Dear Death From Above Community,

Yesterday we released a Russian localization for Death From Above. We have clearly misjudged this decision. We apologize.

We will revert the changes and remove the Russian language from the published builds. We did not intend to insult our Ukrainian supporters, and we certainly weren’t supporting Russia in any way with this update, but we understand your anger and we apologize wholeheartedly.

We hope that you will allow us an opportunity to explain our decision.

When we began work on Death From Above in 2022, we had 2 key aims. We wanted to spread awareness of the horrors being faced by the people of Ukraine in the face of Putin’s illegal war, and we wanted to raise money for charities trying to save Ukrainian lives. Our charity donation model (30% of all revenues until break even, 70% afterwards) means that to raise money for donations, we need to sell copies of the game. More sales means more donations. We never saw DFA as a project for profit - we would ideally cover costs and spend the rest on supporting good causes and improving the game post release.

Our decision to add the Russian language to the game was made for two reasons. Firstly, to reach Russian speakers outside the country who wanted to play the game and support our charity partners, and secondly to give actual Russians a chance to express their anger at the war, to allow them to contribute to the defense of Ukraine. These sales would mean more money for our partners, but also a chance for Russian speakers to receive the message that we are promoting with the game: Russian aggression needs to end, and all Ukrainian territory needs to be returned.

We saw the opportunity to be able to spread anti-Russian propaganda inside Russia itself as a win-win. We could change minds and we could raise money for charity - exactly what we set out to do. Clearly, we failed to properly anticipate the anger this would cause among our followers.

We should reassure you that we changed nothing else about the game when Russian was added as a language option. You still play as the same Ukrainian drone operator, fighting to liberate Ukraine from Putin’s goons, destroying their tanks and accepting their surrender. Our message, our gameplay, our ethos all remain unchanged. We want Russian forces out of Ukraine and we want all Ukrainian territory returned. While we hoped to spread this message within Russia itself, we never intended to make any of our supporters feel betrayed.

This was a mistake, one we will rectify immediately: the Russian localization will be rescinded and a build without that localization will replace the current version ASAP. Finally, we please ask that any anger around this issue be directed at us and not any of our partners - they were not aware of the decision to add Russian localization.

We offer our most humble apologies once more. We hope that you understand that this decision was made in good faith and that it doesn’t erase all of the good things we’ve achieved together so far.