FaZe Clan’s Kris “Swagg” Lamberson revealed he had aCall of Dutycollaboration in the works that was scrapped in the aftermath of the recent NICKMERCS controversy. This revelation is yet another piece of evidence suggesting that theNICKMERCSCall of Dutydrama will have far-reaching consequences.
Activisionremoved the NICKMERCS Operator bundle fromCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2in response to the streamer’s anti-LGBTQ tweets from early June. While the content creator argued that his original comment about how pro-LGBTQ protestors “should leave little children alone” wasn’t intended to be hateful, many took issue with the fact that he shared that sentiment in response to a video depicting violence against pro-LGBTQ demonstrators. Activision itself described those comments as incompatible with the company’s dedication to celebrating Pride Month and overall inclusiveness.
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It turns out that the controversy also halted the publisher’s other planned projects with popular Internet personalities, including Swagg. In a newly published YouTube video, the FaZe Clan content creator revealed that theCall of Dutyteam contacted him in spring 2023 over a collaboration that would have given him a chance to help design a blueprint skin forModern Warfare 2andWarzone2. Seeing howSwagg has been makingCall of Dutycontentfor the vast majority of his career, the streamer said that this offer “meant everything” to him. But the idea was ultimately dropped in the aftermath of the NICKMERCS controversy, which saw Activision pull the plug on all such planned collaborations.
Swagg said theCall of Dutyteam officially scrapped their collaboration in mid-June, about a week following NICKMERCS’s controversial tweet. His blueprint was already designed at that point, making the cancelation that much tougher to swallow, the streamer said. Swagg subsequently shared the scrapped blueprint on Twitter, but the image was promptly taken down by Activision on copyright grounds. The content creator said he doesn’t hold any ill will toward anyone over this turn of events, concluding that hisCall of Dutyblueprint skin simply wasn’t “meant to be.”
While NICKMERCS’s actions certainly hurt the chances of futureCall of Dutystreamer/content creator collaborations, Activision’s decision to indefinitely halt all such efforts was presumably also influenced by the polarizing reactions to the controversy, as several high-profile streamers came to the defense of NICKMERCS following his divisive comments. In one such show of support,Dr Disrespect uninstalledModern Warfare 2and demanded an apology for NICKMERCSlive on stream. Shortly thereafter, TimTheTatman had Activision remove his own Operator bundle from the game in solidarity with his colleague.
