Earlier today, Deep Silver revealed a special ‘Zombie Bait’ edition of Dead Island: Riptide for sale in Europe and Australia. It’s centerpiece (pictured) was a decapitated, limbless female form, covered in gore, but with curiously well preserved breasts.
Look, publishers, I know you’re all eager to get in line for next year’s IncGamers PR Gaffe of the Year award, but please don’t exhaust yourselves before we even reach the end of January.
Strange as it may seem, quite a few people did not relate the plastic wonder with an “iconic Roman statue” (as the press release would have it), but instead identified it as a tacky piece of trash and complained.
In response, Deep Silver has issued one of those classic half-apologies that companies are so good at. It states “We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide “Zombie Bait Edition”, the collector’s edition announced for Europe and Australia” and adds that “we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.”
Pictures of a US version of the torso (featuring a stars and stripes bikini) have been circulating too, but this edition appears never to have been announced for the US.
It’s unclear at this stage whether the Zombie Bait edition will be pulled from sale. The apology doesn’t really say that it will, and Deep Silver are studiously ignoring that particular line of inquiry at present.
Dead Island Riptide is the follow-up to Dead Island, a game that generated its own controversy through a botched Steam release and leftover debug code that referred to one of the in-game skills as ‘Feminist Whore.’
