Overwatch 2 custom game depicts sexual assault

There are serious concerns about a ‘Sexual Assault Simulator’ mode in a popular video game.

There are serious concerns about a ‘Sexual Assault Simulator’ mode in a popular video game.

The custom game is playable through Overwatch 2’s Custom Game Mode.

While Blizzard has removed the public listing for the game, anyone with the room code can still play it.

A custom game in Overwatch 2 allows players to “rape” the female cast of Overwatch, while playing the character Cassidy.

A tweet by Twitter user Lynn MBE stated that her 12-year-old son discovered the game mode while playing Overwatch 2.

“Do not let your children play Overwatch. My 12yo son found custom games within it, one called, ‘sexual harassment’ and one game that simulated the female characters being raped.”

Overwatch 2 is a game marketed for teenagers, so the lack of moderation in its custom game modes is concerning. Picture: Blizzard

In the game mode, players control Cassidy, who “flashes” the other characters, referring to his old Overwatch 1 ability to use a Flashbang Grenade to stun the characters.

The game then instructs the players to “tbag to f**k”, referring to pressing the crouch button up and down repeatedly.

The screen then displays a loading text screen that says “raping…”, and the female characters are marked as “pregnant.” After some time, a Torbjorn robot is spawned to simulate childbirth.

In a response to PCGamer, Blizzard stated that they removed the offending material: “We immediately removed the user-created game mode once made aware of its existence. We are continually working to improve automatic filters to prevent inappropriate user-created content, and manually removing any that are not caught by the system.”

However, this game mode has supposedly been around and reported by players for months now — starting back in Overwatch 1. Furthermore, only current listings of the game mode were removed, and anyone with the five-digit room code can re-create the room and play it.

Custom game modes allow players to create unique game modes within the confines of their specific favourite game — for example, without custom game modes, Dota 2 and League of Legends would not exist, as they spawned from the custom Warcraft 3 game mode Defense of the Ancients. However, custom game modes also require strict and immediate moderation, otherwise, you get cases like this.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.