Overwatch's Jesse McCree Gets A New Name

Overwatch's cowboy has a new name.

"Cole Cassidy" is the new name for the former "Jesse McCree," who was named after a Blizzard employee implicated in the harassment lawsuit brought on by California's Department of Fair and Equal Housing in August. After the real McCree was let go from the company, Blizzard began working on a new name and new backstory for its gunslinger.

In September, that was said to be a "pretty complicated project," involving new voice lines, localization, UI assets, and more, but the first public step of it was confirmed this afternoon by the Overwatch Twitter account.

Meet Cole Cassidy.

Rides into Overwatch October 26. pic.twitter.com/CT6PmaNXNs

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) October 22, 2021

The text of the image states that "this renegade gave up his [name] a long time ago" but now he's going "to make things right" and "be honest with his team and himself." That's pretty much the path we surmised when the changes were announced: that "Jesse McCree" was just a pseudonym that befit the outlaw life and that he'd be reverting back to his "real" name.

If you want to join McCree/Cassidy in changing your name, Blizzard is also making availalble the opportunity to change your BattleTag name, for free, from now until November 5.

The new cowboy will be "riding" into Overwatch on October 26, and if I'm being honest, that sounds a lot faster than we were led to believe from the Reddit post of September 14. Maybe this is just a rare case of everything coming together perfectly and working out faster than expected.