China has banned the recently released trailer of upcoming blockbuster video game ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’ due to its inclusion of footage from the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to CBR.
The trailer looks closer to a conspiracy documentary than a first shooter game, using archive footage to weave a Cold War narrative over the real words of KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov. The former spy warned of Russian infiltration in the USA’s government during his historical interview, a claim that seems to serve as the game’s plot. Fans of the long running Call of Duty franchise will eagerly be awaiting its release on August 26th.
The short video includes less than a second of Tiananmen Square footage, but that was enough to raise the alarm of the Chinese government censors. A second trailer was subsequently released, losing the visual presentation but retaining the audio.
On the 4th of June, 1989, Chinese troops massacred a student demonstration in the heart of Beijing. While the death toll is uncertain, it is believed to be in the thousands. Any mention of the event within China is met with strict censorship.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.