14 DAY TRIAL // A little while ago, the Church of England demanded Sony to pull out some scenes inspired by the Manchester Cathedral in the PlayStation 3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man. Apparently, Sony has now apologized in a letter, but it is still unclear what's going to happen with the game. Are they really going to remove the scene?
First things first. At the time of the first angry report coming from the Church of England, Manchester bishop Nigel McCulloch stated: "It is well known that Manchester has a gun crime problem. For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great Cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have guns battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible."
Now, ShackNews reports that Sony's letter to Manchester Cathedral dean Rogers Govender, according to Associated Press coverage, reads the following: "It was not our intention to cause offense by using a representation of Manchester Cathedral in chapter eight of the work," read Sony's letter. "If we have done so, we sincerely apologize."
Sony's letter also said that they "believe a comprehensive viewing of the work will make its content and context clear," expressing the electronics giant's doubt "that there is any connection between contemporary issues in 21st century Manchester and the work of science fiction in which a fictitious 1950s Britain is under attack by aliens," as the same site reports.
Having not included the rest of the letter in the article (as I'm sure there are more than just a few lines) means that no substantial details have been revealed, like what exact changes the game will undergo and so on. Expect small modifications though. Sony's quite right about the fact that 1950s Britain being under attack by aliens is pure science fiction and can in no way influence people's beliefs. And those whose beliefs could be influenced by such a thing should probably receive better education.
Good thing they didn't go for dubbing the game Resistance: Fall of Manchester, otherwise, all hell could have broken loose.