Apologize to Belarusian and Russian gamers, unban a Discord account, and translate your game into Russian. These are the claims of the group of Russian hackers who have been targeting the Ukrainian studio GSC Game World for a year. In a message on Russian Facebook, VKontakte, posted on March 11, a certain Nick Frost expressed his wishes and gave the game developers until March 15. Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl to submit to her.
But the GSC Game World teams have no intention of giving in to these requests. The studio has spent several years preparing the sequel to its first game Stalker: The Shadow of Chernobyllaunched in March 2007. It is an open-world adventure set in a post-apocalyptic environment marked by a nuclear explosion in Chernobyl in 2006. However, the company has been facing cyberattacks, intimidation and blackmail for a year, explains the US site The Verge.
Tens of gigabytes stolen
The silent clash between the two entities took a new turn this weekend with the request made by the group of cybercriminals. His concerns relate in particular to the representation of the Russians within the game. They claim to be in possession of many in-game items such as the setting, cutscenes, concept drawings, or in-game maps. In total, several tens of gigabytes would have been stolen. by the pro-Russian group.
GSC Game World’s response was immediate. The next day, March 12, the studio posted a message on Twitter confirming that it had suffered a cyberattack. However, the Ukrainian developers refuse to submit to any kind of pressure.
A possible future escape
According to the PC game sales platform Steam, the video game Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl it is scheduled for December 2023. But this date has been continuously pushed back in the past and is only indicative at present. This is explained by the difficulties of the developers in designing the game.Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, some employees have been forced to go live in Prague, Czech Republic.
By refusing these pressures, the studio is exposing itself to a possible leak of its title. If this happens, GSC Game World asks to “refrain from viewing or sharing information” in Stalker2: Heart of Chernobyl. They explain that “things that are dated or in progress could devalue all the work” they’ve done on the game.
Source: BFM TV
