Sound design mishap yields racist zombies in Back 4 Blood

[lazygecko]

 

Footage here: https://fxtwitter.com/savinthebees/status/1424144154725011464?s=21

 

Seems like they're using a system that dynamically strings together random guttural vocalizations for the zombies and one of the possible combinations had some real unfortunate implications. Kind of an interesting problem to have.

[Murdoch]

That is unfortunate. The streamer's reaction was kind of hilarious. Good to see most people seem to not be being dickheads about an honest mistake but no doubt there will be some people who decide to get all in a huff about it because of course it was intentional how could it not be intentional #cancelback4blood #ifeeldirtytypinghashtagsevenjustforthisstupidjoke

[Gez]

If you decide to have randomly generated phonemes, you should expect to get awkward combinations. There are so many words or just one or two syllables that are potentially troublesome.

[Mr. Freeze]

I thought zombies retained some of their personality upon turning? If anything the number of racist zombies would be notably increased in real life.

[Murdoch]

15 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I thought zombies retained some of their personality upon turning? If anything the number of racist zombies would be notably increased in real life.

 

Yeah. I have no problem with racist zombies, just makes shooting them more fun. Depiction doesn't equal endorsement.

[Dark Pulse]

What's more surprising to me is that somehow this wasn't caught in testing.

 

But well, that's basically always what happens with any widescale release, isn't it?

 

No matter how much or how good your testers and QA team are, stuff will simply always slip through the cracks.

[MFG38]

Okay, I've gotta admit, that's way more hilarious than it should be.

[Bauul]

I was expecting something that maybe half could be interpreted as that word, but no that's really clear! Damn racist zombies, carrying their prejudice even past death!

[7Mahonin]

2 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I thought zombies retained some of their personality upon turning? If anything the number of racist zombies would be notably increased in real life.

I think it generally depends on who’s writing the zombies whether that’s the case or not, but yeah if they did retain some of their personality there would be plenty of racist zombies. Not every racist is open about their beliefs either (some even pretend to not be racist but deep down they are), so if they had less control over themselves from being a zombie, they would likely say things they’d say to themselves but not to the public, and their deepest thoughts and animal instincts would likely be all that was retained for them to even think about at all.

 

So there would be more racist zombies than there are openly racist people on earth if there were zombies to begin with. What would be interesting, is if the zombies are only racist still to people who aren’t zombies and that’s how they seek their “brains” is through prejudice or if they even take issue with other zombies who don’t look like them too and segregate or fight amongst different races of zombified peoples.

 

I honestly had never even thought of something like that before, but I guess if zombies do turn out to exist sometime we will know for sure. I will admit, this is a bit hilarious. Mainly because it is clearly not intentional for the zombie to make a sound that sounds like a slur, and I never would’ve even thought about the possibility of there being zombies who retain racism if it wasn’t for this. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by TelicAx7

[omx32x]

3 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I thought zombies retained some of their personality upon turning? If anything the number of racist zombies would be notably increased in real life.

depends on the story there are all sorts of zombies out there from the really dumb ones to the extremely smart but eat people ones

[The BMFG]

ITS OFFICIAL! The Zombies From L4D L4D2 And B4B Are Racist! Someone Cancel These Fleshbags Immediately! We Gotta Stop The Green Flu Virus From Spreading So That Racist Zombies Are No More!

[lazygecko]

Following public outcry and having been let go of their position at Brain Eaters Inc, zombie_female_04.mdl has issued an apology stating that the offending incident "does not reflect my values".

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

At least they'll fix it

[Skeletonpatch]

I love how laid back his reaction was. The zombie shouts it at the top of whatever is left of her lungs and he's just like, "what did you just call me?" in a really polite tone.

 

I kinda wish the developer's address of this issue was a bit goofier than it was, but I guess if they tried to make it into a joke they'd garner some backlash even though they'd still take steps to fix it.

[IvanDobrovski]

I think in this case it's especially unfortunate that the streamer is well... You get it :P I doubt this was deliberate by the company, however I'm really curious how that voice clip ended up getting there in the first place.

[Murdoch]

9 minutes ago, IvanDobrovski said:

I think in this case it's especially unfortunate that the streamer is well... You get it :P I doubt this was deliberate by the company, however I'm really curious how that voice clip ended up getting there in the first place.

 

It didn't. Two unrelated zombie grunts the engine happened to play close together. 

[IvanDobrovski]

1 minute ago, Murdoch said:

 

It didn't. Two unrelated zombie grunts the engine happened to play close together. 

Wow really? What are the odds of all of that happening... damn.

[Martin Howe]

One of the nightmares of graphic designers and architects is the accidental swastika; guess this is the audio equivalent :(

 

It can even happen randomly when baking pies, as Mr Kipling found out:

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Martin Howe

[Skeletonpatch]

10 hours ago, IvanDobrovski said:

Wow really? What are the odds of all of that happening... damn.

 

From what I understood, the game has a library of guttural-sounding syllables that it randomly combines to create unique zombie vocalizations that don't become repetitive. Similar to how the HECU in Half-Life combine separate voice clips to create sentences on the fly, though those aren't random. I actually do think that's a pretty clever idea, but obviously you need to be careful otherwise you can get stuff like this happening. I honestly don't think it's a big deal, but it's a situation where you just can't be too careful since there will always be people who take it 107.49% seriously.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Skeletonpatch

[UncleTito]

Plays like a Cum Town bit honestly 

[Jello]

10 hours ago, Martin Howe said:

One of the nightmares of graphic designers and architects is the accidental swastika; guess this is the audio equivalent :(

 

It can even happen randomly when baking pies, as Mr Kipling found out:

 

Well, to be fair, with that Naval Base they intentionally designed it that way so that every office could have a window. It just turned out that a swastika ended up being the most efficient use of space available that also allowed courtyards and windows. Whoops!

 

Honestly unless you're looking at the blueprints or a satellite image, I doubt you'd ever notice. I'd rather have that than some giant monolithic monstrosity looming over me. 

 

There's a large hotel in my home town, the Alex Johnson, one of the more "well to do, fancy pants" hotels. Well, this shows up throughout the hotel. In the floor tiles, on the walls, everywhere:

They were intentionally put there, it's a Native American symbol, the whirling log, that predates the Nazi's by thousands of years. Although, it's also a symbol that's cropped up throughout human history, and it sucks that the Nazi's had to ruin it. But anyway, I just remember hearing about this because years ago there was a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors were here taking a trip (I think it had something to do with Jack van der Geest living in the area), and they were staying at the Alex Johnson. Oh you bet there was a kerfuffle when they noticed these things everywhere. Luckily cooler heads prevailed, it was explained to them, and the community at large, that these are there to reflect the Native heritage in this area.

 

I mean shit, the hotel was built at least a decade six years before Hitler even became Chancellor. 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Jello
Fixed it. I thought it was built in 1923, but it was 1927-28.

[Mr. Freeze]

1 hour ago, Jello said:

They were intentionally put there, it's a Native American symbol, the whirling log, that predates the Nazi's by thousands of years. Although, it's also a symbol that's cropped up throughout human history, and it sucks that the Nazi's had to ruin it.

 

Nazi swastikas are always angled, religious swastikas like the Bhuddist swastika are not. The more yuo know!

[Jello]

1 hour ago, Mr. Freeze said:

 

Nazi swastikas are always angled, religious swastikas like the Bhuddist swastika are not. The more yuo know!

I know this, but there's plenty of people out there that don't know this. And knowing is half the battle! The other half is killing Nazis.