Video Games

IO Interactive stops selling Hitman DLC featuring Conor McGregor

MMA fighter was found guilty of sexual assault

Marco Wutz

IO Interactive

IO Interactive, the developer of the Hitman franchise, announced that it would stop selling DLC featuring Conor McGregor following a civil court finding the MMA fighter guilty of sexual assault. The athlete has been ordered to pay the victim nearly a quarter of a million euros in damages.

“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,” the studio stated on social media. “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.”

McGregor was added to Hitman: World of Assassination in the form of a character called The Disruptor earlier in 2024. Players had the mission to find and eliminate him in the game – and that’s the only reason why some users have spoken out against IO Interactive’s move. Some fans argued for the continued availability of the DLC, as it allows people to “punish” McGregor. Others asked for more methods of eliminating him to be put into the game.

Naturally, though, IO Interactive wishes not to be associated with McGregor at all anymore. Criticism around the collaboration existed even when it was announced several months ago, since the MMA fighter was not exactly known as an uncontroversial person.

Though the DLC featuring McGregor’s likeness and voice acting is no longer being sold, users who’ve previously bought it should still be able to access the content. It’s currently not known if IO is planning to offer refunds in return for deleting the content from people’s accounts or if the developer has any intentions of re-releasing the DLC after changing the problematic aspects.

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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