As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases and other schemes. Learn more.

Call of Duty: Vanguard's Zombies map updated to remove disrespectful imagery of the Quran

Pages of the Quran were portrayed on the floor in Call of Duty: Vanguard's Der Anfang Zombies mode, and Activision has apologised

Call of Duty: Vanguard came under fire after players discovered pages of the Quran scattered on the floor in its FPS game to begin with.

On November 10, an Arabic-speaking Twitter posted images from Vanguard's Der Anfang Zombies map that showed various documents scattered across the floor. These include several pages from the Islamic holy text, spattered in blood and placed in areas where players and zombies are free to walk on them.

Publisher Activision released a statement to Dexerto today acknowledging the disrespectful content. "Call of Duty is made for everyone," the company 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 apologise. We are taking immediate steps internally to address the situation to prevent such occurrences in the future."

This isn't the first time Call of Duty has crossed a line like this, however. In 2012, the reimagines the 'Highway of Death' – a name which in reality refers to an actual, real-world attack by US marines on a convoy of 2,000 Iraqi civilian vehicles during the Persian Gulf war – as an act committed by the Russian forces players are fighting.

https://twitter.com/BKTO0R/status/1458420881445826575

Activision posted a public statement on the Call of Duty Middle East Twitter .

https://twitter.com/CallofDutyARA/status/1458767492432674826

A machine translation provides roughly the same statement as quoted above:

Activision's apology for including content offensive to Muslims in Call of Duty: Vanguard.

We've reached out to Activision for additional comment.

Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit letter to employees, the company has announced an end to forced arbitration, a $250 million initiative to improve diversity, and a major pay cut for Kotick.