The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 map “Favela” garnered quite a bit of controversy after some religious groups complained of the use of a photo-frame located in the bathroom, which contained Islamic text. Although the use of the texture couldn’t have been anything but accidental, it was still seen as an insult to the religion and was thus removed by Infinity Ward after complaints surfaced.
The map has since been edited to remove the offending textures and has returned to rotation on the PlayStation 3. The map will soon be re-launched on the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game in an upcoming patch.
The new version of the Favela map comes with no other changes, and weighs 17MB on the PlayStation 3, where it has currently just gone live.
According to Eurogamer, the original text around the frame read, “Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty.” It is now blank.
In addition to the release of the new map, the game’s publisher Activision released a statement: “Activision and our development studios are respectful of diverse cultures and religious beliefs, and sensitive to concerns raised by its loyal game players,” Activision wrote. “We thank our fans for bringing this to our attention.”
If videogame developers were to listen to, and heed every complaint from religious groups that they received, we may never see churches, bibles, or any other form of religious iconography in videogames.
