Phone sex hotline accidentally featured in 'The Last of Us'
For one of PlayStation's most prized and lauded development studios, Naughty Dog appears to have made some sloppy mistakes in creating The Last of Us. First came criticism from an unappreciative Ellen Page regarding Elle's likeness to the actress. Then earlier this week, the developer came under fire for using a Boston subway map as in-game artwork without proper attribution. Having smoothed that situation over, Naughty Dog now finds itself attached to a more risqué controversy. It turns out the phone number displayed on another piece of in-game background art — a billboard advertisement for a pest control company — belongs to an exotic phone sex hotline. The Verge can confirm that dialing the number for The Last of Us' fictional ABC Quality Pest Control connects you to a very real adult service.
Hilarious, I bet some players had some unexpected fun! 🤣
Yes. Nothing like adding some unexpected spice to the games.
Speaking to Kotaku, creative director Neil Druckmann explained that the slipup was "an honest mistake" by one of the game's artists. "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," Druckmann said. "But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it." Naughty Dog says it's currently working to remove the inappropriate number, presumably through a forthcoming patch.
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