November 17 2:31 P.M.
It might have racked up one of the most successful launches in entertainment history in the West, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Russian launch has not proven quite such a success.
At issue is a controversial (and optional) sequence in which the player takes the role of an undercover CIA agent who joins a group of Russian nationalist terrorists and participates in a massacre of civilians at an airport. The scene has already incited discussion on Fox News and in Britain's Houses of Parliament -- and now it looks as though the game's publisher has decided it may not go down too well with Russian audiences, either.
Initially it sounded as though Russia had banned the game outright, but the official word from publisher Activision is that Russian gamers simply won't be seeing the offending scene.
"Reports that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been banned in Russia are erroneous. Activision only released a PC version of the game in Russia which went on sale on Tuesday, Nov. 10," an Activision spokesperson told us. "Other countries have formal ratings boards that we regularly work with. However, Russia does not have a formal ratings entity. As a result, we chose to block the scene after seeking the advice of local counsel."
It's currently unclear whether the scene was removed from PC copies of Modern Warfare 2 before they went on sale, or whether the edits take place automatically when a buyer installs and updates the game. As to the fate of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, the situation is even less clear -- but online reports indicate Russian console owners won't be left out in the cold for long, and can expect to see versions of the game (minus the controversial mission) to show up in stores within a month.
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Posted: 17 Nov 2009
