An Israeli who devised a video game based on a Jewish uprising at Auschwitz has cancelled its launch, saying he is distraught by the negative reaction.

Sonderkommando Revolt, developed by Maxim Genis, is loosely based on the Jewish uprising against the camp guards in October 1944. Its protagonist is a concentration camp prisoner who takes revenge on the guards.

The aim was for the character to assassinate a high-ranking Nazi official who would have supervised the building of a new crematorium.

Ukrainian-born Mr Genis said he had lost many family members in the Holocaust. He now lives in Carmiel and has been developing the game since 2007.

He said: "I did a lot of research for the game. I wanted to show the Jews really did fight back against the Nazis. I wanted to honour them. My intentions were pure and pro-Jewish in every way."

But he said online criticism about the subject matter, and internet abuse, had led him to cancel the game.

The Anti-Defamation League had urged Mr Genis to cancel the launch, due in January 2011, saying it believed he had been "well-intentioned" but called it "a crude effort to depict Jewish resistance during this painful period."