Concerning the removal of Russian voice acting

[Hunter_02]

Now, first and foremost I'd like to make it clear that I'm German and thus possibly have a different perspective on these matters than the average Russian or Ukrainian.
I also tend to ramble, so be prepared for a wall of text.

I'm also a long time STALKER fan. I may not have the games in my library, but that's because I still use the old CDs and never bothered to link the .exe files to Steam, if that's even possible. However, I've come to appreciate Steam as a means of communication with other players of a game, which I hereby make use of.

The war that has raged on since February of this year is utterly reprehensible, just so my stance on this is clear. It spits in the face of global cooperation like nothing else I've witnessed in my tender twenty-six years of lifetime. Heroes are born as I write this, and lead-storms ravage the same areas they have some eighty years before. The reasons for all this are brutally unclear, as is the outcome. I did not expect that something like this could happen in Europe ever again, but I suppose we've all learned quite a lot in these last months.

However, and the following words are not primarily directed at Ukrainians: These are still not times to become russophobic. I firmly believe that while this war is disgusting and devoid of purpose, mutual understanding should remain the ultimate goal of every relationship between countries - and this should concern everyone, even us, the modest gamers. If we isolate Russia, if we push them away, there is no telling of what might happen in the long run, even after peace is somehow achieved. They did the same to Germany between WW1 and WW2, and what happened then is bloody history.

To that end, I would like to voice my disapproval of the decision to remove the Russian voice acting.

However, it is entirely understandable to me why such an action would be taken. I've watched the developer diary video, and I understand that many members of the development team actively fight the Russian invasion. Naturally, this is a perfect breeding ground for the same hatred I've had to stifle many times after watching footage about Russian brutalities.

And yet I think that this, at the end of the day, remains a video game. Political happenings should not affect it more than necessary. To decide that it should not be sold and enjoyed in Russia anymore satisfies the hatred, but I know that there is a big fanbase over there as well. I dare assume that a lot of people in Russia might fall for the party line, but do not agree with the war either, so this decision hurts more innocents than one might think. Collateral damage, as it were.

I've seen a thread in Ukrainian just recently where somebody argued that this decision won't stop Putler but only hurt the fanbase. I can thus assume that some might think my way, even though I still think I stand rather alone with my point of view.

Now; congratulations if your attention span has lasted this long, since my observations of Steam community discussions have revealed that such a skill is in quite short supply.
If you reply, I would love it if you could keep it civil.

Have a nice evening, or night, or whatever it may be at your places.

[[GSC]Super_PropheT]

Originally posted by Voland:

Originally posted by Iamlegend:

I agree with your last post, however we are still not "after" the ukraino-russian war, that's the difference. You can give a friendly hand to you neighbour only when he decides not to cut it.

agree. with war ongoing(and no any gsc community managers here, anyway) there no point in such discussion, until then

just voicing opinions

I'm here. Always. Sometimes it's better not to join the discussion and only moderate it.

[Voland]

Originally posted by GSCSuper_PropheT:

Originally posted by Voland:

agree. with war ongoing(and no any gsc community managers here, anyway) there no point in such discussion, until then

just voicing opinions

I'm here. Always. Sometimes it's better not to join the discussion and only moderate it.

thats great to hear!

i mean, one of the points of this discussion is just to be heared by devs, so its good to know that GSC in touch, actually. thank you

[[GSC]Super_PropheT]

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

So, GSC is content with removing pages of comments they don't like, even if they were polite and free of insults?


This is only one example why many old fans are still on the fence about pre-ordering your game. You ask for consumers' money a year in advance, without showing anything substantial, asking them to trust you will put out an amazing game, while we can't even trust GSC to not censor us in the forums.

I'm not Russian nor do I support Russia attacking Ukraine. I said the same thing the creator of this topic said:

Removing Russian voice acting isn't the solution.
No Russian goverment official plays STALKER, Russian fans do. The biggest reason you are creating a sequel is because the game retained popularity / relevance thanks to mods, mods which are 99% of the time are created by Russian fans.


What a shame to see this behavior and censorship from the creator of a series we love. This comment will most likely be deleted as well.

Nope, it won't be deleted. But if this comment becomes a part of the offtop thread with flaming, insultings and provocations — it will be removed immediately as I removed 10+ comments from above. If you think we have a censorship, why then this thread still exists?

[Olin_Odinson]

Honestly, Ukrainian voice acting will be cooler!!! After all, The Zone is in Ukraine.

[Jan]

My comments got deleted too.
Who really cares?
And no the conversation was not polite or free of insult.
It got dragged down by people who quite obviously felt the need to vent some anger.

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

No Russian goverment official plays STALKER, Russian fans do.

You dont know that.
But what you can say with close to 100% certainty is that no russian government offical fired a single bullet in this war.
Russians do, including those russian fans you mentioned.

Of course you may still disagree with the decision or argue if it makes much sense.
But you cant claim that it has been made in some arbitrary way.

[Hunter_02]

Hey, hey, people, original creator of the discussion here. Just reminding you to keep it civil. I realise I stepped on many toes with my rather provocative and necessarily ignorant postings, and I know we're on Steam, but neither are reasons to go off the rails with insults and flaming.

Also, if a moderator decides to moderate, they presumably have good reasons to do so. Even if that includes the removal of certain comments, as unfortunate as that may be.

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

Not to worry guys, mods will add Russian language, problem solved for Russian audience.

[Voland]

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

Except there wasn't any flaming, insultings or provocations in my comment

it doesnt matter cus:

Originally posted by GSCSuper_PropheT:

this comment becomes a part of the offtop thread

also, mods usally monitoring threads when there were someone submit a complaint on post cus they dont really have that much time to read everything on forums daily. so if you want to blame someone, you could look also for every participant in this thread.

tbh, i think this topic of discussion have been exhausted, so thats why now its just producing mostly offtopic and controversial threads

Originally posted by Jan:

can say with close to 100% certainty is that no russian government offical fired a single bullet in this war.
Russians do, including those russian fans you mentioned

they fighting AFU believing they protecting donbass. you know, its kinda hard to be at war without strong beliefs, which always provoking worst parts of humanity in the end. its not like armies created only with folks who just want killing. ofc not everyone with beliefs, like mercenaries/pmc, cus well... some ppl really bloodthirsty, since we all just humans, after all. but no one can say for everyone. including you. and honestly, its like blaming gun itself, but not one who pulling the trigger. and its politics who pulling the wars

anyway, i dont think deleting rus vo have anything with "what if there some bloodthirsty russians on war are stalker fans, as well? lets delete rus vo then". cus its like dropping nuke on the city guessing that murder suspect still in town. also, in that regard they could delete whole rus localisation, but they didnt. and as i mentioned earlier, half of russian speaking population not even living in russia. also, there even foreign stalker fans who doesnt understand rus but still prefer playing with rus vo for authenticity. so, this decision simply couldnt be intention just to hurt hypothetical stalker fans who participating in this war.

Originally posted by Dead4Life The Original One:

Not to worry guys, mods will add Russian language, problem solved for Russian audience.

i dont think that amateur work would be better. also i dont know how this would be on consoles, even though i think they planned mods support even there.

[andrudis]

Originally posted by Voland:

believing they protecting donbass. you know, its kinda hard to be at war without strong beliefs, which always provoking worst parts of humanity in the end. ofc not everyone on wars with beliefs, like mercenaries, cus well... some ppl really bloodthirsty, since we all just humans, after all. but no one can say for everyone. including you. and honestly, its like blaming gun itself, but not one who pulling the trigger. and its politics who pulling the wars

All the most hideous and despicable crimes in the history were committed by people with strong believes that they are doing the rightful thing. That does not change the fact that they committed horrible crimes earned themselves a dishonorable place in the history. Still it is always a personal choice what to believe in and any person bears full responsibility for his/her own actions regardless what he/she believe in. Russian invaders are not any different in that regard. Not to mention there was no any need to "protect" anyone until Russians invaded Donbass in 2014 under disguise of "green men".

Originally posted by Voland:

anyway, i dont think deleting rus vo have anything with "what if there some bloodthirsty russians on war are stalker fans, as well? lets delete rus vo then". cus its like dropping nuke on the city guessing that murder suspect still in town. also, in that regard they could delete whole rus localisation, but they didnt. and as i mentioned earlier, half of russian speaking population not even living in russia. ... so, this decision simply couldnt be intention just to hurt hypothetical stalker fans who participating in this war.

I am inclined to agree here. It is less about hurt anyone specific and more about desire to distantiate yourself from anything Russian. That is a natural thing to happen during active war as making anything Russian will in the first place associate with people who invaded you country and are killing you friends and relatives, razing cities etc... it is a natural thing that such associations definitely do not motivate Ukrainians to make anything Russian or do any business with Russian voicing companies.
Also a bit of speculation here, but I remember there were a lot of complains about Russian voicing in 2021 trailed (the one with stalkers talking around campfire) and there were a petition with demand to hire professional voice actors to make good VO. And I believe GSC answered something that they took these complains into account.
My vision here(more a speculation) is that VO was either not fully finished or GSC were going to redo VO with new professional actors to address complains, but after full scale invasion they were naturally extremely demotivated to finish that work on Russian VO and highly motivated to do Ukrainian VO instead.

Originally posted by Voland:

also, there even foreign stalker fans who doesnt understand rus but still prefer playing with rus vo for authenticity.

These fans will be able to use Ukrainian VO and will not notice much difference. If there do not understand Russian - then any Slavic language will sound more or less similar for them as long as voice acting will be done good enough and with similar intonation.

Originally posted by Voland:

Originally posted by Dead4Life The Original One:

Not to worry guys, mods will add Russian language, problem solved for Russian audience.

i dont think that amateur work would be better. also i dont know how this would be on consoles, even though i think they planned mods support even there.

I believe there is a Russian professional voicing company who promised to do a full Russian VO for Stalker 2. If that is true, then it will be the same as if GSC hired them.
Not sure if that will be completely some kind of charity or if they will start some kickstarter-like campaign to fund creation of this translation. In any case highly likely there will be more than 1 mod created for Russian VO.
Yep, it will be delayed a months or two after official release of the game, but it is not anything close to unreasonable problem. Even for 100% online game Escape from Tarkov without any modding support fans managed to make full single players mode with modding capability to add new quests/guns/gear, so making a VO mod for single player game with advanced modding support should not be a problem at all. And if there will be an official mod support for consoles then I do not see any way VO mod will not be able to get there as long as general access to the game is not restricted in players country. Any mod that does not break any general rules (for nudity, scams, fraud etc.) of a platform should be available freely.

[Voland]

Originally posted by andrudis:

All the most hideous and despicable crimes in the history were committed by people with strong believes that they are doing the rightful thing.

exactly. army just doing thing what its created for. thats why russian army doesnt really different than any other army in the world. army is just a "gun" used by a goverment. and sh1tty individuals who committing war crimes, are individuals, after all. which making biggest responsibility for this is all those politics who turned controversity into actual war.

Originally posted by andrudis:

I believe there is a Russian professional voicing company who promised to do a full Russian VO for Stalker 2. If that is true, then it will be the same as if GSC hired them.
Not sure if that will be completely some kind of charity or if they will start some kickstarter-like campaign to fund creation of this translation. In any case highly likely there will be more than 1 mod created for Russian VO.
Yep, it will be delayed a months or two after official release of the game, but it is not anything close to unreasonable problem. Even for 100% online game Escape from Tarkov without any modding support fans managed to make full single players mode with modding capability to add new quests/guns/gear, so making a VO mod for single player game with advanced modding support should not be a problem at all. And if there will be an official mod support for consoles then I do not see any way VO mod will not be able to get there as long as general access to the game is not restricted in players country. Any mod that does not break any general rules (for nudity, scams, fraud etc.) of a platform should be available freely.

tbh my concern is mostly due fact that there rarely good quality for unnofficial VO(but tbh stalker is already "people's game", so maybe its not matter that much after all) and chances that they ban rus vo mod on consoles. but yeah, that seems reasonable overall. and also that would save some money for GSC which is good thing, in the end

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

Originally posted by Voland:

Originally posted by Iamlegend:

many of us who are not Ukrainians wish to distinguish Russians from Putiin's criminal system, even though the limits are blurred, and Russians (like any people from the world) are much more powerful against their leaders than they might think.

problem is, that this whole "cancel russia" thing, is... enhancing this system, on the contrary. so, it would remain for many years more, sadly

Originally posted by Iamlegend:

I can't blame Ukrainians for hating Russians

and no one here blaming them for that. they can hate russians as much as they want. they already never will release stalker 2 in russia, and thats allright

BUT there a BIG difference between hating russians, and banning russian language/culture. i mean, imagine there would be no german language/culture after WW2.

i understand, they can do anything what they want, but problem is that stalker world already heavily tied with russian language/culture, since that was common for ukrainians in general. i mean, devs even can turn stalker 2 into somewhat cod 2019, but i hope they would take it slow and think more about that. after all, its not first time when world history see some brother nations at break and war. and i think stalker world is literally last bridge between. thats why i hope it would remain after this sh1twar, in the end, and im not saying this as stalker fan.

p.s. that makes me think, would 4A make another METRO game in such regard?

Oh they will add mod support on consoles too? That's cool, few games do that.
If they allow mods a language pack could work. Because they will not add Russian language, since it is political bias. I'm not sure if I can blame them for that. Lots of anger vs both countries inside. Well, language mods would be the only option for console too, probably. Or, well, no Russian language at all.
The game will not be sold in Russia either at this point.

[Voland]

Originally posted by Dead4Life The Original One:

Oh they will add mod support on consoles too? That's cool, few games do that.

yeah, GSC stated that they would add mods support even on consoles. which is greatest thing, since modding community is one of biggest points of stalker series. consindering that game is on UE5, modding capabilities are fascinating. and also would keep it actual even until stalker 3 in 2043 :D

[VB Driver]

There's still no Greeks voices mod for AC Odyssey but you expect russian voices mod for this?

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

Originally posted by Voland:

Originally posted by Dead4Life The Original One:

Oh they will add mod support on consoles too? That's cool, few games do that.

yeah, GSC stated that they would add mods support even on consoles. which is greatest thing, since modding community is one of biggest points of stalker series. consindering that game is on UE5, modding capabilities are fascinating. and also would keep it actual even until stalker 3 in 2043 :D

That's awesome, well good luck bro, hopefully everyone gets to experience this game, one way or the other, with their language preference too.

[Voland]

Originally posted by VB✠Driver:

There's still no Greeks voices mod for AC Odyssey but you expect russian voices mod for this?

actually in Odyssey story dialogues frequently using greek words and all citizens with some enemies are with greek vo regardless of localisation. which is common thing for AC series.

so, if GSC confirm that STALKER 2 still would be full of "cheeky-breeky" and "mlyaaaaaa", i think that would make such topics irrelevant instantly :D