Last week a Kotaku tipster discovered two phone numbers on a bulletin board in the Pittsburgh section of The Last of Us. In-game the phone numbers were said to belong to a pest control service, but after calling them he discovered that both led to working phone-sex hotlines. Naughty Dog has since apologized for the phone numbers, and promised to remove them from the game.
The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann explained how the phone-sex hotline numbers made their way into the game, calling it an “honest mistake.”
“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. It was just an honest mistake.”
After launching to critical acclaim earlier this month, The Last of Us has found itself in a bit of hot water on a variety of surprising issues — with phone-sex-gate being the latest example. This week kicked off with Ellen Page accusing Naughty Dog of using her likeness for the character of Ellie without permission, and a few days later a graphic designer publicly called the studio out over the unauthorized inclusion of his Boston Transit map.
None of these issues are likely to do anything to harm the success of The Last of Us, but it is a bit shocking to see so many things pop up all of a sudden. With all the little extras thrown into the game’s environment, I can’t help but wonder if we have seen the last of the surprises.
