Overwatch 2 players have taken to the community Reddit to showcase and ask for a solution to racist in-game chats.
Like most online communities, Overwatch and its players have to deal with people who revel in anonymity to be toxic, and sometimes outright offensive. Blizzard, and many other developers, have clear conduct guidelines for its players and does not hesitate when it comes to banning, or suspending accounts for this kind of behavior.
However, that doesn’t stop some users from simply making other accounts and loading into another game to harass, or generally be a nuisance to enemies and allies alike.
In a post to the Overwatch subreddit, one player pointed out how the racism in the game has seemingly gotten out of hand. They showcased multiple instances of toxicity and racist comments from recent matches, an experience many other Overwatch players echoed.
Overwatch players call for more severe punishment
The post, titled: Racism in OW is Insane, said that the gaming community needs to do better.
“I see stuff like this almost every day on OW and hear it constantly in Call of Duty. Why is there so much hatred in OW?? Blizzard needs to ban racists. A warning is not enough,” the poster said.
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The post included screenshots of in-game messages.
“I hate color people,” one message said. Followed by a prompt saying a report has been successfully made about the player.
Commentators said that people who type racist chats like those are just craving attention and the best thing to do is report and ignore them. Many also pointed out that the chats seem childish.
“‘I hate colored ppl’ plays a game where a majority of the cast is ‘colored.’ Amazing logic by these types,” one Reddit user said.
Whether Blizzard will come down with harsher punishments, or up their in-game behavior detection system, has yet to be seen.