Dead Island dev apologises for 'feminist

Another day, another controversial report with Dead Island at its core. Almost like some sort of marketing stunt. Someone with programming know-how and a really boring life, we imagine, has discovered a line of code hidden in Dead Island that names a 'feminist wh*re' skill for the female character Purna and posted it online. That skill doesn't appear anywhere in the actual gameplay, but has nevertheless sparked outrage. Developer Techland has moved to apologise for the slur, which it says 'a programmer considered a private joke', and promises disciplinary action. "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," it said. "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 srmtc 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."A serious matter or a big hoo-ha over nothing? You decide. But this is the second time in one week the folks behind Dead Island have found themselves apologising on behalf of the zombie shooter, after early purchasers through Steam discovered they were accidentally served a disastrously buggy development version of the game.Facepalm. Mike Jackson

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