- The trailer for the next highly anticipated Call of Duty game shows a second-long clip of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
- Call of Duty got into trouble in China in 2012 after showing a fictional World War II bombing of Beijing
The next highly anticipated game in the hit Call of Duty franchise isn't even out yet, but its new trailer is already being censored in China.
The new trailer for Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War that dropped last week is based around segments of a 1984 interview with former Soviet KGB informant and defector Yuri Bezmenov. His comments on Russian Cold War subversion strategies act as narration over real footage from conflicts of the era.
One of the clips shows protesters in Beijing on top of an armoured vehicle during the student-led protest in 1989 that culminated in a brutal military crackdown.
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The clip is just shy of a second long, but some eagle-eyed viewers were quick to recognise it. That was enough to get the censors to roll in.
On local video platforms like Bilibili, the clip of the protests was soon replaced with a black screen or other footage. Then Activision released a one-minute version of the original two-minute trailer without the scene.
Showing the highly sensitive event was enough to get people buzzing about the game online. The offending clip was also shared on social platform Weibo last Thursday. To reference the clip without being censored, users started using alternative terms like "01:05", the time the scene appears in the video.
While the event is now infamous internationally, the Tiananmen crackdown remains a taboo topic in mainland China.
Censors still go into overdrive near the anniversary on June 4 each year to keep conversations out of public view online, deleting any content that could be related to to the bloody crackdown. But some netizens have learned to keep the memory of the event alive through memes and clever code words.
Some gamers have expressed concerned about the impact of showing the Tiananmen clip, saying on social media that they fear the new Call of Duty game could be banned in China. The Cold War theme also appears to have hit a nerve for some on Weibo, who compared it to the ongoing tensions between the US and China.
"You used to vilify Russians, now you vilify us," one user commented.
The new game will get a full reveal on August 26. If it does face problems in China, it wouldn't be the first time for the franchise.
In 2018, officials in one Chinese province singled out the 2012 game Call of Duty: Black Ops II during a crackdown on internet cafes that forced customers to stop playing banned video games. The Call of Duty game was found especially offensive because it showed a fictional World War II bombing raid in the heart of Beijing.
The franchise still remains popular with gamers in the country. The next franchise release in China might not be on PC or console, though. Call of Duty: Mobile, developed by Tencent studio TiMi, recently got the government's go-ahead to be published in the country, although it doesn't have a release date yet.
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