepest condolences and sincere apologies to the bereaved families, victims [...]". Activision committed that the footage in question would be completely removed through a game update scheduled for release on November 12.

The Itaewon disaster, for context

On October 29, 2022, a crowd crush in a narrow alley in Seoul's Itaewon district, during a Halloween night out, killed 159 people (160 counting two people who later died of their injuries, per Wikipedia) and injured 196. The official investigation, concluded January 13, 2023, found a lack of safety precautions and police failures at the scene.

Sources

• The Korea Herald (October 30, 2026)
• The Korea Times (October 28, 2026)
• Video Games Chronicle (October 30, 2026)
• Wikipedia — Seoul Halloween crowd crush

The bottom line

Real footage from a disaster that killed 159 people ended up, apparently without that being the intent, in the opening cinematic of a fictional war game. Activision has acknowledged the issue, apologized, and committed to removing the footage in a November 12 update. Beyond the controversy itself, the episode is a reminder of how much care is needed when real news footage is folded into fiction, even for a few seconds.