Lego Delays Overwatch 2 Set Over Activision Blizzard Allegations

Lego’s Overwatch 2 Titan set won’t come out next month as planned. The Danish toy maker announced today that it’s delaying the release until it can finish reviewing its partnership with Activision Blizzard, in light of workplace misconduct issues made public in recent months.

The Titan set, the latest in a number of Overwatch-themed sets in recent years, was revealed last December and slated to go on sale starting February 1, 2022, despite the game it’s from, Overwatch 2, not hitting for at least another year. As first reported by TheBrickFan, that release date has now been pushed back indefinitely as Lego joins a number of other organizations in voicing its concerns about reports of how some employees at Activision Blizzard were treated over the years.

“We are currently reviewing our partnership with Activision Blizzard, given concerns about the progress being made to address continuing allegations regarding workplace culture, especially the treatment of female colleagues and creating a diverse and inclusive environment,” Lego wrote in a statement.

Beginning with a California lawsuit filed last July, the publisher behind Overwatch, Diablo, and other mega-franchises has been accused of widespread sexual harassment and discrimiation, as well racism and other toxic workplace conditions. According to a Wall Street Journal report last November, CEO Bobby Kotick was aware of the issues, and, the newspaper claims, occasionally engaged in mistreating women himself.

Since then, thousands of Activision Blizzard workers have called on Kotick to resign, while the heads of PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo of America condemned the allegations in internal emails to staff. Nonprofit organization Girls Who Code went a step further and announced it would be cutting ties with Activision Blizzard entirely. Yesterday, head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, told The New York Times in a podcast interview that Microsoft had “changed how we do certain things with [Activision Blizzard],” but wouldn’t go into more detail, and stopped short of calling for leadership changes at the publisher.

So far, however, Activision Blizzard’s board of directors has stuck by Kotick, no doubt in part because some of them have been friends with the veteran CEO for years.