This is not the first time Naughty Dog’s immensely impressive The Last of Us has ran into problems, and although none of them are related in-game issues, the recent one is easily one of the most bizarre of them all.
According to reports, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has promised gamers that the company will remove certain real-life phone sex numbers which can be located within the game.
The problem started, as reported by Kotaku, after players calling the hotline numbers, found as "Pest Control" phone numbers within the game, expecting some sort of Naughty Dog-created surprise. However, on calling, they were instead greeted by the very real "hottest sex line in America."
The game's creative director Neil Druckmann discussed about these phone numbers, and how they got into the game. He stated: "That was an artist's mistake. What happened was, they put some phone numbers in the game and then they thought they could just change the area code to 555, then it's invalid because it's what they do in movies. But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it."
"We're now working to take it out," Druckmann said. "It was just an honest mistake."
As mentioned earlier, this is not the first time the game has run into controversies in the past few days since its release. Only recently, Hollywood actress Ellen Page accused Naughty Dog of ripping off her likeness earlier for The Last of Us earlier this week.
When The Last of Us' Ellie was revealed publicly, observers stated that she looked similar to Inception and Juno star Page. However, the developer later stated that it's a "complete coincidence" that the studio crafted out the appearance of Ellie in The Last of Us after she was also earlier said to resemble Ellen Page. The actress was already confirmed as the star of Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls.
Bruce Straley, game director, per a Eurogamer report, “said the suggestion that Ellie looked like Page came as a surprise to the Santa Monica developer - and not even a pleasant one. ‘We hear what people are saying - we didn't realize that ourselves, because we just try to push for the characters that we want. And when we see the reactions we're like, OK, we don't like that... We want our characters to stand on their own two feet’.”
The Last of Us saw a world-wide release back in June 14. Check here to listen to the complete audio.
