'Feminist Whore' Found in Code of New Game

There's a game called Dead Island, developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver, that is drawing a bit of fire over an aspect of the game called “Gender Wars.” A character named Purna, who is a woman, is given the ability to cause an extra 15 percent damage to men characters. Which in and of itself isn't too bad. But what it's called in the code has some female gamers up in arms.

Some genius thought it would be funny to name the skill “Feminist Whore.” And then didn't change the code before rolling out a version of the game to Steam.

Deep Silver passed the buck nicely to Techland in a statement: “These unfortunate actions were of one individual at developer company Techland and do not in any way represent the views of publishing company Deep Silver.” (Translation: We're not responsible for the immaturity of employees at another company.)

“It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened,” Blazej Krakowiak, international brand manager at Techland, told Eurogamer. “We're investigating this right now and we'll issue a statement later. For now, I can only express my sincerest apologies for this incident and assure you that whoever acted so irresponsibly did not represent the views and opinions of Techland.”