Street Fighter V’s Buddhist stage removed after religious blunder

Screen Grab from YouTube/VesperArcade

Last week, Street Fighter V brought back the feeling of nostalgia for the franchise’s dedicated fan base by bringing back a classic stage as a DLC (downloadable content) feature.

Surprisingly, just two days after its initial release, Capcom removed the “Thailand Temple Hideout” in the PlayStation Store and Steam altogether.

According to GameRant, the update was pulled out due to a religious controversy involving the stage and its background music.

Although the Buddhist-themed stage—which serves as the home base to the antagonistic character M. Bison—was clearly designed to reflect Buddhism, its background tune featured a contradicting Islamic chant instead.

After taking down the update, Capcom acknowledged the blunder and issued an apology for the insensitive mishap.

“The Street Fighter 5 development and operations team, as well as all of us at Capcom, have nothing but the utmost respect for all faiths and religions around the world, and we would like to sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by this content,” it said.

Capcom also promised to replace the audio with another music from a different stage. Currently, the Thailand Temple Hideout stage plays M. Bison’s “Street Fighter 5” theme.

Last year Street Fighter V was also forced to remove one of its character’s infamous “butt-slap” taunt, after receiving negative feedback.  Khristian Ibarrola /ra

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