A Russian disinformation campaign appears to be targeting a popular video game designed in Ukraine and set in Chernobyl.
In emails to journalists and a video with a fake WIRED magazine watermark, a network linked to past misinformation campaigns claims GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is being used to help “the government locate citizens suitable for mobilization” in the Ukraine-Russia war, as well as gather data on gamers, part of a deal with the Ukrainian government,” according to 404 Media.
A Russian misinformation campaign would only be the latest hurdle for the cult-hit video game, which was released on November 20, after being delayed over three years amid the ongoing war.
Its creators have faced missile attacks, cyber-attacks, and the challenges of developing a modern video game as its employees were scattered across Europe fleeing a war.
GSC Game World has been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine’s war effort, raising money for a charity that supplies the country’s army with equipment and barring the sale of its titles in Russia.
Russian officials have responded in kind.
Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma’s Information Policy Committee, suggested this month that the game might be banned in Russia and could face “the most severe measures if illegal content is found in the game upon release, such as extremism, justification of terrorism, or incitement of ethnic hatred.”
Despite the game’s high profile, its developers said they did not set out to build a “propaganda thing” with the release, where players navigate a post-apocalyptic environment in the shadow of the famous nuclear disaster zone.
”We haven’t made the game a propaganda thing. We didn’t want to be very straightforward,” GSC Game World’s lead producer, Slava Lukyanenka, told the website VG247. “At the same time with the whole team travelling - half of us are in Kyiv, half in Prussia, some are scattered around Europe - we still need to keep delivering. We can’t not reflect it in the game. But we do it indirectly. We do it through the stories, through the environment, through the feeling of decay.”
The Independent has contacted GSC Game World for comment.
The game’s developers have described a harrowing process of bringing the title to life.
"Sitting in that cellar with my wife and my cats, I felt like I was abandoned. But like a ‘stalker,’ you have to learn how to live in such situation," concept artist Anton Kukhtytskyi said in a documentary about the game. "I switched to drawing on paper, so I didn’t stop developing."
