Not long ago we reported that the People’s Republic of China took issue with the game Battlefield 4, which depicts the Chinese as the bad guys. An editorial in the Chinese military paper Zhongguo Guofangbao claimed that the game was part of an “ongoing cultural war” intended to mislead the impressionable youths around the world, while “discrediting China’s image abroad and distorting the truth.” According to a new report from Polygon, that rhetoric has gone one step further, and Battlefield 4 has officially been banned because according to the Chinese, it “endangers national security.”
In a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the game is now persona non grata because:
Battlefield 4 is an illegal video game, with content that endangers national security. It is an aggressive attack on our culture. After the ban of Battlefield 4, we demand that all items related to the game — downloads, Raiders, patches and news — are to be deleted.
The ban follows the Battlefield 4 DLC titled China Rising, which offers maps set in the mainland China. The campaign itself depicts a rogue Chinese general as the bad guy, which the Chinese probably weren’t super thrilled with either. The ban, therefore, should be unsurprising to anyone that is familiar with the Chinese Ministry of Culture. It tends not to have a sense of humor when it comes to depicting China in a bad light.
The ban includes both the game itself, and any mention of it on the Internet. Searches for “Battlefield 4” will result in a notice that the game has been blocked due to law. The phrase “BF4” has not yet been banned, but it’s probably just a matter of time.
