(UPDATED) Dead Island: Riptide gets a “Zombie Bait” edition, contains disturbing “Figurine”

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4 mins read

Do you remember Dead Island, Techland’s open-world zombie game? If so, good for you. Do you remember that Dead Island is going to have its successor released in three months under the name of Dead Island: Riptide? If you have forgotten, Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide publisher Deep Silver just announced the “Zombie Bait” edition of the game. In this edition, purchasers will receive the game, a steelbook case, collectible cards, an exclusive pack of weapon mods, and…well…take a look for yourself;

Yes, you are not hallucinating and you have not misplaced your glasses; that is a “Figurine” of a limbless, headless torso of a zombified girl in a bikini. According to Deep Silver, this figurine is a Dead Island-esque take on, “an iconic Roman marble torso sculpture.” Below is Deep Silvers justification for the creation of this figurine, as stated by Deep Silver sales and marketing director Paul Nicholls;
“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.”
Now, I will admit; I am a male. I have the same fascination with the female “Anatomy” that most other males have. But I can’t be the only one who thinks this figurine is wrong on several levels. While I will not accuse this figure as being sexist as I feel I have no right to do so, I will say that creating an extreme male-targeted piece of memorabilia just to get your game noticed is not helping anyone, especially those advocating that video games do offer more than male fantasies.
UPDATE: After this story caught wind of the larger gaming communities and Deep Silver realized that the “Figurine” might be in terrible taste, they have issued an apology on Twitter;
We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide “Zombie Bait Edition”, the collector’s edition announced for Europe and Australia. Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector’s Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

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. We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver’s entire international team today. 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.

There has been no official statement on whether or not the figurine will be removed from the Zombie Bait edition of Dead Island: Riptide.

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  • Classy. If this isn't some extra-devious PR stunt, I'll probably lose my faith in just about everything. Who'd want to own that thing, anyway?

  • I wouldn't.

    In Japan you can get figurines of a range of game- anime- manga- and original creations females with prepubescent faces, flat chests and tiny bikinis. Those figurines have heads and arms and manage to be plenty offensive.

    Offensive, right? Sexploitation is sexploitation. I grow tired of the industry playing pick and choose with what is morally bankrupt, and what is A-OK. If this is not offensively exploitative, then the Hitman trailer was perfectly legit too.

    Or both are examples of a games industry that still tries to pretend that only sex-starved teenage boys play games. You decide.

  • Maybe a little. At least then it would actually be a figurine of sorts.

    Also, my comment about not calling it sexist was about myself feeling under-qualified to judge anything as sexist. Being a middle-class white male American, I feel inadequate to judge certain things as sexist and racist as I am part of one of the most privileged group of people.

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