Ubisoft apologizes for homophobic slur in The Division 2

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An image of a police officer that contained the slur has been removed from the game.

Image source: Imgur

Ubisoft has issued an apology for an image in The Division 2 that contained a homophobic slur, and removed it from the game. The multi-story piece of street art, which first came to notice earlier this week, depicted a police officer eating a donut while wearing badge number "FA6607." 

That very obviously translates from 'leetspeak' into a slur, and there's no clear context for it. Is the police officer homophobic, or is it a homophobic anti-police statement, or is the word just there and there's no reason behind it? Ubisoft has not attempted to defend the image, and said it should have been caught by its review process before making it into the game. 

(Update: Some players think the image is a riff on art for the 1981 Black Flag single "Police Story." There are similarities, but even if that link is legitimate, it doesn't provide any additional context or sense for the in-game image.)

"It's been brought to our attention that a piece of street art in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 contained offensive content. We removed the image from the game via a patch on Thursday, April 11," Ubisoft said in a statement. 

"We apologize that this image slipped through our content review processes, and we are currently reviewing them in order to avoid this kind of oversight from occurring in the future." 

Ubisoft didn't comment on how the image made it into the game in the first place, although the offending content is a very small part of the image and obviously not easy to pick out.

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Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.