The video shows a clash between protesters and the military in the Tiananmen Square area in Beijing. Despite the fact that the footage was in the trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War for less than a second (at 1:05), the video was sharply criticized by users of China (some even accused the developers of propaganda), and then the video was blocked by the authorities. Later, an edited trailer was released, where the scandalous footage was replaced by a black screen, although the sound remained.

The Tiananmen Square protest was part of a larger pro-democracy movement that ended in the June 4, 1989 massacre. Armed detachments of the People’s Liberation Army of China marched across the square with tanks and fired at the protesters.