Blizzard renames WoW character based on musician who made homophobic remarks

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Cannibal Corpse's vocalist used homophobic slurs to describe Alliance players in a 2007 interview.

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(Image credit: Blizzard)

Blizzard is renaming another World of Warcraft character, following the re-emergence of homophobic comments made by its real-life inspiration.

Gorge the Corpsegrinder was added back in 2008 as a nod to Cannibal Corpse vocalist George 'Corpsegrinder' Fisher (thanks, Metal Hammer). The artist was a self-proclaimed "pathetic nerd" for WoW, talking in length about his passion for the game and his Horde characters in a 2007 interview. But things took a turn when Fisher began ranting about his hatred for the Alliance, using homophobic slurs and telling those who play the faction to kill themselves.

"I don't play no homo-Alliance either, I don't play no fucking night elves or gnomes," Fisher said. "It's fucking orcs and undead. Fuck the Alliance, fucking die you fucking emo cocksuckers."

His Alliance rant persists for a few more minutes, before saying "you ever see in World of Warcraft, the undead have a dance and they do the metal sign and bang their head, playing guitar. Yeah, go fucking cry in a river and tell me how you're gonna slit your wrists you night elf f****t."

The interview clip above was shown at BlizzCon in 2011, albeit in a heavily censored format, as part of a musical performance at the event. Blizzard senior art director Sam Didier introduced Fisher to the audience as "the unofficial ambassador to the mighty Horde." 

The appearance of the video prompted an apology from former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime at the time, calling the decision to show it "shortsighted and insensitive." The character remained in the game though, until now. A tweet from Wowhead shows that recent changes to patch 9.1.5 on the PTR has changed the NPC's name to Annihilator Grek'lor.

Blizzard has been gradually pruning the game's character names and quest dialogue, having already removed references to Blizzard employees accused of sexual harassment earlier this year. The company has also said it'll no longer be naming future characters after employees or prominent figures across all its games. Aside from WoW, Overwatch hero McCree is also facing a name change sometime in the future.

Mollie Taylor
Mollie Taylor
Features Producer

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.  

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