Activision apologize & remove “insensitive” Quran depiction in CoD Vanguard

Call of Duty: Vanguard players have noticed pages of the Quran scattered across the floor on a Zombies map. In response, many have joined the Muslim community in calling for developers to fix the “disrespectful” issue — and Activision has since taken action and apologized.

The Quran is the principal religious text of Islam and is considered by Muslims to be the holy word of God. As such, it is sacred and usage of it is always put under careful scrutiny.

Call of Duty’s developers included references to the Quran in the new Vanguard title. In a Zombies map, pages of the holy book are stained and scattered across the floor.

In response to this, a number of players called on the developers to explain and rectify the “disrespectful” situation. 

Call of Duty: Vanguard devs under fire for ‘disrespecting’ the Quran

As shown in a tweet by ‘BKTO0R,’ it appears that the Quran’s pages are littered across a Zombies map. 

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

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In response, a number of users directly tagged the game’s developers and expressed shock at the decision to use the Quran as floor decoration.

Activision apologize over “insensitive” Quran depiction

In a statement released to Dexerto, Activision apologized for the insensitive depiction and said they have since been removed from the game.

“Call of Duty is made for everyone,” the statement said. “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.”

Not the first use of the Quran in Call of Duty

https://twitter.com/m7md_mud/status/1458458373087711238

In response to the original tweet, a number of people responded by calling the inclusion “disrespectful.” One user explained it to someone asking what was wrong: “It’s disrespectful, God’s holy words on the floor with blood like it doesn’t matter.”

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Others claimed that this isn’t the first time CoD has disrespected the religion, referencing a Modern Warfare 2 problem that led to the removal of a map.