While we haven’t officially heard that the country’s ban has been lifted, there are signs that it has.

The AP is reporting that Kuwait has essentially banned this year’s Call of Duty, though the government has not commented or confirmed this. However, Microsoft-owned Activision has announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has not been approved for release in the country: “All pre-orders in Kuwait will be canceled and refunded to the original place of purchase. We remain hopeful that local authorities will reconsider and allow players in Kuwait to enjoy this all-new experience in the Black Ops series,” Activision said.

The ban is no coincidence: the game is set during the 1991 Gulf War. It was sparked by Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Although the game is heavily fictionalized, much of the pre-release footage used in the game was real footage from the archives, including George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Colin Powell and Saddam Hussein from the period. But not everyone describes the events of the time (especially if they lived through them…):

“The move to block this game may seem theatrical because people will find ways to buy this game if they really want it, whether it be via VPN or paying a premium price on the black market. What’s more interesting is the motivation of the authorities to block a game set in a traumatic time for Kuwait – the Gulf War. Kuwait still has difficulty dealing with that particular moment in history, for better or worse,” a local gaming analyst told The New Arab.

Activision previously removed the “No Russian” track from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in the Russian version, and cut out Tiananmen Square from a video in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre by the Chinese Communist Party). But now they’ve built an entire game around an event they consider sensitive…

Source: PCGamer, AP, The New Arab