Update: Techland issued a statement to Tracey John in addition to what’s contained below. It reads, “It has come to our attention that one of Dead Island’s leftover debug files contains a highly inappropriate internal script name of one of the character skills. This has been inexcusably overlooked and released with the game. The line in question was something a programmer considered a private joke. The skill naturaly [sic] has a completely different in-game name and the script reference was also changed. What is left is a part of an obscure debug function. This is merely an explanation but by no means an excuse. In the end that code was made a part of the product and signed with our company name.
“We deeply regret that fact and we apologize to all our customers or anyone who might have been offended by that inappropriate expression. The person responsible for this unfortunate situation will face professional consequences for violating the professional standards and beliefs Techland stands for.”
Original Story: It’s been a tumultuous week for Dead Island. The game had a number of bugs that led to developer Techland releasing a day-one patch that could cause players to lose access to their save games, while the version released on Steam was the “incorrect” one. Now a line of code that’s been found references a skill called “Feminist Whore.”
