China declares Battlefield 4 illegal

I really liked Battlefield 4, but apparently China’s Ministry of Culture disagrees. The Ministry announced Friday that the game is illegal. Its crimes? Containing content that harms China’s national security interests, constituting a sort of ‘cultural invasion’. Websites and companies offering downloads, patches, strategy guides, and anything else related to the game have been given 24 hours to remove all Battlefield 4-related content.

The ban isn’t a huge surprise given the role that China plays in both the game’s single and multiplayer modes. In single-player, you fight against the Chinese military as controlled by a rogue general following the assassination of a liberal political leader. In multiplayer, you can run around blowing up buildings and battling other players in a variety of very authentic-looking Chinese locations, including Shanghai.

In fact, this is an issue that I addressed in my review of the game back in October:

Although I’m not Chinese, I will say that I suspect playing this game could feel a bit weird for some Chinese gamers. It does not portray China or its people as evil (although Admiral Zhang doesn’t come off well), but the fact is that you still spend most of the game shooting people who are screaming at you in Mandarin. Russian gamers are quite familiar with this feeling, of course, but it may be relatively new to some Chinese gamers to shoot an “enemy” who is wearing your country’s flag on his shoulder and hear them screaming in pain in your native tongue.

The ban isn’t a surprise, then, but as some Chinese gamers have pointed out, it’s a little ridiculous given how often American games denigrate and destroy their own landmarks and icons without incurring bans in the US (think about how many games have featured corrupt presidents, attacks on the White House, aliens destroying the Statue of Liberty, etc.). But of course China’s government operates quite differently, and logical reasoning won’t change the basic fact: Battlefield 4 is now illegal in China.

(via QQ Games)

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