Street Fighter V has a remake of the classic temple level from Street Fighter II. Or, it did for a few hours, until the stage was yanked from the game not long after fans quickly noticed it contained Islamic references.
Despite being a stage set in the predominantly Buddhist Thailand, and focusing the camera on little else but giant Buddhist icons inside the grounds of a Buddhist temple, the vocals in the level’s soundtrack are full of references to Allah.
As Venom44, a Muslim gamer who was one of the first to discover the chants (which say “By the name of the God, the most merciful” and “ALLAH ALLAH”) explains, it’s not just weird hearing Islamic chants in a Buddhist temple, but the chants Capcom used sound identical to those used in the earliest versions of Ocarina of Time:
The stage has since been pulled from the game, though no announcement has been made from Capcom as to why.
UPDATE: Capcom has issued a statement explaining that, yes, the chants were Islamic, and that the stage is getting a replacement backing track.
It has come to our attention that part of the background music track used in the DLC Thailand Temple Hideout Stage, released on April 25, 2017, contains unintentional religious references. Capcom has therefore immediately ceased distribution of this DLC and, as a temporary measure, will be performing an emergency server maintenance update in the very near future to remove this track by replacing it with existing music from another stage. Details of the timing of this update will be provided via the @SFVServer Twitter account.
Users who have already downloaded this DLC will still be able to use it and, once the emergency maintenance update is complete, will have the replacement music as well.
An edited version of the Thailand Temple Hideout Stage background music will be released at a later date.
The Street Fighter V 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.