Stalker developer GSC Game World has been added to the Russian government’s list of “undesirable organisations,” per a press release from the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office. In other words, it’s been deemed a threat to the “foundations of Russia’s constitutional order, defensive capacity and security,” and anyone in Russia maintaining ties to the studio could face punishment.
GSC might be the most famous of the myriad Ukrainian studios affected by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The war forced the studio to relocate from its former home of Kyiv to offices in Prague; one of its developers, Volodymyr Yezhov, was killed in action in December 2022; and the studio has come under repeated propaganda attacks from anti-Ukrainian forces and disgruntled Russian ex-fans.
GSC has, itself, raised money for the Ukrainian military—$800,000 via a charity sale of its games, and it encouraged fans to donate to the country’s army in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion. You might think, then, that the Russian government—never shy about adding people and organisations it dislikes to lists of “extremist” entities—had long ago thrown the book at GSC. But despite some past sabre-rattling, its branding as an “undesirable” org only got handed down today.
The Prosecutor General’s Office accuses GSC of “financial support of the [Armed Forces of Ukraine],” and the promulgation of a “view of Russia as an ‘aggressor state’, including the dissemination of materials discrediting to our country.”
Russia also accuses GSC’s management of donating $17 million to a fund for the assistance of Ukrainian military personnel, an assertion I cannot personally find any basis for outside of the Prosecutor General’s statement itself.
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
Perhaps most absurd, though, is the Office’s assessment of Stalker 2 itself. “In 2024, [GSC] released a computer game promoting Ukrainian narratives [and] containing aggressive Russophobic content.” Having played—and, indeed, reviewed—Stalker 2, I struggle to recall much that leapt out to me as ‘aggressively’ Russophobic. Perhaps the Prosecutor General is upset GSC took out the Russian voice track.
