Life Is Strange Devs Reportedly Found Hidden Nazi Symbols During Development
Deck Nine, the studio behind Life is Strange, apparently had an issue with Nazi symbols and dog whistles mysteriously appearing in its work during development. In a new report by IGN, insiders spoke about toxic work culture and their concerns about someone trying to hide hate speech in their games.
Symbols included the number 88 (code for “Heil Hitler”), racist memes, the number 18 (code for “Adolf Hitler”), and the Hagal rune. Developers flagged the symbols for bosses to remove, but changes were not as swift as they hoped. In one instance, developers asked to remove an image of a particular racist meme, but it reportedly remained present, albeit displayed less prominently. While developers acknowledged that adding numbers could be a simple mistake, it was difficult to believe it was coincidental next to the other symbols.
After enough hate speech reports, CEO Mark Lyons finally addressed the issue in a message to employees on Slack. Deck Nine hired Investigations Law Group to investigate the issue, but employees haven’t been informed about the details of the investigation or the results. Lyons also announced that the company would be implementing an anti-hate-speech policy and mandatory training. Current employees claim that these haven’t gone into action yet.