Naughty Dog pledges to remove The Last of Us' phone sex numbers

UPDATE: Naughty Dog released patch 1.02 for The Last of Us last week, and removed the real-life phone sex numbers that could be spotted within the game.

The patch, which also makes improvements to the PlayStation 3's multiplayer, changes the texture of the phone number on the bulletin board that raised eyebrows. The hotlines were labelled as "Pest Control" phone numbers, but were in fact for the "hottest sex line in America".

Elsewhere, technical improvements to multiplayer should reduce crashes and fix connectivity issues. The patch notes are on Naughty Dog's website.

ORIGINAL STORY: The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has promised to remove the real-life phone sex numbers which can be spotted within the game.

Gamers reported calling the hotlines, labelled as "Pest Control" phone numbers, expecting some kind of Naughty Dog-created Easter egg. They were instead greeted by the very real "hottest sex line in America", Kotaku reported.

The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann has now explained that their inclusion "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," Druckmann said. "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," Druckmann said. "It was just an honest mistake."

The top-notch post-apocalyptic adventure has been embroiled in a number of controversies over the past few days. Hollywood actress Ellen Page accused Naughty Dog of ripping off her likeness earlier this week - and indeed, the character's design did move away from a very Page-centric facial design during development.

Naughty Dog was also forced to apologise to US cartographer Cameron Booth after he spotted his copyrighted map in the game.