Ubisoft has issued an apology for an image in The Division 2 that contained a homophobic slur, and removed it from the game. The multi-story piece of street art, which first came to notice earlier this week, depicted a police officer eating a donut while wearing badge number "FA6607."
That very obviously translates from 'leetspeak' into a slur, and there's no clear context for it. Is the police officer homophobic, or is it a homophobic anti-police statement, or is the word just there and there's no reason behind it? Ubisoft has not attempted to defend the image, and said it should have been caught by its review process before making it into the game.
(Update: Some players think the image is a riff on art for the 1981 Black Flag single "Police Story." There are similarities, but even if that link is legitimate, it doesn't provide any additional context or sense for the in-game image.)
"It's been brought to our attention that a piece of street art in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 contained offensive content. We removed the image from the game via a patch on Thursday, April 11," Ubisoft said in a statement.
"We apologize that this image slipped through our content review processes, and we are currently reviewing them in order to avoid this kind of oversight from occurring in the future."
Ubisoft didn't comment on how the image made it into the game in the first place, although the offending content is a very small part of the image and obviously not easy to pick out.
