United Healthcare CEO shooting recreated in Cruelty Squad

Last week, a masked gunman killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel. Thompson’s wife said he had received threats potentially related to “lack of insurance coverage” – presumably health insurance. The American health care system is notoriously brutal, and UnitedHealthcare is one of many health insurance companies that have come under fire; It reportedly uses “a flawed artificial intelligence algorithm to deny coverage to elderly patients,” according to CBS News, and is denying coverage to chronically ill patients, according to ProPublica, despite billions in profits. The Internet responded to Thompson’s death with a distinct lack of sympathy, turning instead to dark humor: When UnitedHealth Group made a Facebook statement commemorating the murder of its CEO, the majority of reactions to emojis—more than 57,000 out of about 62,000, according to CNN—were laughing emojis . Many other online users turned to nasty and dark humor in response to the shooting. One of those responses was Consumer Softproducts’ 2021 modified first-person shooter map. Cruelty Squada game where you play as an assassin in a nightmarish capitalist world.

IN Cruelty Squadyou are a killer destroying the enemies of corporations – and the game develops further. It’s an aggressive, surreal and very strange experience. Cruelty Squad players can create their own maps, which are hosted on an equally aesthetically aggressive website. This new fan-made map is called “Hilton Hitjob”, which is an obvious reference to Thompson’s murder. “The reason I created the Hilton Hitjob mod is because I thought it would be fun to recreate the UHC CEO’s shooting in one of my favorite pieces of interactive art brutality,” the modder told wget Polygon in an email. “Also, I thought it would bring more attention to brutality squad modding, as I’d really like to see more Crus players try out all the custom levels the modders have created for the game, and maybe get more people creating fashion themselves.”

Here is a description of the card – it imitates the writing style in Cruelty Squadwhich takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk world:

UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson has recently failed to provide enough spare organs to executives, denying claims and then reaping the harvest with a pitiful 22.7% refusal rate. This is already beyond the possible tolerance of our customers, but in the context of the resort drug rush, we can no longer forgive its inability to meet the needs of the market. Once he’s out of the equation, we can finally get on with our parties. We have provided you with a rented bicycle to intercept the target.

On Monday, police arrested 26-year-old Luigi Mangione on multiple charges, including murder. In an email to Polygon, the modder expressed her dissatisfaction with the arrest of Mangione (whom the modder called “Mr. Luigi’s mansion”), said she was glad Thompson was killed off (“people like him represent the worst in society”), and expressed her hatred for American society as a whole. “The US is a disgusting country that robs its own people to enrich the already unimaginably rich,” she wrote. “Now I see all these executives shaking in fear, suddenly trying to hide their information on their websites, hiring more private security guards, crying online about what kind of people they are too, now it really brings a big smile to my face.”

Polygon reached out to Valve, which owns Steam, the online store for comment. Cruelty Squad for sale. We will update this story when Valve responds.

Update (December 10): This story has been updated to include comments from the creator. Cruelty Squad mod and use the correct modder pronouns.