A Russian official has said that the game could face a total ban in Russia
The whole article is based off this unnamed “Russian official” btw.
please buy the full game without waiting for a discount. thank you from a humble game developer from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Already pre-ordered the Ultimate edition. Goes against my usual principles but I don’t care in this instance. I hope the game is a massive, GotY contending success.
Thank you <3
Are you working on the STALKER 2 team?
No, I work at Wargaming Ukraine. But at least a dozen of my friends and ex-colleagues are working at GSC and the whole Ukrainian game development community respects what GSC does!
It’s inspirational what they’ve done. I really hope the launch goes well.
I did the same, and also normally never preorder digital goods. Preordered the ultimate edition in December 2022, and really did not care whether they could deliver at all.
Now, as a fan of the old games, I am pretty stoked that it looks like I really will be getting an awesome game.
After KSP2 I promised myself I would never do Early Access or preorder again. However, I made an exception for this. Love the stalker series and I’ve both preordered it and took the entire week off of work. You can say I’m definitely hyped lol
Will do. I’m basically one decent trailer away from impulse buying it anyway. As a fellow game developer, allow me to say: I truly wish things will get better for you guys.
<3
I’m considering it. I’d probably want to know if it works well with Linux first.
I will do a day one purchase despite being too busy with factorio expansion to actually start it just yet.
Thank you <3
I generally don’t pre-order, probably won’t this time too as release has creeped so close anyway. But definitely buying it full price, just waiting for some day-1 reviews to check if it needs patches or not. I love the STALKER series, played them all and I definitely feel I own GSC some more money for the FPSs I’ve most enjoyed in the last 20 years or so.
This article misses the point. The logic behind the likely regulation is that: a couple of GSC devs joined UAF (one KIA) and GSC donated to ukrainian funds -> you spend money on their products -> you have financially supported UAF. GSC wasn’t proclaimed a terrorist org (lmao) but laws here can be applied backwards if they’d need so.
You’re overthinking it. There is no logic in russian law. The Tsar says something and that’s the law.
Tzar doesn’t need anything to land one’s ass in jail, but it’d still be followed by traditional beaurocratic procedures just like in RE\USSR and that’s the likely way it’d follow through.
And, also, having Stalker on your acc or purchasing it via russian resellers may serve as a trigger that can make agencies or just your russian teammate tell on you for lulz if your profile wasn’t set to private.
That’s rich.
This must be quite a big decision really, considering there are a lot of Russian players into the Stalker Universe.
But good on them, fuck em!
Maybe they should consider not supporting ongoing invasion of the country that universe originated from, if they are so into it
I believe many quite a few people are against it, but afraid of speaking up - knowing they’ll be dragged into a back alley of they do.
And yet, I see just as many people openly flaunt russian language, flag and other symbols of that “country” online. What I’m saying is if you happen to live in russia but don’t support the russian state, better not reveal where you’re from at all
The absence of self-awareness there is astounding
Oh they’re aware. It’s always projection
Russian pigs
I’m going to have to buy a new irony meter.
“This year, Russia also took control of Chornobyl,…”
This year again? I thought they dug their trenches in radioactive soil in the first year of the invasion.
The question is whether they have the intention of publishing it in Russia in the first place.
Russian users can still use workarounds to purchase from the steam store. I believe this is a big business for some enterprising users in other countries.
Where there is prohibition there is business. Always has been.
It will most definitely be banned (they even shut down one of the few Ukrainian language libraries in russia before the full scale invasion) and likely it won’t be available in russian anyway.
Good. Hopefully russia also bans all the games portraying LGBT characters and ethnic minorities, so I can fucking play Overwatch without running into these assholes every other match
I am surprised it’s not already banned. They were going to ban Duolingo because of presence of animated LGBT characters. Duolingo caved and made a custom “LGBT free” version for the russian market.
oof. If Blizzard does that, they’d have to cut like at least 1/3 of the characters lmao
It’s maybe my fault.
I immediately abandoned BF2042 after the second invasion of Ukraine because it was full of Russians and ‘expat’ or not I ain’t cosplaying as those assholes.
I can’t even watch russian movies or listen to russian music (even artists that have openly opposed the full scale invasion). It just gets me in a bad mood.
Any time I see a russian flag on the internet, it’s like seeing a nazi flag. I start thinking “Why the fuck is this here?”.
That bad blood would take ages to clean.
It’s not going to clear, because the russians won’t change.
Not because there is something inherently malicious about them/their culture. That’s bullshit.
It’s the choices they make. And they will continue to make the choice to support genocidal imperialism because they have zero incentive to change.
Western coddling about “they are just afraid, what can they do?” is a massive disservice to the russians (not to mention the countries on the recieving end of their genocidal imperialism).
May I ask you to elaborate on your last paragraph. About the disservice. What do you mean?
ed: deleted a pointless preambula
Engaging with russian victim-hood polemics is not going to help bring about any positive change in russian society.
Pretending that russian society does not consist of a strong majority of genocidal imperialists. Coming up with fantasies about how “everyone is just afraid” so they are just pretending to support imperialism. Turns out you can estimate preference falsification and it is relatively minor at ~10% with the impact being a change in support from ~75% to 65% (still a strong majority) for the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Not putting Navalniy on the pedestal. He was a committed racist and imperialist. He was also a fool who decided to go back to russia, got himself put in jail and got himself killed. If the russians can’t find a better leader, then that’s on them.
Inviting Navalniy’s wife to high end forums where she comes up with stuff like:
What is the European Union’s strategy for Russia?
What is your (the russian opposition’s) strategy for russia? Everything you’ve done so far has been a massive failure. Your organization is in exile and your husband foolishly decided to go back to russian prison where he was killed. What are russians going to do next?
Finally, there are those who advocate for the urgent “decolonization” of Russia, arguing to split our vast country into several smaller, safer states. However, these “decolonizers” can’t explain why people with shared backgrounds and culture should be artificially divided. Nor do they say how this process should even take place.
You killed 5% of the civilian population in Chechnya, including in brutal targeted attacks and you speak about artificially divided? If 7 million russian civilians (roughly 5% of the population) were killed, would you be taking such a cavalier attitude?
If the russians do want to change their society for the better, they need to first confront the issues above. They will never achieve anything if they keep playing dumb. There is no reason to choose a “putin lite” over the real deal.
They will never achieve anything if they keep playing dumb. There is no reason to choose a “putin lite” over the real deal.
They won’t, unless something slaps them hard enough, maybe? But what would sober them up? Being denied the capture of Kiev - didn’t. Denied on Kharkiv -didn’t. Prigo’s march - didn’t. Prigo’s murder - didn’t. Whole forests burning and towns getting flooded - these didn’t do much. And losing parts of Kursk region didn’t do that as well. Where’s the limit to them? What would exceed their tolerance to humiliation? Idk. They are still happy to suck someone’s ass and direct their anger as the party says.
Russia currently has no culture, as many talents from Ukraine and other states left, as many conscious russian artists left too, TV programs are all about referencing and reproducing songs, movies, ideas of the past. There’s literally a genre of shows based in nostalgic reproduction and it is the only thing other than propaganda that exists and thrives. The whole country is a human centipede that sucks it’s own shit. And it’s impotent to produce anything new. There won’t be a russian Triumph of the Will because russian Leny Riefenstahl is too edgy, too different, too wrong to fit the strict borders of what’s allowed. And you can see even russian fascists like Tesak (Chopping axe) got killed for they don’t toe the line well enough. This fascist state is too afraid of their own creations.
Dead Navalny and opposition on social media are rather useless. They aren’t interesting to anyone, not to the regular russians at all, and even harmful for they focus people’s irritation on their non-existant causes. These rich libs just can’t cut it.
There should be some person or multiple persons to first teach these people to be proud of themselves, to learn that they matter, that they aren’t garbage. To get some self-esteem and disdain to how abused they are. Only then they’d start to form civil and class consciousness. Them laughing at ukrainians at Maidan is them just not getting they themselves do deserve better and can demand that.
Can’t say much on national\race question because (1) I’m too white to feel and understand oppression myself and (2) if a region would like to break out, they’d know better what they want. But (3) I feel, like some of them just can’t do so as long as set leader is supported by Kremlin. It’s a question to solve.
It would take a strong defeat (e.g. loss of occupied territories not only in Ukraine, but also Georgia, Moldova and loss of Belarus). They are unfortunately really petty and it would piss them off to no end if our countries became successful and independent.
Perhaps I am too biased against russians, but some sort of global ostracization would be helpful. Not allowing russian citizens into EU, US, Australia.
And most importantly a prolonged period of economic decline.
Yeah, Navalniy and his crew have zero influence inside the country and they are not really looking to do anything beyond YT videos. They don’t really want to fight. They are malicious grifters that at best run an online discussion community for somewhat liberal leaning russians.
Their pride stems from imperialism and “being feared”. They are no where near recognizing that they have the capability to build a better world for themselves. Not to mention they just can’t stop themselves from digging a deeper hole, that exponentially increases the cost of action.
Hugh, that’s more based than I thought it would be. I’d reply again when I have a break.
deleted by creator
“Shared background and culture” more like forcefully homogenised by russian empire and then ussr. Jesus Christ there is no end to the gaslighting
Your reply is irrelevant to that exact conversation.
Right there with ya.
