In a summer largely without sports, one team is making a triumphant return to entertain you: The U.S. Army esports team.
The team took a brief hiatus from streaming their Call of Duty games on Twitch in July, after a First Amendment controversy when commenters asking about war crimes were banned.
Now, they are reinstating access to the accounts that were previously banned for what the army calls "harassing and degrading behavior." The team is establishing clarified guidelines and will resume streaming soon, the Army told Vice.
The Army, Navy, and Air Force have esports teams, often used as recruitment measures, but the Marines do not have a team. This is "in part to the belief that the brand and issues associated with combat are too serious to be 'gamified' in a responsible manner," Marine Corps Recruiting Command wrote, reports Vice.
The sentiment was echoed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) last week as she defended a proposed amendment to stop the military from using games as a recruiting method, which the House ultimately blocked. "War is not a game," Ocasio-Cortez said. "We can not conflate war and military service with this kind of gamified format."
A specific date has not been set for the U.S. Army esports team's return to Twitch, but they said it will be in the "near future."