Russian troops have invaded Ukraine, and the war has continued for 19 days. Stalker developer GSC Game World is based in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which is currently under attack and has condemned the “inhuman brutality” of the invasion since the start of the war and put Stalker 2 development on hold.
Today The Steam entry for Stalker 2 has been updated and changed the sequel’ssequel’s subtitle to Heart of Chernobyl.
There is no announcement of the change, but it is almost certainly because Chernobyl is the Ukrainian spelling of the region, while Chernobyl is the Russian spelling.
“To say ”Ukraine” is more than a grammatical error — it is inappropriate and disrespectful towards Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Ukrainian journalist Olena Goncharova. Wrote to Kyiv Post in 2018. This suggests that the country is a vassal state, still somewhat dependent on Russia, whereas “Ukraine is no longer part of another country or empire. After many hard battles, it became an independent, unitary state.”
Kyiv itself is another example: spelling it as “Kyiv” was and still is widespread, but this spelling comes from the name of the Russian language. Since 2018, it has been under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian government—information campaign KyivNotKiev, which is itself part of a broader Ukrainian heritage movement. So it’s a small change for Stalker 2, but part of something much bigger.
