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Activision cuts Tiananmen Square footage from Call of Duty trailer

Activision cuts Tiananmen Square footage from Call of Duty trailer

US publishing giant Activision has had to remove footage of Tiananmen Square from the recently-released trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

This follows the video (below) being banned in China, which denies that the Tiananmen Square incident ever happened. Now the trailer has been changed around the world. The link to the original video leads to a message saying that it is private and unavailable. The official Call of Duty YouTube channel now features a much shorter trailer; the original was 2:02, while this new one is only a minute long.

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 saw Chinese citizens protesting in the name of democracy. Hundreds of demonstrators killed by the People's Liberation Army and to this day, the government does not acknowledge that it took place.

Activision Blizzard came under fire last year for kicking out Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai from the Grandmasters tournament after he called for the liberation of Hong Kong from China. Blizzard insisted that its Chinese ties had no part to play in this happening, but later down the line admitted that the punishment was too harsh.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.