Deep Silver has had some serious trouble with their marketing in the past, but the new Riptide stunt attempts to kick it up to a different level. While the original Dead Island trailer was, at the least, misleading, it was generally favored as a nice piece of art.

Dead Island Riptide, the second installment in Deep Silver’s already infamous franchise, has kicked off its ad campaign with another misstep. If a misleading, albeit, beautiful, trailer was the worst they had done, maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad. With the newest announcement on January 15, they might have jumped the shark.

Included with the Dead Island Riptide: Zombie Bait edition is a lot of the usual junk. You’ll get a steel case, some extra physical art cards, some additional game content…but wait. What the hell is that?

Look at that. You can almost hear the marketing department proudly declare, “Hey! We’re about as terrible as you can get! Give us some cash! Also, aren’t boobies cool?” Asking a premium price in exchange for a disembodied woman’s torso is pretty cool, right kids? Right? Anybody?

After pictures from the special edition appeared online, Twitter and other sites rapidly picked up on it and started tearing the publisher to shreds with accusations of sexism. A Forbes headline referred to the torso as “horrifying.” Putting aside the issues of sexism for a second, who, regardless of taste, could display this in their home/office/wherever? I’m pretty sure I would get arrested for having a bleeding torso sitting atop my office desk.

While the first Dead Island wasn’t the emotionally driven piece of art that the trailer made it out to be, it was still a pretty fun game. I’m sure the second one will be fine too. I can only hope that maybe, just maybe, they’ll learn that toying with consumers and trying to sell them…this… isn’t going to make them any friends.

– Zach

Image Sources: kotaku.com joystiq.com gamesonly.at