
Former Sucker Punch artist Drew Harrison was fired by studio parent company Sony in September, just one day after posting a joke about the murder of high-profile alt-right provocateur Charlie Kirk. In a new interview with Aftermath, Harrison says the firing, which ended a career of nearly 10 years at Sucker Punch, came about not because of the joke, as Sucker Punch claimed, but because of the Gamergate-style harassment campaign that followed.
The furor was sparked by a Bluesky post Harrison made on September 10, the day of Kirk's murder: "I hope the shooter's name is Mario so that Luigi knows his bro got his back," a reference to the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, allegedly carried out by Luigi Mangione. The post was immediately seized upon by Kirk supporters and online trolls, who flooded Harrison and other Sucker Punch employees with threats and demanded a boycott of the studio's then-upcoming Ghost of Yotei.