Sony has gone down upon penitent knee and apologised to the Church of England for including Manchester Cathedral as a location for a brutal gun battle in its Resistance: Fall of Man video game.

In a letter sent to the Dean of the cathedral last week, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe wrote: "It was not our intention to cause offense by using a representation of Manchester Cathedral in chapter eight of the work. If we have done so, we sincerely apologise."

Resistance: Fall of Manchester?

Related stories

• Cathedral gun battle game not blessed with gaming award
• Church slams cathedral gun battle game's Bafta nomination
• Sony teams up with Nielsen to track game ads
• Videogaming not addictive... for now, doctors say
• US PS3 sales hold up as Wii, Xbox 360 numbers dip
• Sony ponders PS3 price cut
• Sony claims more than a million PAL PS3s purchased
• C of E blasts 'sacrilegious' Sony shoot-'em-up
• Five things Sony needs to do save the PS3

Two weeks ago, the Church branded Sony's decision to include the cathedral in the game "sacrilegious". Quite apart from offending religious sensibilities, it said, Sony had shown a particular lack of sensitivity by setting this part of the game in a city troubled with gun crime.

On this point Sony was unrepentant, however. In the letter, it said did not believe "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".

The Dean, the Very Reverend Rogers Govender, said he welcomed Sony's apology, but said he hadn't forgotten Church demands that the game be withdrawn or modified to remove the cathedral sequence, and calls that the Japanese giant make a substantial donation to Church-led education efforts to fight gun crime in the city.

More comments…