An update for Call of Duty: Vanguard came out on Thursday that removes pages of the Quran from its zombie mode.
The Der Anfang campaign, one of the levels in Call of Duty: Vanguard’s zombie mode, drew heavy criticism from Muslim players after pages from the Quran were found all over the ground. In response, publisher Activision issued a public apology on Call of Duty’s Middle Eastern Twitter account that was then translated into English by Dextero.
“Call of Duty is made for everyone,” Activision said via Dexerto. “There was insensitive content to the Muslim community mistakenly included last week, and 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.”
The screenshots below show the pages from the Quran in Call of duty: Vanguard before the patch came out.
صور صفحات من القرآن الكريم موجودة على الارض في لعبة #Vanguard طور الزومبي في ماب Der Anfang و هذا موقعها في الماب و اتمنى يتم ازالتها في التحديث القادم !!
مهزله تكررت اكثر من مره منكم ولازم تتعدل وتوقفون عند هالحد @CallofDutyARA @Activision @CallofDuty pic.twitter.com/JMtyPbWo6q
— BRHM (@BrhmVG) November 10, 2021
The criticism from Muslim players and fans of Call of Duty comes down to how these pages from the Quran could be stepped on or covered in blood from gunfire. Several prominent game developers weighed in on the situation as well.
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
Call of Duty has pages of the Qur'an on the floor for people to step on.
I usually make excuses for people whenever they make a mistake, but this one feels intentional. I really hope that I'm wrong.
Either way, this has to be corrected. It's shameful and embarrassing. https://t.co/RimPRtSePI
— Osama Dorias (@osamadorias) November 10, 2021
Call of Duty: Vanguard only came out last week, so this was a recent discovery.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
