Overwatch 2 devs nerf “Racist Reaper” voice line spam after toxicity arises

Liam Ho
OW2 Reaper

Overwatch 2 devs have silently nerfed the “Racist Reaper” voice line interaction after toxic players abused it for nefarious reasons.

Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch 2 is predominantly about the characters that inhabit it. From Swiss Medic Mercy to completely insane Australian Junkrat, there’s a bunch of work that goes into each character’s unique personality and features. And within the roster, no character is quite as edgy as shotgun-wielding Reaper.

Just like their character, Reaper boasts just as edgy voice lines, often spouting about how “Death walks among you” and much more. However, two Reaper voice lines had caught the attention of the Overwatch 2 community far more than others in recent weeks, allowing players to essentially be racist without typing anything.

Developers have since caught wind of this trend, and have now silently nerfed this strategy, preventing players from being able to use the voice line in conjunction with each other.

Reaper’s “Black’s my lucky color” and their “I’ll see you in hell” voice lines can be used in conjunction with each other, creating a controversial statement.

The voice lines have been considered a running racist gag for quite some time now. However, Blizzard has finally taken action against this interaction, removing the ability for players to say another voice line right after using the first.

This nerf is specific to this voice line combination only, as none of Reaper’s other voice lines were touched with this change. This means Blizzard went through all of the hero’s voice lines just to fix this issue.

The devs also didn’t mention that they had implemented a change for this interaction in any recent patch notes, making a completely silent change to remove the option for players to effectively be racist in-game.