Seven Navy SEALs reprimanded for consulting on Medal of Honor: Warfighter

What was the price of Medal of Honor: Warfighter? £30? (Soon to be a tenner in the Steam Xmas sale?) Well whatever the price, it's cost seven Naval Special Warfare personnel dearly, as they've been punished by the Navy for consulting on the game without permission. For the sake of authenticity - something that, despite the accurately modelled guns, isn't exactly the game's strong point - the seven received "a punitive letter of reprimand and forfeiture of 1/2 month's pay for two months," as confirmed to Polygon by the Department of Defense.

The SEALs, two Senior Chief Special Operators and five Chief Special Operators, are being charged with revealing classified information, misuse of command gear and, as CBS put it , "violating the unwritten code that SEALs are silent warriors who shun the spotlight." Basically, they're ninjas.

CBS also report that the seven are members of the moderately famous Team Six , one of whom was apparently present on the raid that resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden. It's not clear what they contributed to Warfighter exactly, but it probably wasn't the feature where you can hide behind a wall for a few seconds to regain full health.

While the seven have already faced administrative proceedings, the Department of Defense have confirmed that "an additional NSW [Naval Special Warfare] investigation is ongoing to determine if more personnel may be involved."

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.

Latest in Action
Monster Hunter Wilds palico
The next Monster Hunter Wilds update is set to launch on March 10 and will ensure that when you chop off monster parts, the right monster parts get chopped off
Monster Hunter Wilds weird Palico outfits - Artian
Capcom cooked up some extremely cursed Palico outfits in Monster Hunter Wilds
GTA 5 Enhanced
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced is a bitter-sweet return to Rockstar's money-making machine
A hunter with his Switch Axe in sword mode in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Man builds Monster Hunter switch axe, complete with working flamethrower, because why not
Styx: Blades of Greed screenshot showing Styx viewing an underground mansion from a distance
My favourite AA stealth series starring a loathsome centuries-old goblin is getting a new instalment
Monster Hunter Wilds - a player yells in despair with their arms out, kneeling on the ground.
Monster Hunter Wilds' true difficulty isn't the battles: it's navigating the horrible menus
Latest in News
Doom: The Dark Ages art
The sickest gun from Doom: The Dark Ages' trailer is called the 'Skullcrusher' and does such horrible things to demons, the game's lead dev boasts id has 'the best gore in the industry'
Monster Hunter Wilds palico
The next Monster Hunter Wilds update is set to launch on March 10 and will ensure that when you chop off monster parts, the right monster parts get chopped off
A pack of real life Balatro cards.
The official Balatro Timeline documents the history of 2024's biggest game as its developer went from 'obsessed' with making it to 'shocked' at the reception
the next battlefield
Battlefield playtest gameplay is leaking all over the internet, and fans seem cautiously but genuinely excited: 'Okay, we might be back'
Milla Jovovovovovich pointing a sawed-off shotgun at something offscreen, presumably a monster or zombie or something
The Resident Evil movie reboot bidding war is over, and the winner is… Sony, who did every one of those other pretty terrible Resident Evil movies
Judge Dredd promotional image in Warzone
Half-a-dozen 2000AD games were in the works before fizzling out: 'The games you get to see are a tiny representative of the number that get started—sadly'