'Overwatch': Blizzard Issues Statement on Ellie Controversy

In the latest development of the Overwatch controversy surrounding a player named "Ellie," Blizzard has issued a statement on the situation to confirm the player was indeed not who they initially said they were.

Ellie was a competitive Overwatch player who was part of the pro team Second Wind, or at least that was who the player was thought to be. The player allegedly quit the team due to harassment from people who doubted the female player's skills and eventually participated in doxing attempts.

After those events unfolded, the story got stranger when players alleged that Ellie wasn't actually the players name and that she didn't even exist. It was rumored that another player named "Punisher" who's one of the top 500 Overwatch players in the North American scene was playing as Ellie as a "social experiment," though the identity of who the player actually was hasn't yet been confirmed.

Considering how a player was able to pretend to be someone else and play for a competitive Overwatch team, there was some question as to how this even happened in the first place seeing how Blizzard oversees the competitive scene. IN a statement issued to Unikrn, Blizzard commented on an investigation it conducted on the incident and confirmed Ellie was a fake account player and was actually a smurf account. Blizzard also said that the player never competed in an Overwatch Contenders match.

"After investigating the matter, we found that 'Ellie' was a fabricated identity and is a smurf account," Blizzard said about the Ellie situation. "The owner of Ellie's account is a player with no current or prior involvement with any Overwatch Contenders or Overwatch League team. 'Ellie' was never formally submitted to the active roster of Second Wind and never played in a Contenders match."

Blizzard isn't the first entity to issue a statement on the controversial situation. Second Wind, the team the player was associated with, shared its own comments recently, part of that long statement seen below with the full message seen here.

"As of today, Blizzard had gotten back to us on the background of Ellie, and notified us that they were not who they claimed to be, and discovered that the Ellie account was used for purposes we do not support," Second Wind said. "We apologize to the community as a whole for not handling this situation better when we should have, and we will aim to do better."

The identity of the player playing as Ellie as well as other details pertaining to the story are still unknown at this time.