Deep Silver apologizes for the tacky item bundled with the package

Jan 16, 2013 20:51 GMT  ·  By

Publisher Deep Silver revealed a rather striking Dead Island: Riptide Zombie Bait Edition yesterday that caused a huge controversy because it had a female torso without a head, hands or legs that was viciously ravaged everywhere except the chest area.

Now, the company has posted a new statement saying it's deeply sorry for the controversial edition of the game and that it's taking steps to ensure that such a thing won't happen again.

Dead Island: Riptide is the sequel to the pretty popular Dead Island which appeared in 2011 and generated a lot of money for developer Techland and publisher Deep Silver.

We already got to admire the pretty intriguing Dead Island: Riptide Rigor Mortis Special Edition designed for North American gamers and Deep Silver presented the Dead Island: Riptide Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia yesterday.

Besides featuring the game and bonus content for it, the special edition also has a female torso whose head, hands and legs had been chopped off and everything except her breasts have been scratched.

"We wanted to provide a unique collector's edition that was utterly 'Dead Island' and would make a striking conversation piece on any discerning zombie gamer's mantel," Deep Silver said about the object.

While the sculpture was meant to be controversial, things quickly escalated and the publisher has now posted an apology, via CVG.

"We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide 'Zombie Bait Edition'," the company said.

"For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original Dead Island."

"We sincerely regret this choice. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again."

What did you think about the controversial version of Dead Island: Riptide? Should Deep Silver apologize for trying to court controversy?