Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader has been released. It’s a Russian game funded by GEM Capital, Atomic Heart’s backer

Owlcat Games has recently released its Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader game. It is available on PC/Mac (Steam, GoG, Epic) and consoles (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S). Owlcat Games is a Russian studio with headquarters in Cyprus that is funded by GEM Capital, backer of Atomic Heart’s developer Mundfish. The X users discovered that the studio continuously displays chauvinism against Ukrainians. AIN.Capital shares the key findings and other details about Owlcat Games and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

The Owlcat Games studio is a well-known gamedev studio, the developer of the Pathfinder series and the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, founded in Moscow in 2016. The studio has official headquarters in Nicosia, Cyprus, however, as of January 2023, it continued hiring for its office in Moscow, leading many to believe the Nicosia headquarters is just a way to avoid being sanctioned by Western countries and distance itself from the terrorist state.

At the same time, the studio’s leads and executives called Ukrainians chauvinistic slurs and hired people in occupied Crimea in 2014.

• For example, Nikolai Samborsky, Owlcat’s lead cinematic artist, used ethnic slur “хохол” against Ukrainians on X. When called out, he just deleted his account.

• Another one, Anatoly Shestov, Owlcat’s executive producer, was hiring in Crimea in 2014, just after its annexation by Russia.
• After the studio was called out, Owlcat simply went on a spree, blocking these accounts. “Owlcat Games, the company that hears no evil, sees no evil. They were made aware of these issues, but silence speaks louder than words. In fact, inquiries were met with a ban spree. Ignorance is bliss, right?” @40kRogueTrader commented on X.

Owlcat Games is funded by GEM Capital

As AIN.Capital wrote earlier, Owlcat Games is one of the studios directly funded by GEM Capital, a Cyprus-based Russian investment firm, which is run by Russian Kirill Gurskiy and Roman Gurskiy as Managing Directors. The fund was founded by Anatoly Paliy, who previously worked at Gazprom, a state-owned multinational energy corporation, and has close ties to the sanctioned Russian state-owned VTB bank.

Why is it important?

Owlcat Games is a Russian studio funded by a Russian fund full of Russian employees who, evidently, continue displaying Russian chauvinistic tradition of diminishing other people’s lives by using ethnic slurs. Many Ukrainians who already suffer from the Russian missiles and bullets demand transparency and accountability, as well as call for boycotting the studio and its Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader title.