A a group of russian players GSC Game World gave its developers an ultimatum, threatening to release them. dozens of GB of leaked material related to STALKER 2 If they do not comply with their wishes, including reintroducing Russian as a supported language.
The ultimatum was launched with a post on the VK social network, which you can find at: this address while Here English translation where the group added some images and concept art of the game to show that their threats were serious and tangible. They claim to have a “flour” in the press release. large amount of material About STALKER 2 with full story, cinematic explanations, various concept art, global maps and much more. The total volume is calculated in tens of gigabytes.”
To prevent such material from leaking to the internet, GSG Game World is requested to comply with its requests by March 15, 2023, including apologizing to Belarusian and Russian players. Russian language NF Star has been “banned” for claiming to be blocked for no reason among supported and official STALKER 2 Discord.
The group says they do not want to disclose the material in their possession as they know it “could lead to the postponement or cancellation of the match” and that is not their aim. They claim their “friendly demeanor” has been proven even though they only publish a small portion of their material. At this time, GSC Game World has not publicly responded to its threats.
As you know, STALKER 2 is being developed at GSC Game World, a studio located in Ukraine. More precisely, he was in Ukraine. The entry of Russian troops actually forced a large number of developers to relocate to Prague, where the new headquarters is located, while others stay in the country and work remotely, still others fight for their homeland and unfortunately some of them died in the war. All of this has inevitably slowed down work on the game, which is now scheduled for an indefinite period of 2023.
In March of last year, GSC Game World, Won’t release STALKER 2 in Russia (and hence won’t even work on localization for this language). In doing so he said:
“We don’t regret the loss of some of the community that supported the war in Ukraine. We know that there are people who know what’s going on and support Ukraine in this war, but you won’t be able to buy the game either. You can’t discriminate.”