The Overwatch development team has announced that McCree will face a name change in the coming months in light of the ongoing Activision Blizzard lawsuit.
Jesse McCree, a former developer at Blizzard, was recently revealed to be the namesake of Overwatch’s gunslinger character, McCree. However, the ongoing lawsuit against Activision Blizzard saw McCree face allegations of workplace misconduct. This of course, cast a large shadow over the fan-favourite character.
In a new reveal, Blizzard has announced McCree’s name will change in a future update. It may take some time however, as the change has some unexpected effects.
A NEW NAME FOR THE COWBOY
The Overwatch team took to social media to announce the change. Hinting at the lawsuit, the team addressed that the associations with the name doesn’t reflect the teams values. In the announcement it stated: “we believe it’s necessary to change the name of the hero currently known as McCree to something that better represents what Overwatch stands for.“
A name change for McCree felt inevitable after Overwatch casters refused to use the name. But it also had huge ramification for an upcoming storyline. The Overwatch team wanted the name change to come into effect as soon as possible. However, that meant delaying its upcoming story, which McCree was said to have a “key part” in. The storyline will now launch later this year. Blizzard also announced that it would no longer name characters after real people.
This will also be a lot of work for every Overwatch voice actor, who currently refer to the character by his old name. New interaction dialogue will need to be recorded for each character. It’s unclear whether Overwatch will simply apply the McCree name change with no explanation or work it into the narrative of its world.
Blizzard has stated that it will share updates on the progress of implementing the name change into the game. It seems as though the name change will take some months to take effect.
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Featured Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment