One of the biggest scams in the history of the game industry. Areal was supposed to be the spiritual successor to STALKER

by

Looking back, The Day Before, a game released briefly in December 2023, is widely considered a major letdown in the gaming world. It aimed to compete with games like The Division and show that a small development team could create a successful large-scale online survival game, but it ultimately launched as a flawed and unfinished shooting game focused on scavenging.

However, many have forgotten that the gaming industry experienced another significant failure in 2014 and 2015. A game called Areal (which was later renamed STALKER Apocalypse) was intended to be a successor to the popular GSC Game World series, but unfortunately, it was never completed despite the creators’ claims.

STALKER on Steroids

When GSC Game World closed its doors and the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 project was scrapped in 2011, it seemed unlikely the studio or the franchise would ever recover. Fans who loved exploring post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe had to find similar experiences in games like the Metro series, Survarium, and Areal.

First revealed in June 2014, the game was initially described as a more intense version of STALKER. Developed by the Ukrainian studio West Games, it was planned as an open-world experience centered around a meteorite impact. This impact released a strange substance called metamorphite, which began to spread worldwide. Players would have explored a dangerous zone around the crash site, facing conflicts between humans and mutated creatures, and navigating various unpredictable anomalies.

The game features a large, open world split into three areas. Players start in the green zone, which is fairly safe, then move to the yellow zone where strange events happen more often. The red zone is the most dangerous, with such high radiation that it can turn people into monsters.

The developers aimed to create a game where your choices truly mattered, impacting the story and even determining which missions were available. They built a detailed system, called X-Life, to make the characters in the game feel realistic and reactive. This meant players had to be careful when fighting, as enemies could call for help. Beyond traditional guns, players could also use a special substance called metamorphite to gain powerful, supernatural abilities during combat.

The game aimed to differentiate itself from STALKER with a brighter, more vibrant look. Honestly, it reminds me more of Far Cry: New Dawn than a continuation of the original STALKER experience.

That’s the theory – so how did it actually play out?

Red flags galore

The actual product didn’t live up to the hype shown in advertisements. It made you wonder if the materials even featured the correct game, or if the project ever moved past just being an idea.

Almost immediately after the Kickstarter campaign for Areal started, people began to notice some concerning issues. The biggest problems with the project seemed to be:

  1. the questionable background of West Games, based in Las Vegas rather than Ukraine, became apparent over time, revealing that the team had only worked on a browser-based version of STALKER, not the main games;
  2. the concept materials released by the creators were quickly exposed as “borrowed” from Ukrainian fantasy novels, the STALKER wiki, and Unity engine assets;
  3. a “scam” warning from the Vostok Games team, along with GSC Game World withdrawing their support for the project;
  4. and the so-called “gameplay” shown by the creators looking more like a graphics engine test than an actual playable segment.

A letter from Putin

The situation became even more unbelievable after that. While the game’s creators initially raised over $20,000 in a single day, donations soon began to decrease. Then, a surprising claim emerged: Vladimir Putin supposedly saved the project by sending a letter to West Games stating he enjoyed shooter games and hoping Russians and Ukrainians would compete against each other only in the virtual world. This story seemed far-fetched even when it happened, and now, looking back after eleven years, it appears even more unbelievable.

The creators received a message along with two large donations totaling $23,000. Kickstarter saw this as the creators artificially boosting their own campaign, which goes against their rules. As a result, the campaign was shut down, and the developers lost the money they had raised.

STALKER Apocalypse

Despite the setback, West Games launched a new fundraising effort in December 2014. To avoid detection by observant players, they rebranded the project as STALKER Apocalypse.

The developers tried to raise $600,000 in 90 days through the World Wide Funder platform, but they fell far short of their goal, only managing to raise about $16,500.

What happened next?

After a failed fundraising attempt, West Games disappeared, and with it went Areal, which had been rebranded as STALKER Apocalypse. Luckily, GSC Game World returned to game development years later and eventually began working on a proper sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. And that brings us to today – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is now available, and the developers have been consistently releasing updates and improvements for over a year.

Read More

2025-11-16 22:33