Blizzard removed McCree's noose spray in the latest Overwatch patch, replacing it with a horseshoe. Needless to say, controversy and question barrage ensued.
Jesse McCree is often seen as one of Overwatch's most accomplished and most loyal agents but he spent four years trolling teammates' sprays in his spare time. The two main sources of trolling came through the blank wanted poster and the noose sprays. While putting someone's image into the blank wanted poster is not that controversial, putting the noose over one's neck certainly is.
There have been several controversies over the spray during Overwatch's four years of existence but it wasn't until the July 14, 2020, patch that Blizzard completely removed it from the game.
Considering the current political climate and the still ongoing unrest following the death of George Floyd, it is hard to imagine any other reason for Blizzard to remove the spray since it stayed for all these years.
The developers didn't leave those who acquired the spray empty-handed though as they were awarded the new "Bad Luck" horseshoe spray, which you can see above.
Blizzard's exact reasoning was a mystery at the time of writing since they didn't officially state why the spray was removed. Furthermore, the change was not even mentioned in the patch notes which is a bit odd.
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Either way, if you want to troll someone's sprays that feature a character portrait, you can still continue to do so with the aforementioned wanted poster as it was not altered.
