Jesse Mcree, Diablo 4 Director No Longer At Activision Blizzard

Jesse Mcree, Diablo 4 Director No Longer At Activision Blizzard

Diablo 4 game director Luis Barriga, Blizzard lead level designer Jesse McCree, and World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft were let go from Blizzard on Wednesday, two sources with knowledge of the move told Kotaku.

The news was delivered to development teams today but has not yet been officially announced. A source confirmed to Kotaku that the three developers’ names are no longer visible in Blizzard’s internal directory or Slack. Activision Blizzard did not immediately return a request for comment.

One source who learned of the news said Activision Blizzard did not give a reason for the departures, but they come as the company reckons with a California lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment and disclination at the Overwatch and Call of Duty publisher.

Jesse McCree, the namesake for Overwatch’s beloved cowboy fighter, was one of several current and former Blizzard developers who appeared in an image of a BlizzCon 2013 “Cosby Suite” obtained and reported on by Kotaku. The suite contained booze and a giant portrait of Bill Cosby and reportedly belonged to World of Warcraft developer Alex Afrasiabi.

Afrasiabi is one of the few people called out by name in California’s lawsuit, which accuses him of sexually harassing and groping female coworkers. Bloomberg reported that the nickname for the suite began as a joke about ugly carpeting and predated the the sexual assault allegations about Bill Cosby becoming widely publicized. Two former Blizzard employees told Kotaku that the suite’s reputation had always been menacing because of Afrasiabi’s behaviour.

Jonathan LeCraft and Cory Stockton, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, were also pictured in the suite. Two sources confirmed to Kotaku that Stockton was put on leave last week but appears to remain with the company.


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