They say that no publicity is bad publicity, and it appears that the creators of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 decided to put that theory to the test by posting a series of tweets reporting fake terrorist activity in Singapore. Apparently, quite a few people who either live in Singapore or know people who do are not too pleased about the stunt.

Here are just a few examples of the offending tweets:

“BREAKING NEWS: Unconfirmed reports are coming in of an explosion on the North bank of the Singapore Marina.”

 

“The cause of the explosion is unknown, but large plumes of dark smoke have been seen rising from the site.”

 

“City Authorities urge the public not to panic, and to not hinder the emergency teams that are converging on the area.”

 

“UPDATE: Sources confirm explosion took place at Singapore Research Laboratories belonging to Coalescence Corporation.”

 

“UPDATE: Singapore Authorities have officially announced a state of emergency and declared martial law.”

While most people probably would not expect to get real, hard-hitting live news coverage from @CallofDuty on Twitter, most people would also probably be able to realize that this was a really bad idea on the developer’s part.

After a dozen or so tweets, the studio did conclude the stunt by saying, “This was a glimpse into the future fiction of #BlackOps3.” Unfortunately, that was not enough to appease the people who thought that creating fake news about a terrorist attack in a real city is a bad way to sell video games.

So far, neither the game’s developer, Treyarch, nor its publisher, Activision Publishing Inc., have commented on the backlash, and the tweets are still visible on the @CallofDuty Twitter account.

This is not the first time that the folks behind the Call of Duty series have made some… questionable decisions. In the 2014 game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, there was a highly controversial scene where the player character attended a military funeral and was given the prompt “Press F to Pay Respects.” The scene was so ridiculous that the prompt has since become a popular internet meme.

Image courtesy of Activision Publishing Inc