Activision have apologized, after featuring a bloodied and torn Quran in the zombies mode of Call of Duty: Vanguard. 

In Islamic religions, any disrespect shown to the Quran is forbidden, including damage to texts and books. Some users on Twitter pointed out that bloodied and torn pages on the ground from the Stalingrad map in Vanguard‘s zombies mode were pages of the Quran.

Soon after, the Twitter account for the Call of Duty series in the Middle East tweeted an apology, stating the offending content had already been removed.

“Call of Duty is made for everyone. 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.”

Translation: PC Gamer

This is the latest controversy to surround Activision Blizzard and its subsidiaries; after the start of the Activision Blizzard sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit in July of this year. You can find our latest coverage here.

The Call of Duty: Vanguard reveal trailer in August had notably omitted Activision’s logo, later explained as a “creative choice.” The logo was also missing from the game’s alpha.

Activision also had to deal with their new Kernel-level anti-cheat drivers, part of Call of Duty‘s Ricochet software, leaking to cheat developers 24 hours after being announced. Some held the belief it was a fake leak, making hackers waste time developing work-arounds for files that would not be in the final anti-cheat software.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is available on Windows PC (via Battle.net), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. In case you missed it, you can find our review here.