Street Fighter 5 Temple Hideout stage pulled from sale so Capcom can remove Islamic chants

The music for the Temple Hideout stage in Street Fighter 5 featured some irrelevant Islamic chants.

Street Fighter 5 recently received an update that added a couple of pieces of DLC, including a new stage.

The stage, called Temple Hideout, needs to be purchased first before it becomes available for use. However, players have been reporting that it was pulled from sale on Steam and the PlayStation Store pretty quickly after release.

Fans theorised the removal has to do with the fact you can hear Islamic chanting in the background. The stage is set in a Buddhist temple in Thailand, so it was a little weird hearing these chants in the stage’s theme, which you can listen to for yourself above via VesperArcade.

Capcom has since confirmed to Shoryuken the stage was indeed pulled to remove the music 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,” the statement read.

“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.”

This is not the first time Islamic chants found their way into unrelated settings. The Fire Temple level from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time featured Muslim prayers in its music theme, before Nintendo changed it in later prints.

With that in mind, it’s not uncommon for music artists to sample similar chants in their work. The reaction to these uses can vary depending who you ask.

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