Remake of the classic Ukrainian shooter Chasm: The Rift by Kyiv studio Action Forms, whose return to Steam we were all so happy about, turned out to be not quite Ukrainian. Even on the contrary. The Russian studio General Arcade is engaged in development, and the Russians who fled to Poland – SNEG – became the publisher.
More than that. Yesterday the “developers” called Chasm: The Rift a “first Eastern European boomer shooter ever made?” “forgetting” about its Ukrainian roots. In fact, this is the correct phrase, Chasm: The Rift is indeed the first shooter developed in Eastern Europe, and also the second Ukrainian game published in the West. But it seems that this “forgetfulness” of Russians is not accidental. They are afraid to even pronounce the word “Ukraine”.
After a shitstorm on Twitter, the developers changed the description on Steam, this time already remembering Ukraine. But now another question arises. Should Ukrainians buy a Ukrainian shooter, which even has a Ukrainian localization, if it was produced in the aggressor country and the money from its sale will go to finance the war? And should this game be added to the list “Beware Russian games”?
In fact, the problem with copyrights for classic Ukrainian games is a painful topic. Beginning domestic developers in the late 1990s and early 2000s signed not very successful agreements, as a result of which the rights to game brands remained with the publishers. So the rights to Chasm: The Rift remained with GT Interactive, which later became Infogrames, and then Atari, Inc. It seems that pseudo-Polish SNEG acquired the rights from Atari. The situation is similar with the rights to other Action Forms games, but in some cases the rights are directly owned by the Russians, for example Fulqrum Games via 1C Entertainment.
The editorial staff of Mezha tried to find out about the situation with Chasm: The Rift from Igor Karev, director of Action Forms. But unfortunately, we haven’t received an answer yet.
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