More hot water for Dead Island

Tomorrow’s release Dead Island has got its developer Techland in trouble for the second time in a week, this time because of a hidden anti-feminist slur.

On Tuesday it was discovered that the version of the game released for PC on Steam was actually a port of the Xbox code, complete with a number of glitches and performance issues.

Techland has promised to swiftly release a patch, though it has confirmed that installing it will wipe all progress saved by as player to date.

Now a Steam forum user has found a hidden skill file in the game’s code describing an ability called Feminist Whore”.

The studio issued a suitably apologetic reply to Eurogamer.

"It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened," international brand manager Blazej Krakowiak stated.

"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.

"I’m equally sure that aside from the author of that unfortunate line of code, everyone at the office is as disturbed by this as you are."