Call of Duty Vanguard has removed the Quran from the game after its appearance in the game sparked backlash.
Call of Duty Vanguard released earlier this month to a middling reception. While many seemed to enjoy this new iteration of the popular FPS series, many also felt it was retreading the same ground once again and had failed to be innovative. On our sister site, GameByte, we scored it 7.5/10, calling it “refreshingly familiar”.
However, there is one issue that made its way into the game that has upset a number of players.
Pages from the Quran could be seen scattered on the floor in Call of Duty Vanguard’s campaign. Many Muslim players felt its inclusion was inappropriate and insensitive.
Anisa Sanusi, a Muslim video game developer, pointed out the problems with showing the Quran on Twitter. She said “maybe putting an entire cultures holy scriptures onto the floor to be stepped on as you kill people is super insensitive?“
She went on to speak to CNN, saying “I understand the effort it takes to make a video game world feel real and believable, however for a piece of set dressing, they could have literally used any other blurb of writing. There was absolutely no reason to bring in the Quran into this.“
Activision Apologises
After backlash online, an Activision spokesperson made a statement to CNN. They said “Call of Duty is made for everyone. There was insensitive content to the Muslim community mistakenly included last week, and has since been removed from the game.”
It’s unknown how something like this could end up mistakenly put into the game. It’s a big oversight from Activision, a company currently embroiled in legal issues and allegations of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct across the company.
The Quran has now been removed from the game, but for many Muslim players, the damage has already been done due its appearance in the first place.
Featured Image Credit: Activision