Electronic Arts Buckles Under Pressure, Removes Playable Taliban from Medal of Honor



Responding to the reaction of the "friends and families of fallen soldiers," Electronic Arts today said today they are removing the Taliban as playable characters from their upcoming military shooter Medal of Honor.

The opposing force that the U.S. military take on in Afghanistan in multiplayer bouts is now called the "opposing force."

Medal of Honor came under intense pressure from the military after it became known that in the multiplayer portions of the game, players would be able to take on the role of Taliban fighters.

In early September, the commanding general of the Army and Air Force Exchange Services told Kotaku that he decided to have Medal of Honor pulled from U.S. military bases worldwide because of the "well-documented reports of depictions of Taliban fighters engaging American troops" in the game.

Electronic Arts declined to comment at the time about whether the decision by the Army & Air Force Exchange Services would impact the design of the game.

In a statement this morning on the Medal of Honor website, Greg Goodrich, executive producer of Medal of Honor, said the decision to drop the Taliban reference was driven purely by the feedback from friends and families of fallen soldiers.

"This is a very important voice to the Medal of Honor team," he wrote. "This is a voice that has earned the right to be listened to. It is a voice that we care deeply about. Because of this, and because the heartbeat of Medal of Honor has always resided in the reverence for American and Allied soldiers, we have decided to rename the opposing team in Medal of Honor multiplayer from Taliban to Opposing Force."

Goodrich said the change will not directly affect gamers or alter gameplay.

SOURCE

WTH..Opposing Force??!!!

Terrorrists - 1
EA - 0

This post has been edited by nwk: Oct 2 2010, 01:30 AM

So much for freedom of speech. America made a u-turn and became Afghanistan instead.

Taliban day!

Instead of changing the Taliban's name to Opposing Force, EA could have called them Talibanned.

That way everyone will be happy, except the Taliban....

i also cancelled mine. no taliban = no buy..