Concerns of an Atomic Heart ban have escalated since the game’s launch. According to Dev.ua, the Ukraine government will be sending a formal letter to Sony, Microsoft, and Valve to ban the game’s sale in the country.
On top of that, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov has stated that the country also “calls for limiting the distribution of [Atomic Heart] in other countries,” in part because of “the potential use of money raised from game purchases to wage war against Ukraine.”
Is Atomic Heart Being Banned?
It is unknown to what extent Atomic Heart will be banned on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms. Sony, Microsoft, and Valve have yet to respond to the official letter. Chances are that they will comply with requests to restrict the game’s sale in Ukraine, but it may be too much of a leap for them to ban the game for sale in other countries.
It should have been common knowledge, at least to Sony, Microsoft, and Valve, that developer Mundfish could have ties to Russia. According to Dexerto, the privacy policy of Mundfish’s company store reads: “Mundfish collects users’ data and may provide it to Russian state authorities.” That policy has since been deleted, with Mundfish stating that it was “outdated and wrong” to GamesRadar.
Either way, Sony, Microsoft, and Valve have had plenty of time to decide whether or not Atomic Heart should be sold on their platforms before the game’s release, and they have chosen to allow the game’s sale on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam on the game’s launch of February 21. Of course, they could reverse course given the growing controversy and this official letter from Ukraine.
In March 2022 via PC Mag, Valve stopped payments to game publishers and developers located in Russia, Beleraus, and Ukraine. While Mundfish is technically based in Cyprus, Eurogamer reports that Mundfish has omitted details that the team was originally from Moscow and Russian media have described the studio as Russian in articles about the game.
