World of Warcraft dataminers have reported that an upcoming Warlock armour set looks a lot like the garb of the KKK.
The upcoming World of Warcraft Shadowlands patch 9.2 is gaining a lot of attention, both for the reintroduction of class-based Tier sets and the fact that the upcoming Warlock Tier set bear a striking resemblance to the hood and robes of the KKK, a widely recognised hate group.
The KKK or Ku Klux Klan are an American white supremacist terrorist hate group, with their current iteration primarily consisting of isolated groups using the KKK name. They resort to acts of brutal violence and murder in order to silence activists. Given the recent walkout and the mounting pile of allegations against its current CEO, Blizzard is already on thin ice.
Despite their efforts at damage control, Activision Blizzard has been coming under fire for the past few months, and have been making a conscious effort to clean up some of their mistakes. This, however, is an oversight that should have been caught before the PTR build even went live.
Thankfully, the devs have responded to this criticism swiftly, and plans have already been made to change the gear set in an upcoming PTR build, ensuring that the current version never makes it into the live game.
We hear you and agree. This was an oversight where we hadn't yet fully reviewed this set from every angle before putting it into the initial test build. We've already begun work to adjust the set, and you'll see changes to it in a forthcoming build of the Eternity's End PTR. https://t.co/0ZxNgMlSXu
— WarcraftDevs (@WarcraftDevs) November 19, 2021
Recently World of Warcraft has also quietly removed a number of potentially inflammatory pieces of content from the game, amid the controversy surrounding their company and the culture it has reportedly fostered.
This includes (but likely isn’t limited to) references to staff that have been removed from the company, as well as sexually suggestive content like in-game paintings, NPCs named ‘concubine’ or ‘consorts’, and more.
