The Video Games to Avoid If You Don’t Want to Support Russia’s War

https://united24media.com/business/the-video-games-to-avoid-if-you-dont-want-to-support-russias-war-11419

by AloneCoffee4538

32 comments

  1. Escape From Tarkov,

    War Thunder,

    Atomic Heart,

    Squad 22 : ZOV.

  2. Gladly skipped Atomic Heart. But god, ILL looks so good as horror, but will have to skip this one too.

  4. Would have to stop supporting Chinese games as well since they finance the war machine, but that will never happen.

  8. I can only really talk of the flight sim IL2 Sturmovik. In its leaked asset players found FPV drones with bombs modelled. They were removed from the official released game afterwards. But it indicates that they use their flight sim capabilities to train Ru FPV pilots. 

  9. I fucking knew the uptick in War Thunder sponsors on YouTube had a reason behind it, I just couldn’t prove it.

  12. Too late for Atomic Hart… But it was bonkers

  13. Dang, was just looking into Atomic Heart. Oh well, skip!

  14. Great! Thanks for sharing that. Gladly I don’t play any.

  15. For me this is the most disturbing part as Valve has a lot to answer for:

    >**Squad 22: ZOV**

    >The most brazen example is Squad 22: ZOV, released on Steam in May 2025 and [openly endorsed by Russia’s Defense Ministry.](https://united24media.com/anti-fake/russias-war-crimes-simulator-what-squad-22-zov-game-was-really-made-for-9016) Developed by SPN Studio, the game reframes the invasion of Ukraine as a “liberation” and packages war crimes as playable missions: the first free campaign is the “liberation of Mariupol,” where more than 10,000 civilians were killed, with further missions available for purchase to reenact Russia’s 2014 invasion of Donbas and Crimea. On Steam, the title is advertised as “recommended by the Russian military” for cadet training

    For comparison, [a shooter with a pro-Palestine theme was banned from Steam for promoting terrorism after one of the missions was named after the Oct. 7 attacks and featured paragliders](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/11/28/computer-game-recreating-october-7-hamas-attack-pulled-after-police-appeal). Obviously it was in very bad taste, but even that game gives you a game over if you kill civilians.

    Meanwhile, a game used to train actual terrorists and framing one of the biggest massacres in modern history as “liberation” is allowed. I’d seriously love to hear Valve’s reasoning to justify this.

  18. Just a question, but are we to assume all these video game companies are supporting the war?

    Did anyone ask them? Is it just assumed?
    For all we know some of these game producers don’t support the war…

  19. Some of these feel like a stretch to me. But I’m biased, I want to keep playing War Thunder.

    They have been sponsoring tons of channels for ages, and I swear I’ve seen them on political-adjacent content from the other side of the political spectrum. I may just be coping rn though.

  20. Is it gonna make a difference when *cough cough* Some members here are still buying billions of € worth of russian energy

  21. I feel like it’s an over stretch to not play russian games. Saw some guides in Steam about skins in CS2 that is made by russians and laughed. Russians/Ukrainians are not making billions out of this games, so it’s not gonna stop war.

  22. War Thunder is contextually untrue. 

    They used a 3rd party advertising agent which then bought ads on the YouTube channel. They made a whole post condemning the war and addressing the issue including proof of 3rd party usage and how it was unintentional..

    They did also have a mini ad campaign with a ethnic Russian porn star but I didn’t read to far into that.

    Now they *were* Russian and still have ties there, but that advertising situation doesn’t accurately reflect their public facing opinion of the war. They’re Cyprus/Hungary based now which is *only slightly* better lmao. Plus a Ukrainian tank is getting added this upcoming patch

  23. I don’t support Russia’s war, I’ve spent ~1k euros on drones for Ukraine, but I did enjoy playing Atomic Heart. Am I a bad supporter of Ukraine? This is the least effective way of supporting Ukraine or opposing the war. Like, yeah, son, I’ve supported Ukraine by not playing some games 😀

  24. If you don’t like politics and ideology brought into games, you might want to consider not picking your games based on what country they might be from. The games are made by developers, not governments.

  25. Literally almost everyone in ukraine plays war thunder to this day.

    Relax.

    And I know ukrainians who have fled their homes because of the russian invasion that play tarkov to this day too.

  26. Honestly these “avoid these to boycott russia” are getting ridicilous

    I was downloading a font from a website, and they made it unavailable because it was russian made? And put a redirect to a ukranian font instead

  28. If Europe really wants to stop funding Russia, just stop buying Russia oil.

  29. Atomic Heat doesn’t idelize USSR at all, it shows how corrupt it was actually. 

    The game was developed with Russian money, so there’s certainly a valid reason for it being under scrutiny, but saying it’s Russian propaganda means not having played the game, because the game doesn’t paint any positive image of the fictional USSR-like nation (and government) it is set into.

    It’s would be as saying that Wolfenstein is Nazi propaganda. 

  30. And here’s Israel funded games/studios

    •  Coin Master (Moon Active): 500M+ downloads, Israeli developer.

    •  Bingo Blitz (Playtika): 100M+ downloads, Israeli developer.

    •  RAID: Shadow Legends (Plarium): 100M+ downloads, Israeli developer.

    •  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision): Publisher donated $1M+ to Israel aid.

    •  God of War (Sony): Parent donated $2M to Israel aid.

    •  Playtika: Israeli studio, publishes games like Slotomania on Steam; funds Israel via taxes and operations.

    •  Plarium: Israeli studio, publishes RAID: Shadow Legends on Steam; funds Israel via taxes and operations.

    •  Moon Active: Israeli studio, publishes Coin Master on Steam; funds Israel via taxes and operations.

    •  Crazy Labs: Israeli publisher, hyper-casual games on Steam; funds Israel via taxes and operations.

    •  SciPlay: Israeli studio, publishes social casino games on Steam; funds Israel via taxes and operations.

  32. Supporting Russian devs is not supporting the war. Ppl who make games in Russia have to eat too. Let’s not pretend like every person living in Russia is directly responsible for the war

Comments are closed.