Streamer NICKMERCS is set to make his return to Call of Duty: Warzone tomorrow, eight months after his operator skin was removed from the game, effectively ruining a chance for there to be other creator skins in the future.
The FaZe gamer and Apex Legends competitor is set to drop in with friends in Warzone on stream tomorrow for the first time since last June when Activision removed his operator bundle from the CoD store after making controversial comments on social media.
In June, the streamer said “they should leave little children alone” when replying to Chris Puckett on Twitter/X about a video of anti-LGBTQ+ protestors allegedly attacking pro-LGBTQ+ demonstrators outside of a school board meeting in California.
The “leave children alone” saying is commonly considered a dog whistle for anti-gay rhetoric, which also includes calling those in the LGBTQ+ community “groomers” for educating children on sexuality. NICKMERCS is among those who believe it should be up to the parents to teach these kinds of lessons.
Not long after NICKMERCS had his skin removed, TimTheTatman asked for his operator skin to be removed as well, in solidarity with his friend. He also began to boycott CoD but returned two months ago to continue making Warzone content again.
Other content creators such as Scump and FaZe Swagg have gone on to say they had operator bundles in the works for CoD, but Activision has since decided to move away from streamer collaborations in light of the NICKMERCS incident.
Just this past October, NICKMERCS said “fuck ’em” when asked about CoD developers that he doesn’t “agree with.” But he’s apparently ready to get back into the game for the sake of content creation.
NICKMERCS now streams on Kick, the Twitch competitor, where he previously said gambling on stream is “part of the contract.”