The CEO of the company gave an interview today and it was machine translated and basically yeah, it will be put on pause.
This might not be major news on this forum considering how niche of a game this is but as a major fan of these Trucking Simulator games, it's both understandable and still sucks because it was due for release pretty much right around now and now, it might not see the light of day for years if ever. Fuck Putin. :(
Original article on the Vortex website(Czech): https://www.vortex.cz/exkluzivne-heart-of-russia-pro-euro-truck-simulator-2-ted-nevyjde/Heart of Russia for Euro Truck Simulator 2 will not be released now
"We have DLC in the drawer that we can't release," says the SCS boss. It could take a long time
In the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the first sanctions and the boycott of game developers, some fans wondered what the situation means for Prague-based studio SCS Software and its upcoming Heart of Russia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2. We wondered about it too and contacted the developers at the beginning of the crisis. In the meantime, they engaged in a number of activities to support people affected by the war. They have offered help to their employees from Ukraine and their families, made repeated donations to several charities, and also prepared a special DLC Ukrainian Paint Jobs Pack worth 1 Euro, the entire proceeds of which go to People in Need.
But it's only now that we've found out what's going to happen with the Russian expansion, whose release was already around the corner, but now many people might be sensitive to it. PR and marketing manager Daniel Nemec told Vortex that people in the community are divided into two camps. "Some have a need to punish everything that is Russian and want us to cancel the DLC or start working on the Ukrainian one straight away. The other group of people, on the other hand, are trying to make arguments why we should release the DLC. That the trees and roads in Russia are not to blame. And that they hope we will release it anyway," Dan Nemec described the situation. But that's not what he is referring to.
Pavel Sebor, co-founder and head of SCS Software, explained that a big discussion immediately arose in the company about what to do next. "We've actually been saying for months how it's going to be. Because the likelihood that there would be a war was constantly increasing. And we were already discussing what the crisis scenario would be several months ago," described Pavel Sebor. Although the SCS did not resolve the situation, they knew, in their words, at least that this topic was on the table. "In the first days we said: Maybe the war will be over quickly, what about it? But it was definitely clear that it was impossible to continue on the set course, to continue communicating about the beauty of Russia," Pavel Sebor continued in an interview with Vortex.
The release date was suddenly in limbo. "Maybe even the title of the DLC is in limbo, because in a way Heart of Russia is an emotionally charged title. And at this point, we might be provoking or hurting people who feel that promoting Russia, whether it's the landscape, the nation, or the politics, that you can't separate it all together at this point," the SCS chief described the situation. "At the moment, we'll see what happens," he added. The authors are said to be just weeks away from completing all work on the expansion. They've basically been in the testing process and the result is just being tweaked. "And now we have DLC in the drawer that we probably can't release at the moment. Apart from the fact that nobody in Russia could buy it, it would basically be a provocation of people of good will. We'll wait and hope, and not for the sake of the DLC, that Ukraine wins. And that it will be time to put some kind of friendly face on what's left of Russia after all the sanctions. And then maybe it will be OK to let such a thing out. I can't imagine that happening at the moment though. It's not possible now," Pavel Sebor described the future of Heart of Russia.
According to him, if the Kremlin achieves its goals in Ukraine, the SCS chief cannot imagine a release at all. "There's a risk of being in that drawer for 10 years before it's a completely different world," he added. Of course, the SCS also considered how to publish the expansion and whether it could somehow serve a good cause. "But we can't find any excuse or justification right now. Even if we donated all the proceeds from the DLC to Ukraine, still a significant part of the fanbase might hold it against us. That we're promoting something we're not supposed to promote. It's a sensitive issue. We don't want to interfere," Pavel Sebor fears. Still, he remains slightly optimistic. "We hope the time to release it is not so far away. We'll close it now, we'll finish testing so that everything is fully ready. And maybe the time will come to turn it into something positive. Something that makes sense and isn't just cold business calculus in the style of: Let's release it and endure some negative reactions," suggests the SCS boss.
But the team reminded that, despite the significant revenue shortfall it will cause, Heart of Russia is obviously not the only thing the studio is working on. Several other expansions for ETS2 and ATS are being developed in parallel and are in various stages of development. "We've been working on another DLC for a long time now, which started to be born a year ago. The next one for 2024 is also in pre-production. And America is also running at its own pace," Pavel Sebor pointed out. Financially, however, the company will feel the indefinite postponement of Heart of Russia. "It will be a significant drop in revenue for us this year because one big DLC will be missing," Pavel Sebor told Vortex. However, other plans for Russia are unaffected by the stoppage. The developers had no plans to continue expanding the game further east.
You'll be able to listen to the full interview with Pavel Sebor and Daniel Nemec from SCS Software in another vidcast later today. Here you will also learn more about the fact that Russia is an important market for the Prague-based studio due to the large community of truck gamers here. And the review bombshell the team faced after expressing solidarity with Ukraine will also come up.
This might not be major news on this forum considering how niche of a game this is but as a major fan of these Trucking Simulator games, it's both understandable and still sucks because it was due for release pretty much right around now and now, it might not see the light of day for years if ever. Fuck Putin. :(
