Overwatch League casters avoid saying “McCree” after Blizzard lawsuit

A pair of Overwatch League casters have seemingly stopped saying the name “Jesse McCree” on air after an employee the hero was named after was featured in a controversial Blizzard report.

Overwatch League casters Brennon ‘Bren’ Hook and Josh ‘Sideshow’ Wilkinson went out of their way to avoid referring to the hero by name during matches on the first weekend of August.

Instead, they would refer to the DPS hero as “the cowboy,” the player’s name or reference the character’s peacekeeper revolver weapon instead.

This was noticed by a fan on Twitter, who remarked, “It sounds like Sideshow and Bren are avoiding the cowboy hero’s name, and I really appreciate that.”

The tweet ended up being “liked” by both Bren and Sideshow, indicating that they did in fact deliberately go out of their way to avoid using the name “McCree.”

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Additionally, Overwatch caster Mitch ‘Uber’ Leslie commented how he may start doing the same. “Huh? This is a good idea to be honest,” he stated.

Why are Overwatch casters not mentioning McCree?

The decision to avoid saying McCree’s name comes amid a major lawsuit against Blizzard. A report from Kotaku featured screenshots taken from BlizzCon group chat in which Blizzard dev Jesse McCree is present.

In the chat, former designer David Kosak wrote “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz” (reportedly the devs’ wives) and then joked that Alex Afrasiabi “can’t marry all of them.”

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Jesse McCree would then joke that David “misspelled f**k,” prompting many within the community to demand Blizzard change the hero’s name.

The Overwatch hero Jesse McCree was named after the developer of the same name, so it makes sense that some people at Blizzard may want to avoid using it following the report.

There have been a lot of suggestions as to what to do with the hero, with some being as drastic as killing him off in Overwatch 2 while others want McCree to be his fake name.

Blizzard has yet to comment on the fate of the cowboy hero, but with OWL casters straight up refusing to say his name, it could be a good indication that something is being done behind the scenes.