Medal of Honor dev defends Taliban name change, new launch trailer

Medal of Honor developers, Danger Close recently caved in to growing pressure , and renamed the Taliban forces. Danger Close marketing director Craig Owens spoke out recently about the reasons behind the name change. Read on for his comments, and the explosive new launch trailer.

Speaking to Joystiq , marketing director for Danger Close, Craig Owens, explained why the company chose to rename the Taliban, saying "The objection was, kind of from an older generation that doesn't understand games, that the soundbyte was 'Play as the Taliban and kill US soldiers. There still is, it seems, a group that's still a little bit leery of a game taking place around an active conflict."

"Really the big thing was playing as a Taliban killing US troops. So we basically just changed it to 'Opfor' -- which is a term they [the US Armed Forces] use, some of our competitors use -- more out of respect." Owens claimed the decision had nothing to do with the decision by Army and Airforce Exchange Service not to stock the game on army bases, saying “always been about the respect for the troops. It's not about Afghanistan. It's not about the enemy. It's about the brother beside you.”

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.