THE FIRST trailer for the latest Call of Duty game has been blocked in China – and edited everywhere else – following alleged censoring by the Chinese government.
The teaser for Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War debuted last week and featured historical footage, including a second-long clip of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
The pro-democracy demonstrations led to the massacre of thousands of attendees after Chinese soldiers opened fire on the unarmed crowd.
Black Ops Cold War’s two-minute trailer, posted to YouTube August 19, included a clip of protesters on top of an armoured vehicle during the riots.
On August 21, that original version was removed from the official Xbox and Call of Duty YouTube channels, gaming new site Kotaku reports.
In the US and UK, the video was replaced with a shorter, one-minute version that was missing the Tiananmen Square clip.
In China, the trailer has been banned altogether, according to the South China Morning Post.
“The clip is just shy of a second long, but some eagle-eyed viewers were quick to recognise it,” the site said. “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.”
The Call of Duty trailer is based around parts of a 1984 interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov.
Real footage of historic Cold War events is cut over Yuri, a KGB informant, as he discusses the Soviet Union’s plans to topple the United States.
As well as the Tiananmen Square protests, the video features footage of the Vietnam War and subsequent protests in the US.
Call of Duty publisher Activision has not confirmed why it took down the original trailer. HOAR has reached out to the firm for comment.
Thousands of pro-democracy protesters were killed in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, in June 1989.
