And with one announcement, Deep Silver appears to be in deep sh**.

This morning, the developers announced the Dead Island Riptide Zombie Bait Edition, a collector’s set that would only be made available in the UK and Australia. And as soon as this picture was released the internet was set on fire with a host of head scratching and disgust towards the main attraction, a mutilated torso wearing a Union Jack bikini.

Instead of posting random tweets I think it would be easier just to suggest going on Twitter and search #deadisland.

I understand the knee jerk reaction to this “piece” and it did catch me a bit off guard when I first saw it this morning. I first thought it had to be a mock up by some fan since there has already been a Collector’s Edition announced a few days ago. Some may see nothing wrong with it, but there are plenty out there who are now refusing to buy the game because of this, so I would not be surprised if Deep Silver does a 180 and does not release this.

As we have seen with [amazon_link id=”B007MS5B6Q” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Walking Dead Season 2 set[/amazon_link] there is a way to market the zombie craze without alienating a portion of your fans.

UPDATED:

Deep Silver has heard the fan outcry today and released an official statement and apology:

“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.”

Good idea for the guys at Deep Silver to post an apology quickly and not let the internet fire get out of control. The statement does not say if the special edition is being put on hold or not. You would assume that could be read in with the apology but there is no way to know until they have officially said.