Russian hackers threaten to release Stalker 2 content if demands are not met

[midian182]

What just happened? Not for the first time, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is impacting the gaming industry. On this occasion, it's Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, creator of the Stalker series, that's been affected. The company has suffered a data breach at the hands of Russian hackers, who are now threatening to leak the material online if their demands are not met.

GSC Game World posted a statement on Twitter yesterday stating that an employee "account for a collective work-with-images application was hacked." It places the blame on a community from a Russian social network who are threatening to use the data for blackmail and intimidation.

The company adds that it has been enduring constant cyberattacks for more than a year now, I.e., following Russia's invasion. It says that, like most Ukrainians, the team has experienced many things much worse than hacks and blackmail since the war started.

A message from GSC Game World team pic.twitter.com/rqRM0tFZmO

— S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL (@stalker_thegame) March 12, 2023

GameRant reports that the breach was perpetrated by a group of Russian hackers going by the name "Vestnik TSS." A recent post on the Russian social media site VK includes images and artwork from the game, along with a series of demands which, if not met, would see "tens of gigabytes" of unreleased material posted online.

The demands ask for GSC Game World to change its attitude toward players from Russia and Belarus, and "apologize for the unworthy attitude towards ordinary players from these countries." It also wants RU-localization brought back to the game and the unbanning of the "NF Star" profile from the game studio's Discord channel. The company has until March 15 to meet these demands.

The VK account that posted the demands has a name that translates to "Herald of 'The Same STALKER'." The group has almost 15,000 followers and, ironically, community guidelines that prohibit illegal content and talk of politics & political implications.

GSC Game World is asking fans of the game to avoid watching, seeking out, or sharing any Stalker 2 material that might be released by the hackers as "outdated and work-in-progress materials may dilute the impression of the final idea that we have put into the game."

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is one of our most anticipated PC games of 2023, as what we've seen so far looks very promising. It's been delayed twice, the second time as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. The game is now scheduled to release sometime this December.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/97915-russian-hackers-threaten-release-stalker-2-content-if.html

 

[m4a4]

Tried the first Stalker the other day.

Did a whole bunch of stuff and it crashed. No autosave. Quickly deleted that. I don't have the time or care to lose progress because no autosave is a feature. I'm too forgetful for that.

 

[QuaZulu]

Yes; threaten, bludgeon, intimidate, and abuse people into "liking" you. That always works

 

[Skjorn]

Maybe don't respond so spiteful towards innocent gamers of a different land who have supported you throughout your entire existence.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Tried the first Stalker the other day.

Did a whole bunch of stuff and it crashed. No autosave. Quickly deleted that. I don't have the time or care to lose progress because no autosave is a feature. I'm too forgetful for that.

Shame. I thought the STALKER games were amazing. Some aspects of them were a little clunky (like the PDA menu), but overall the atmosphere in Shadow of Chernobyl was what sold me on the series. I also liked the fact that the games didn't hold your hand.

It's not hard to hit F5 (or maybe it was F6 in STALKER) for quick save, just need to work it into your mindset while you play. Kind of a lame excuse to not give a game a try because there was no auto save feature.

I try to give games a solid try before I walk away from them and that's generally because they bore me. Take the game Death Stranding, I put 8 hours into it and I was bored out of my mind. Nearly half that time was sitting there watching and not doing anything.....so boring. Then walking, walking, walking....sneaking, holding your breath, then more cutscenes, more boringass cutscenes. 8 hours was my tipping point and I gave up on it. So, I could understand if you found STALKER to be boring or maybe thought it was overly complicated or even too easy and you walked away, but no auto save feature....

 

[m4a4]

Shame. I thought the STALKER games were amazing. Some aspects of them were a little clunky (like the PDA menu), but overall the atmosphere in Shadow of Chernobyl was what sold me on the series. I also liked the fact that the games didn't hold your hand.

It's not hard to hit F5 (or maybe it was F6 in STALKER) for quick save, just need to work it into your mindset while you play. Kind of a lame excuse to not give a game a try because there was no auto save feature.

I try to give games a solid try before I walk away from them and that's generally because they bore me. Take the game Death Stranding, I put 8 hours into it and I was bored out of my mind. Nearly half that time was sitting there watching and not doing anything.....so boring. Then walking, walking, walking....sneaking, holding your breath, then more cutscenes, more boringass cutscenes. 8 hours was my tipping point and I gave up on it. So, I could understand if you found STALKER to be boring or maybe thought it was overly complicated or even too easy and you walked away, but no auto save feature....

It was a "you can only save while around a campfire". Which means, I couldn't just save randomly.
I otherwise gave it a decent shot. Also got annoying that I couldn't heal up because of a random encounter and I didn't have enough money for meds (and no place I could find to sell weapons for cash). A leg was damaged, so I lost sprinting (wasting my time).

And then yeah, Death Stranding I gave about 2hrs before giving up on that one lol (free on EGS is the only reason I tried it)

 

[Stingy McDuck]

If buying Atomic Heart meant "supporting the Russian economy and the war machine", Russian citizens buying Stalker 2 would mean that support the Ukranian economy and its war machine?

 

[Neatfeatguy]

It was a "you can only save while around a campfire". Which means, I couldn't just save randomly.
I otherwise gave it a decent shot. Also got annoying that I couldn't heal up because of a random encounter and I didn't have enough money for meds (and no place I could find to sell weapons for cash). A leg was damaged, so I lost sprinting (wasting my time).

And then yeah, Death Stranding I gave about 2hrs before giving up on that one lol (free on EGS is the only reason I tried it)

You install mods for STALKER? I don't ever recall needing to be around a campfire in the vanilla version to save. I know after playing the completely redone and modded (GAMMA version) to the max version of STALKER: SoC the only way to save was by a campfire. If you modded it a bunch, I'd say you should play it vanilla first or at the very most only use the Starter Pack mod.

The start of the game can be very unforgiving. A few start overs for me before I started to get things figured out enough where I wasn't feeling like I was being punished by my inexperience.

I know the modding community did a helluva job updating things, adding things, removing things and so on, but that whole process of having to be at a campfire to save in the modded version bothered the crap out of me. If I remember correctly there's an option to disable the "save by campfire only" if you user the GAMMA mod for STALKER. GAMMA adds so much to the game it's like playing a brand new game. Some areas in the game have changes, so many new/updated items and the list goes on and on, it was daunting just trying to figure out the basics because things were so different from the vanilla version.

As for Death Standing, that's the only reason I got it, too, from from EGS. I thought the game and story would be interesting, but it was awful. I don't know how people enjoyed it.

I'm hoping that STALKER 2 will be at least be on the same level as STALKER: Clear Sky (arguably the worst of the 3, but for me it was my favorite one because of the faction wars, even though the faction war aspect of the game wasn't complete and buggy). The STALKER games were the last games I ever purchased at full retail price when they launched, I enjoyed them that much. Also, the fact that the games when they launched were only $39.99 and not the normal $49.99 most new games sold for.

 

[psycros]

If you're a Russian hacker you probably have access to news that's not state-controlled. Therefore you have no excuse for supporting Putin's ongoing war crime. If you still support the invasion then all you deserve is the same thing Putin will ultimately get, most likely from someone he thought he could trust.

 

[ExReey]

If buying Atomic Heart meant "supporting the Russian economy and the war machine", Russian citizens buying Stalker 2 would mean that support the Ukranian economy and its war machine?

You really think the Russian hackers will *buy* the game?

 

[Skjorn]

You really think the Russian hackers will *buy* the game?

All Russians are pirating hackers?

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

Suka Blyat! They will get nothing as they have earned nothing. As a huge STALKER fan I don't care if they do release stolen material - I'm still buying the game, I will still support the developers. These cowardly attempts will not sway us, the loyal STALKER fans.

To GSC and the dev team: take your time on the game, do your best to secure your network infrastructure AND on-site access in CZ. I'm willing to wait a little longer. Be safe, be aware, be strong.

 

[DukeJukem]

The world is becoming a sadder and sadder place by the day...and it makes me sad .

 

[Kam7r]

I'm 100% for the Ukrainians and I hope they'll kick the russians's @sses .... but next time the US bomb some random country for oil... I mean sorry , bringing "freedom", lying to the UN council destabilizing an entire continent for profit or the shitton of crap they did for decades where everybody was ok ... I'll wait to see all those outraged ppl and boycotts you'll do, and I'm sure you'll do them right ? ... you condemn everything or you condemn nothing or it's only hypocrisy and double standard... Stalker, I love stalker, I played every one of those games when they first released,and stalker 2 is the ONLY game I'm waiting for... and I waited years... whatever those hackers do, I'll buy the game, and surely more than once

 

[m4a4]

You install mods for STALKER? I don't ever recall needing to be around a campfire in the vanilla version to save. I know after playing the completely redone and modded (GAMMA version) to the max version of STALKER: SoC the only way to save was by a campfire. If you modded it a bunch, I'd say you should play it vanilla first or at the very most only use the Starter Pack mod.

The start of the game can be very unforgiving. A few start overs for me before I started to get things figured out enough where I wasn't feeling like I was being punished by my inexperience.

I know the modding community did a helluva job updating things, adding things, removing things and so on, but that whole process of having to be at a campfire to save in the modded version bothered the crap out of me. If I remember correctly there's an option to disable the "save by campfire only" if you user the GAMMA mod for STALKER. GAMMA adds so much to the game it's like playing a brand new game. Some areas in the game have changes, so many new/updated items and the list goes on and on, it was daunting just trying to figure out the basics because things were so different from the vanilla version.

As for Death Standing, that's the only reason I got it, too, from from EGS. I thought the game and story would be interesting, but it was awful. I don't know how people enjoyed it.

I'm hoping that STALKER 2 will be at least be on the same level as STALKER: Clear Sky (arguably the worst of the 3, but for me it was my favorite one because of the faction wars, even though the faction war aspect of the game wasn't complete and buggy). The STALKER games were the last games I ever purchased at full retail price when they launched, I enjoyed them that much. Also, the fact that the games when they launched were only $39.99 and not the normal $49.99 most new games sold for.

I did the highly recommended modpack (GAMMA) to "modernize" the game (was looking for a SP Tarkov and that came up). The installer said to not mess with the mods or it might not work, so I didn't this round. Wanted to give these types of games a shot to see if I'd like them.
Figured the saves were a part of the STALKER "experience", because, who in their right mind adds in more ways to lose progress in a "better" experience? And didn't see anything obvious online specifically for autosaving. I am pretty forgetful when focusing on playing a game, and hate redoing stuff just because something stupid happens. It's just easier for me to not play those types of games (so when I lost at least an hour from a crash, that was all). That said, I liked some of the ideas, but it was still a little more meticulous than I would find fun.
Maybe I'll try it again later and try to customize the mods. That is, if I want to randomly run into anomalies again lol

Yeah, I'd always joke that Death Standing just looked like a walking simulator. I didn't want to be right when I started playing it.....

If I see STALKER 2 has autosaving, I might look at it. But right now I am good. The modpack sounded like it was going to be the best way to get me into the game, and it wasn't what I was looking for.

Edit: I just rememebered to add, I did play the vanilla STALKER yeeeaars ago. Not entirely sure why I uninstalled it then, but probably because it annoyed me in similar ways back then too.

 

[Aus spot]

It was a "you can only save while around a campfire". Which means, I couldn't just save.

As other has said you have probably used the gamma mod or similar. Try the game stock or with the clear sky mods for a more original feel.

I love the game but the gamma mod is hard at the start even for me. And start can be over 10 hours gameplay.

Really auto saves are for kids. You should be punished in this type of game for taking too many risks and getting killed. This is a survival type game.

 

[m4a4]

Really auto saves are for kids. You should be punished in this type of game for taking too many risks and getting killed. This is a survival type game.

And that type of opinion is for kids. If, as an adult, I want autosaves to help me not lose progress, then why do you care?

Also, if you read my comments, the game crashed. I didn't just "die" ......

 

[Kotters]

I'm not sure why you would volunteer that you were filtered by basic game mechanics on a tech news site.

 

[digibluez]

No one cares about the hacker hooligans, ppl will preorder and buy it anyway, all who play a pirated copy enjoy your trojans

 

[Janke]

I did the highly recommended modpack (GAMMA) to "modernize" the game (was looking for a SP Tarkov and that came up). The installer said to not mess with the mods or it might not work, so I didn't this round. Wanted to give these types of games a shot to see if I'd like them.
Figured the saves were a part of the STALKER "experience", because, who in their right mind adds in more ways to lose progress in a "better" experience? And didn't see anything obvious online specifically for autosaving. I am pretty forgetful when focusing on playing a game, and hate redoing stuff just because something stupid happens. It's just easier for me to not play those types of games (so when I lost at least an hour from a crash, that was all). That said, I liked some of the ideas, but it was still a little more meticulous than I would find fun.
Maybe I'll try it again later and try to customize the mods. That is, if I want to randomly run into anomalies again lol

Yeah, I'd always joke that Death Standing just looked like a walking simulator. I didn't want to be right when I started playing it.....

If I see STALKER 2 has autosaving, I might look at it. But right now I am good. The modpack sounded like it was going to be the best way to get me into the game, and it wasn't what I was looking for.

Edit: I just rememebered to add, I did play the vanilla STALKER yeeeaars ago. Not entirely sure why I uninstalled it then, but probably because it annoyed me in similar ways back then too.

Gamma is a completely different game. It's not just a texture pack, it's a completely new setting with 300+ mods that deviate the experience massively from the original games. The originals still have great atmosphere but yeah, they will feel extremely clunky by today's standards. If you're still willing to try there is plenty of HD texture packs for the original trilogy on moddb and nexus. I wouldn't install anything else as I feel it would detract from the experience. Gamma is fun but only once you are done with the og games and very familiar with the mechanics.

 

[AxelAminoff]

Suka Blyat! They will get nothing as they have earned nothing. As a huge STALKER fan I don't care if they do release stolen material - I'm still buying the game, I will still support the developers. These cowardly attempts will not sway us, the loyal STALKER fans.

To GSC and the dev team: take your time on the game, do your best to secure your network infrastructure AND on-site access in CZ. I'm willing to wait a little longer. Be safe, be aware, be strong.

Well said! I will also be buying the game.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

And that type of opinion is for kids. If, as an adult, I want autosaves to help me not lose progress, then why do you care?

Also, if you read my comments, the game crashed. I didn't just "die" ......

The STALKER game crashed on you? I must of missed you mentioning that otherwise I would have posted this sooner.

Do you have RivaTuner installed (it generally gets installed with MSI Afterburner, if you choose to install it)? If you do, for some reason it conflicts with Xray Engine that STALKER uses and it causes crashes.

If you don't make use of RivaTurner, just uninstall it and STALKER shouldn't crash anymore on you. That's what I did when I spent some time playing it. The game would run for 5 minutes before crashing or an hour or two. Little digging and I found that RivaTuner was the culprit.

 

[m4a4]

The STALKER game crashed on you? I must of missed you mentioning that otherwise I would have posted this sooner.

Do you have RivaTuner installed (it generally gets installed with MSI Afterburner, if you choose to install it)? If you do, for some reason it conflicts with Xray Engine that STALKER uses and it causes crashes.

If you don't make use of RivaTurner, just uninstall it and STALKER shouldn't crash anymore on you. That's what I did when I spent some time playing it. The game would run for 5 minutes before crashing or an hour or two. Little digging and I found that RivaTuner was the culprit.

Hmmm? It was in my first comment. And I don't have RivaTuner running (not that I have STALKER installed atm lol).

I did see a few comments here and there joking that STALKER was a quicksave simulator for some people because the game was prone to crashing (along with the need to save often before fighting).

That said, I was able to play for a few consecutive hours without any crashes, and then it crashed at the most annoying time (after I did a lot of stuff that I didn't feel the need to manually save for, aka forgot to save).

 

[Tams80]

I'm 100% for the Ukrainians and I hope they'll kick the russians's @sses .... but next time the US bomb some random country for oil... I mean sorry , bringing "freedom", lying to the UN council destabilizing an entire continent for profit or the shitton of crap they did for decades where everybody was ok ... I'll wait to see all those outraged ppl and boycotts you'll do, and I'm sure you'll do them right ? ... you condemn everything or you condemn nothing or it's only hypocrisy and double standard... Stalker, I love stalker, I played every one of those games when they first released,and stalker 2 is the ONLY game I'm waiting for... and I waited years... whatever those hackers do, I'll buy the game, and surely more than once

Well, it's been about 20 years since the US have done that. Meanwhile it is Russia who are currently doing far worse than anything the US have ever done, and in only a year.

 

[Kam7r]

Well, it's been about 20 years since the US have done that. Meanwhile it is Russia who are currently doing far worse than anything the US have ever done, and in only a year.

20 years ? and "less worse" ? you should ask someone living in the middle east or latin/south america... etc... they're still suffering from it, even "20years" later...