Activision Blizzard has announced that they will officially change the name of playable hero McCree.

The reason for the change is because McCree was originally named after former game designer Jesse McCree, who is no longer working at the company in the wake of the slew of sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuits and cases against them.

In a statement posted to Twitter, Blizzard’s Overwatch team announced the McCree name change.

The full statement reads:

“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.

We realize that any change to such a well-loved and central hero in the game’s fiction will take time to roll out correctly, and we’ll share updates as this work progresses.

In the near term, we had planned to kick off a narrative arc in September supported with new story and game content, of which McCree was a key part.

Since we want to integrate this change into that story arc, we will be delaying the new arc until later this year and instead launch a new FFA map this September.

Going forward, in-game characters will no longer be named after real employees and we will be more thoughtful and discerning about adding real-world references in future Overwatch content.”

A message from the Overwatch team. pic.twitter.com/2W3AV7Pv6X

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) August 26, 2021

A new in-game story event was previously scheduled for September featuring McCree, but that has now been delayed. In its place, Blizzard will release a new FFA map in September.

However, at the time of writing, the new name for McCree has yet to be officially revealed. Stay tuned.