The director of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 has apologized for a widely criticized marketing stunt that used Twitter to broadcast details of a fictional terrorist attack under the name "Current Event Aggregate."

Late last month, the nearly three million followers of the @CallofDuty Twitter account saw a surprising tweet from the account—"BREAKING NEWS: Unconfirmed reports are coming in of an explosion on the North bank of the Singapore Marina." Eighteen similar tweets followed over the next two hours or so, discussing details of the fake bombing including "no-fly orders," roadblocks, rioting mobs, a quarantine zone, and a state of martial law enforced by drone in the Southeast Asian country.

During the campaign, the Call of Duty Twitter account had its name and art changed to support a fake "Current Events Aggregate" branding, with the tagline "Where we bring you real news." The only indication that the "breaking news" was fictional (aside from the light gray @CallOfDuty username still visible on feeds) was a single tweet posted more than four hours after the marketing stunt started: "This was a glimpse into the future fiction of #BlackOps3."

Reactions to the stunt on Twitter mainly ranged from confusion to disgust, though few posting public responses seemed legitimately concerned about the "attack." Many assumed the account had been hacked, while others thought the publisher was being irresponsible for posting alarming details of a fake attack in a real place. A tweet from @robthomas611 was indicative of wider reaction: "I was going to buy this game but not now. Your choice of marketing is reprehensible. The marketing director should be fired."

Activision and developer Treyarch have remained officially silent on the controversy for the last two weeks. But in a recent interview with IGN, Black Ops 3's single-player director Jason Blundell said he was "personally... very sorry for anyone who looked at it and got the wrong idea because it genuinely wasn’t meant that way."

While noting that he wasn't involved in the marketing, Blundell said he and the team at Treyarch were "as shocked as everybody else when it started blowing up, because essentially we were teeing up ready for a story beat. So again, very sorry for anyone who took it that way. It wasn’t meant that way at all—it was supposed to just be getting ready for a campaign element."

Activision's Twitter stunt joins a long line of questionable game marketing campaigns, from EA's fail-filled, sin-focused marketing plan forto those NSFW banner ads for super-shady social gameThere was also Activision's own seedy pop-up strip club to promote. They all pale, though, in comparison to Acclaim's absolutely mad PR stunts , which included trying to advertiseon gravestones. Compared to that, this Twitter stunt seems as tame as a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds