On April 24, 2024, when the game's review embargo lifted prior to its release, a reviewer tweeted a discovery made while playing through the game, that being an accidental reference to a racial slur through the game's graphics. This happened when a graphic of graffiti art spelling "Hard", a design which is reused in numerous places throughout the game, ended up being placed next to a neon sign pointing to the "R Shop", referring to one of the game's information brokers named Roxanne. Put together, this text reads as the "Hard R Shop", including a slang term for a racial slur used against black people. When IGN contacted Sony regarding this discovery, they released a statement claiming the game's developer Shift Up had no intention of creating offensive artwork or including the objectionable phrase in the game, and vowed to remove it before the game's release. The "Hard" graphic in that spot would be quickly replaced by a different piece of graffiti spelling "Crime" in a pre-release edit that also added New Game+ to the game, and would be added to the released game as part of a Day 1 patch. Interestingly, this entire span of events from the text being discovered to it being replaced occurred in less than 97 minutes, and the changes stand in contrast to a claim from the game's official Twitter account three days prior that all versions of the game in all countries would be released uncensored.