Hitman developer IO Interactive announced their plans to pull all content related to Conor McGregor from sale after a civil case found McGregor guilty of rape. This past week, a jury in the High Court in Dublin, Ireland awarded Nikita Hand €250,000 in damages after a jury returned a guilty verdict saying that McGregor raped Hand.
In response to that verdict, IO Interactive announced on Twitter that they are immediately ceasing their collaboration with McGregor. That collaboration saw McGregor portraying one of the game's Elusive Targets, a character named The Disruptor that Agent 47 is tasked with eliminating. McGregor's likeness and voice were used for The Disruptor.
In light of the recent court ruling regarding Conor McGregor, IO Interactive has made the decision to cease its collaboration with the athlete, effective immediately. We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications. Consequently, we will begin removing all content featuring Mr. McGregor from our storefronts starting today.
IO Interactive also ceased the sale of a $5 Disruptor DLC pack. This pack gave players permanent access to a mission, The Ostentatious, which allowed them to play the McGregor themed mission permanently. The pack also included a new outfit, items, and a set of cosmetics for use in the Freelancer mode. This pack is no longer being sold and promotional materials for this content have been made private by IO Interactive.
It is absolutely baffling that McGregor was ever a consideration for inclusion in Hitman in the first place. Allegations and investigations into McGregor sexually assaulting women were first made known to the public back in March 2019. Even if you ignore the serious accusations of sexual assault and rape brought against McGregor, he has 12 separate different instances under the "Controversies" section on his Wikipedia page that should have immediately disqualified him from even being considered by IO Interactive.
These "controversies" involving McGregor run the gamut from accusations of racism on at least two separate occasions. He assaulted a referee for an MMA match he wasn't even involved with. McGregor was charged with three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief after attacking a bus transporting MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov. In 2019, he was arrested and charged with strong-armed robbery and criminal mischief after attacking a fan that was taking a picture with a cellphone. Also in 2019, McGregor was charged with assault again after punching someone that declined to take a shot of whiskey that McGregor was repeatedly offering. Beyond all of this, there have also been allegations of more sexual assault, indecent exposure, an assault on a 42-year old woman on a yacht, he punched the Miami Heat mascot, and had another accusation of sexually assaulting a woman in mid-2023.
Good on IO Interactive for pulling this McGregor related content but that asshole should have never been added to the game in the first damn place.
