Apparently following Overwatch’s lead, World of Warcraft will also be renaming cities and NPCs currently named after controversial Blizzard developers.
After announcing that the hero formerly known as McCree would be getting a brand new name, Blizzard employees quoted in an article by the Washington Post say something similar will be happening in the MMO as well.
Like Overwatch, a ton of items, places, and characters in WoW are named after current or former Blizzard employees.
Since Overwatch’s cowboy is being renamed, it’s a pretty safe bet that the capital of Argus in the Legion expansion, called Mac’Aree after former Blizzard developer Jessie McCree, will be getting changed too.
Changing the name of the area could be challenging because of all the voiced dialogue that a lot of other items and NPCs don’t have to worry about. However, it seems like some WoW devs have the gift of foresight which might make the change go a little smoother.
Jennifer Klasing, a former WoW dev now working for New World, said she actually instructed the Warcraft voice actors to pronounce the name of the zone differently than it’s spelled.
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“Yeah I asked all of our VO for the zone to pronounce is Muh-KAH-Ree,” Klasing said, explaining her very prescient choice. “Because it was kinda silly that the capital city of Argus was named after that dev.”
Yeah I asked all of our VO for the zone to pronounce is Muh-KAH-Ree, because it was kinda silly that the capital city of Argus was named after that dev.
— 💙 Jen Klasing, AKA Questifer (@CallMeQuestifer) August 26, 2021
Former Blizzard employee Jonathan LeCraft, who is also implicated in the ongoing Blizzard saga, lends his name to over a dozen NPCs throughout the game. These could be next on the list of changes as well.
WoW already changed a number of references to former dev Alex Afrasiabi shortly after the California lawsuit was announced, and the way things are looking, more new names definitely seem to be on the way.
