In late July, in response to California’s lawsuit accusing Activision Blizzard of fostering an environment of harassment and discrimination against female employees, Blizzard announced it was taking steps to remove inappropriate content and references from World of Warcraft. Two of those changes surfaced in an early build of the upcoming 9.1.5 patch, which changes the name of two achievements so they no longer reference the phrase “bros before hoes” and large testicles.
World of Warcraft has a long and storied history of creating quests and achievements containing puns, plays on words, or pop culture references, which haven’t always been in the best of taste. With scrutiny against Activision Blizzard at an all-time high following the lawsuit and every horrible thing that came after, it’s a good time to start making changes, even small ones. Shortly after the July announcement, references to former WoW developer Alex Afrasiabi, specifically named in the lawsuit and tied to the infamous BlizzCon “Cosby Suite,” were removed from the game.
Blizzard’s next target looks to be racy achievement names. As posted in the Icy Veins forum over the weekend:
- “My Sack is Gigantique” has been renamed to “My Storage is Gigantique”.
- “Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho’s” has been renamed to “Holiday Bromance”.
The first of the two, “My Sack is Gigantique,” involves equipping the “Gigantique” bag from an NPC named Haris Pilton. The second, “Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho’s,” is actually a festive holiday achievement in which you have to use mistletoe on eight Alliance NPCs with the title “Brother.”
Only two small changes, but it’s a start. Patch 9.1.5 is still months away and these changes are from a really early version, so there’s a chance more renamed quests and achievements could be added to the update down the line.