World Of Warcraft Update Will Remove Developer Names

Following the Activision Blizzard lawsuit by the Californian government, detailing allegations of workplace sexual harassment and a "frat boy" culture, the gaming publisher has been making changes to their games. Several members of staff had been 'immortalised' in-game, by having characters named after them. 

Recently, the Overwatch team revealed that the in-game character McCree will have his name changed, amid the reports made against the Lead Designer, Jason McCree, after whom the character is named.

Now, it appears that World of Warcraft will be getting a similar scrubbing, as many of Activision's developers will be having their signature in-game namesakes changed, including McCree.

The WoW announcement detailed that many changes coming in the Shadowlands Update 9.1.5 will be as a result of "collective feedback." Speaking to PCGamer, a Blizzard spokesperson said: "The in-game references to Jesse Mcree, Luis Barriga, and Jon LeCraft will be removed from World Of Warcraft."

Blizzard wrote: "It includes long-asked-for changes to make it easier to swap covenants and conduits, updates to make it, so you don't need to repeat covenant campaigns on alts, new character customisation options for some races that were lacking, and many more changes to help you play the way you want."

The announcement then continued: "It also has updates to improve the game environment for our community, including additional changes to some content to better reflect our shared values, better visibility into the impact of your in-game reports of harassment, and more serious penalties for people engaged in disruptive behaviour," seemingly as a result of community backlash around the lawsuit.

The upcoming changes come after WoW players hosted a virtual sit-in to protest against the developers, fuelled by the "unethical treatment of employees at Activision Blizzard".

While the WoW team didn't delve into which changes are on the cards, McCree is among three developers that have had their names added into the game, who have also been named in the Activision lawsuit.

McCree has five WoW NPCs named after himself, as well as the city of Mac'Aree in Argus. Luis Barriga's name will also be wiped off the face of World of Warcraft, as the former Lead Game Designer is behind the Senior Scrivener Barriga NPC.

Finally, Jon LeCraft's artistic signatures will likely be renamed. The 'Crafticus Mindbender' and 'Torturer LeCraft' are presumed to have taken influence from the Blizzard employee. 

WoW previously promised to remove NPCs and items that reflect the work done by Alex Afrasiabi, as the Creative Director was fired by the company in 2020, and also one of those named in the "Cosby Suite" reports.

The update is set to go live "this week", although it is unknown what the outcome of the changes will be.