Techland responds to "Feminist Whore" skill in early Dead Island code

Fresh issues have appeared in Dead Island's problematic launch, which has already been marred by the fact that Techland apparently distributed an incomplete, buggy version of their game through Steam. Now Duncan Harris points us to a post on the Steam forums where a Aleksei Vasiliev spotted that the mistakenly released code contained a skill called 'Feminist Whore'.

The name is not visible in the game itself, but can be seen in the file structure within Data0.pak\Data\default_player_setup.scr

sub Skills_Purna(){

Skill("TeamSpirit1Purna");

Skill("SharpApprenticePurna");

[...]

Skill("TeamSpirit2Purna");

Skill("FeministWhorePurna");

Skill("MeleeDurabilityPurna");

[...]

}

Brand Manager Blazej Krakowiak told Eurogamer that "It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened." He apologised for the incident and said that they were "Investigating this right now and we'll issue a statement later.

Dead Island's launch has already been difficult, with the version initially available on Steam appearing to be an early development build. Publishers Deep Silver previously made a statement to ArsTechnica regarding the mistake, saying, "We deeply regret that an incorrect version of Dead Island was inadvertently made available to players on Steam launch in North America."

A follow up statement to CVG says that the full version will be sent out shortly. To say sorry, "Deep Silver plans to announce a 'make up' to North American fans who were affected by the day 1 PC issues." Deep Silver don't say what the "make up" will be. Electrified katanas for all?

As we reported before, Dead Island will get a large patch on Friday to fix some of the current issues. Here is the full list of patch notes.

Complete list of improvements:

• Multiplayer and Matchmaking improvements

• Maps are now correctly synchronized when player joins during map loading

• Games now filter correctly in lobby

• After joining a coop game enemies now spawn correctly

• User guidance improved. (Quest guidance, UI, shop)

Additional interface polishing

• Map tracking now works correctly after loading checkpoints

• Health and stamina bars of enemies now display correctly in coop.

• Locations of invisible NPCs are no longer shown

• More than one player can now use the same ladder simultaneously

• Focus on items in shops is not changing after operation (sell, buy)

• Additional Interface polishing

• Fixed displaying gather rings near some door

Player death behavior improved

• Respawn position now saved when playing in cooperative mode

• If player dies whilst inside vehicle, menu will now be hidden

Save game mechanics extended

• Added distinction between quest checkpoints and other saves

Minor animation fixes

• AI animation now displays correctly after fast travel or travel through portals

AI improvements

• Improved enemy awareness (zombies)

• Enemies reaction to fire adapted

• Enemies are now able to successfully reach player on some arenas

• Shooting enemies no longer spawn infinitely

• Balancing changes in difficulty, majorly for second playthrough

• Item level will be calculated correctly when playing in second playthrough

• Kick interrupting reload now adapted, after clip wis inserted reload is treated as successful

• Health regeneration is now disabled during grab.

• More HP for all escorted NPCs

• Removed all instances of Butcher during escorts

• Purna can gain bonus rage from both "Grim Inspiration" and "Inspiring Kick"

• Only "Walker" type enemies increase the extra XP of the "Combo" skill from Xian's Survival skill tree

Pause Option added

• Added information about players requesting pause (Coop)

Looting rules improved

• Thrown items now cannot be picked up by another player for 5 minutes.

• Items from just-opened containers cannot be picked up by another player for 5 seconds.

Minor graphical glitches fixed.

• Rectified occasional graphical glitch with NPC's hands bend

• Animations now display correctly when trading

• Stomper animation now displays correctly when same target is hit by another player

Sound bugs fixed

• Volume of pickup's engine has been increased

Quest bugs removed

• All side quests in Laboratory can now be successfully completed

• Potential walkthrough blocker removed when quest "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is completed before talking to Dominik during "On the air" quest