As with any such conflict, Russia's invasion of Ukraine comes with its own propaganda to justify the horrific events. And no matter what this propaganda communicates, all that matters in the end is that innocent people continue to be killed and displaced. Like many in the region, the developers at GSC Game World have been affected by the war, and had therefore put Stalker 2 on hold.
While development on the sequel has now resumed, the rumoured console port of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl has been leaked. There's nothing surprising about leaks in the video game industry, but this leak came along with a rather bizarre document which could either be some form of propaganda or just the result of someone sitting in the safety of their home, not realizing that missiles are being targeted at Ukrainian cities.
According to PCGamer, this letter is written by a Russian streamer going by 'Nevazhno, Kto' and 'Velichaishii' – translating to 'It doesn't matter who' and 'The greatest', respectively. It's not a one-pager either – it's a five-page document, where the streamer confesses that the early build of the console port was leaked by them, along with their reasons for doing so.
"[GSC] cast off everyone who supported their game for 15 years and kept it alive," wrote Nevazhno, talking about how the developer discriminated against its Russian fan base after Ukraine was attacked by the country's military forces. They provided a number of reasons for leaking the build – like the "Constant discrimination against Russians in [GSC's] Discord server," along with the developer raising money to support Ukrainian troops. "The purchase of weapons and military equipment is not a charity event," they wrote.
PCGamer reached out to GSC Game World, who replied with, "We have been publishing pleas to help Ukraine in our social media and on our web resources—just like thousands of other Ukrainian companies… Nonetheless, an important thing to mention is that we also added a clarification about the donations from Russia later on. We think we might be in the absolute minority—if not the only ones—to do so".
Nevazhno also claimed that the leak came via GSC employees who were unhappy about the company's treatment of the Russian player base.