Blizzard Removes McCree's Noose Decal

Activision-Blizzard, always happy to stand up for social justice until it impacts their bottom line, recently made a change to their now four-year-old game Overwatch that appears to be an effort to PC-up the already pretty PC game.

It’s not a big change by any means: rather, without much fanfare, they’ve replaced one of McCree’s decals from a noose to a horseshoe that has “Bad Luck” engraved on it. While Blizzard hasn’t made any kind of statement about the change, the logic behind it is fairly easily to decipher: with the #BlackLivesMatter protest still going strong, Blizzard decided that the noose, which has a long history of being associated with America’s ugly history of lynching, teetered on the edge of inappropriateness, so they played it safe and replaced it with something more agreeable.

Granted, no one was calling for the noose to be removed because they found it offensive, but much like when Infinity Ward removed the “Ok” gesture from Call of Duty, it appears to be a preemptive move to avoid the symbol being used for hate by players. Which is more or less agreeable. I don’t think anyone’s going to say they were intimately attached to the noose decal and they can’t imagine playing Overwatch without it, although I am certain some players will fuss about how this is political correctness gone crazy.

It is worth noting that some players actually don’t think this is going far enough, and that the police line of skins, specifically for D.Va and Brigitte, should be removed from the game. While neither of these skins represent American cops specifically, they certainly lean into the issue of the militarization of the police, which is a problem both at home and abroad. However, it seems unlikely that Blizzard will do anything about that, because that would be a significantly bigger change and, again, Blizzard really likes money.