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Guamer [she/her] @hexbear.net

2d ago

Apparently the enhanced editions of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy released today removed the Russian audio track and edited/removed certain references to the USSR

www.pcgamer.com

Stalker remaster reviews crater to 'Mostly Negative' as players lament deleted Soviet monuments, yanked Russian language, and blurry graphics that I didn't notice in 23 hours playing

From what I'm reading, these changes were already present in the console ports released last year, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 also doesn't have a Russian dub.

58 comments

Tit for tat:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/analysis-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-has-caused-a-staggering-amount-of-cultural-destruction
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Ukrainian_language_suppression
- That Wikipedia article is cursed, the most cited source is a article without any authors mentioned by this site:
  And that site is full with AI slop, this cant be serious, are you a dumbass?
  
  Watch out, you posted reality and the truth. Liberals really don’t like that, it makes their brain go clunk.
  
  Picking out a single source from over 60 others, bringing up LLMs despite the article being from 2016, attacking the source without refuting any of the arguments on their merit is an interesting way of getting to the truth.
  
  That's 60 citations, not sources, there are 11 sources in that article. If one out of those 11 is that bad, then the article is trash. It has 22 references from an AI slop site with a very familiar traditional 'slavic' symbol yeah, I have no interest in reading that garbage, and neither do you. You just found a Wikipedia article with a title that sounded good for your argument. Where do you think you are? On Reddit? Go fuck yourself. Ad hominem my balls.
  
  “Attacking the source” is usually valid. If someone posted a link to an article on chudnews.com that said Biden eats babies, I’m sure you wouldn’t take that at face value.
  
  Wow, that must be some kind of cool Traditional Slavic Symbol™
- Did you know that Lenin carved out the modern state of Ukraine out of respect for ethnic diversity and regional independence?
  Don't you think it's kind of racist for the developers to reach into the past and project their hatred of Putin onto the old Soviet Union?
  People like Stepan Bandera felt differently than Lenin about ethnic diversity. He preferred to cleanse Jews, Roma, and Russians from his land when the Nazis passed through Ukraine in WWII.
  And the Ukrainian nationalists which fractured the country in 2014 happen to be his biggest fans.
  
  Crazy to skip over WW2 on that Wikipedia artivle I'd call the Nazis killing several million Ukrainians (include a million odd Ukrainian Jews) a form of language suppression.
  
  But in 1693 Moscow [...] !!
  
  or in the occupied regions of Ukraine today. Can the people watch TV in Ukrainian for example?
  
  I fundamentally don't believe in your "tit for tat" approach to ethnic repression. I don't think any amount justifies any reciprocity.
  I'm also not aware of any laws prohibiting the Ukrainian language in Russia or the Donbass (and I skimmed your sources). If there is any repression, I'll condemn it (but not before I see the receipts).
  Ukraine has infamously outlawed Russian in all schools and public institutions.
  
  I see zero ethnic repression in the dev's actions. They're merely acting on what the majority of Ukrainians believe: that the Soviet regime was totalitarian and terrorist, and that, for example, the streets making references to it should be renamed.
  I’m also not aware of any laws prohibiting the Ukrainian language in Russia or the Donbass (and I skimmed your sources).
  It does not have to come in the form of laws. When you cut off access to the Ukrainian television and force everybody to watch Russian TV which has no foreign-language content, you're forcing Russian onto the people. The same goes for every other facet of life, be it schools, grocery stores or what have you. Even from the most charitable perspective wherein Putin is a nice guy doing what's best, how do you think that works? The products made in Russia do not feature any Ukrainian since the full-scale invasion.
  Ukraine has infamously outlawed Russian in all schools and public institutions.
  Mandating that the official language is used is not the same as outlawing the others. Zelenskyy himself spoke Russian in the Fridman interview as recently as early this year.
  Edit: Added a link, added another reply.
  
  the Soviet regime was totalitarian and terrorist
  lol, deeply unserious. Speaking of totalitarian and terrorist regimes, shouldn’t Ukraine ban nazi symbols considering how many Ukrainians were murdered by nazis, and all of them would’ve been killed if Germany had won WWII?
  
  shouldn’t Ukraine ban nazi symbols
  It already does.
  
  Why are there so many nazi groups openly wearing the symbols then? Why are there so many soldiers wearing them? Why was the Azov Battalion integrated into the Ukrainian military when their logo had a wolfsangel and a black sun on it?
  
  They're merely acting on what the majority of Ukrainians believe: that the Soviet regime was totalitarian and terrorist,
  Let’s just ignore this point for the sake of time, and ignore all the objective data on the prosperity the workers enjoyed under the Soviet Union and the objective drop in quality of life following its dissolution.
  I see zero ethnic repression in the dev's actions.
  Oh, you mean like how they’re removing access to Russian-
  It does not have to come in the form of laws. When you cut off access to the Ukrainian television and force everybody to watch Russian TV…
  Mandating that the official language is used is not the same as outlawing the others.
  Is it repression when Ukrainians do it or is it not? The intentional cognitive dissonance is stunning.
  The reason why it’s so easy to pick apart your vehement defense of Ukraine is because 1) you are defending fascists, and 2) you are fundamentally refusing to understand that nobody is saying the modern state of Russia is some paradise or paragon of history.
  You go on these diatribes accomplishing nothing because you’re so neck deep in propaganda and liberalism that you don’t even know what is reality and what is fiction anymore.
  Even now your eyes are just rolling over at any of the facts posted in this entire post because surely you are on the right side of history and surely this war is one holy nation against the evil scourge and there is no need to ever question anything your media tells you and anything saying otherwise is just propaganda.
  Just ignore how you continue to spew a firehose of lies while others have disproven every single defense of Ukraine in this post and never addressing them. Anything to keep the facade of being on the right side.
  
  Is it repression when Ukrainians do it or is it not?
  Is it repression when any country sets an official language and mandates that it's used in its institutions? As a teacher, can you just arbitrarily decide what language to use when teaching children? Is there a difference between that and invading another country and demanding or suppressing anything?
  
  WTF Yes.
  Around 30% of the Ukrainian population was ethnically Russian before the war, that is 30% of the population whose mother tongue is Russian and that language was forbidden. Like let's not get into the many languages still spoken in Canada but just imagine if they said 'Sorry no more french being used as an official language or in our institutions, and the amount of french speakers in Canada is lower at 22%, if Switzerland said 'fuck you french speakers and italians only swiss german from now on'.
  Like I thought this shit was obvious to everyone that ethnic minorities should get protections which include speaking their own languages. What are you some freak that walks around in the US that yells 'SPEAK ENGLISH' at people?
  
  What does being ethnically Russian have to do with the language? Ukraine is perfectly fine with people who were born in Soviet or post-Soviet Russia, which includes some of its most prominent and beloved public figures, like Tina Karol. Also, being able to speak Russian is not the same as not being able to speak Ukrainian, so your data would have to account for that.
  Like I thought this shit was obvious to everyone that ethnic minorities should get protections which include speaking their own languages.
  In what context? Are we still talking school teachers (which is implied from the original point of the OP) or do you mean elsewhere, in casual conversations between people? The latter is not outlawed in Ukraine and is widely practiced to this day, especially in regions like Odesa. Many would look down on people for that since the full-scale invasion, but that's not the law.
  Edit: Per a 2024 poll cited by the BBC, only 6.4% of the Ukrainian population name Russian as their mother tongue. Only 0.5% don't understand Ukrainian at all.
  
  Is there a difference between that and invading another country and demanding or suppressing anything?
  I wonder what you think about Ukraine invading Iraq and Syria. Let me guess, you are completely fine with that, aren't you?
  
  I see zero ethnic repression in the dev's actions. They're merely acting on what the majority of Ukrainians believe
  You can apply this argument to a lot of things, including rampant racism in other de facto parts of NATO.
  And that is ignoring the fact that those beliefs are either nonsense ('totalitarian' is not a meaningful word, for example), or unfounded (like claiming that the USSR was somehow bad for the world).
  
  The article doesn't touch on Holodomor either. Regardless, your point would make more sense in the context only if Germany were currently ruled by a dictator whose forces were occupying Ukraine, forcing its people to speak German, trying to rebuild Nazi Germany, and so on, and the game devs would have responded by removing Nazi symbols and the German audio.
  
  'The Holodomor' is a Neonazi propaganda buzzword invented in the 80s to equivocate between the USSR and the Third Reich, specifically chosen to imply similarity to the Holocaust which in turn is a form of Holocaust minimization. The origin of the 'intentional famine' myth was literally Joseph fucking Goebbels, and was spread by the media empire of avowed fascist William Randolph Hearst.
  Here's what a die-hard Ukrainian nationalist had to say about the famine of 1932:
  
  @Rose@lemmy.zip reported this comment lmao.
  
  @Rose@lemmy.zip isn't it in bad taste to report the post as opposed to arguing relevance or refuting the point or something? Seems a bit weaselly for my sensibilities
  
  Hahahahahahah oh please reddit gods help me
  
  Let's put that aside though, what the fuck does the famine, even if it was man-made (it wasn't) have to do with language repression?
  
  The article doesn't touch on Holodomor either
  Why would natural disasters be relevant in this context in general?
  your point would make more sense in the context only if Germany were currently ruled by a dictator whose forces were occupying Ukraine, forcing its people to speak German, trying to rebuild Nazi Germany, and so on
  NATO is very comparable to nazi Germany, actually, complete with invasions, genocides, and colonialism
  
  NATO is very comparable to nazi Germany, actually, complete with invasions, genocides, and colonialism
  Also: run by a lot of the same fucking nazis
  
  Germany is actively aiding in the mass extermination of an entire country, while brutally repressing any decent.
  
  The article doesn't touch on Holodomor either. Regardless, your point would make more sense in the context only if Germany were currently ruled by a dictator whose forces were occupying Ukraine, forcing its people to speak German, trying to rebuild Nazi Germany, and so on, and the game devs would have responded by removing Nazi symbols and the German audio.
- You did it! You made the emote!
  
  Really a weird account. Supposedly pro privacy but seems to love epic and the epic store.
- If you wanna cry about cultural destruction then look at israhell they are the ones blowing up 1000 year old churches
- do you actually think that there are no ukranians that speak russian?
  
  Practically none that play games and wouldn't understand Ukrainian. Moreover, the Russian subtitles are still available in the games.

58 comments