The story of Areal has been long and ugly. When we first brought news of this Kickstarter project by new studio West Games, it was described as a spiritual sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with staff members who had worked on the latter. Then there was a bit of a stink raised when Vostok Games expressed suspicion that West Games inddeed consisted of former S.T.A.L.K.E.R. devs. And then the questions continued to persist.
Now the Kickstarter has been suspended, mere days after the goal was met.
West Games posted a response to the suspension on the group's Facebook page, further asserting their legitimacy and explaining that, as a Ukrainian studio, they are being harassed by Russians:
People also need to take into account that Ukrainians and Russians are in an information war right now, and as a Ukrainian developer, we were subject to constant hostility from Russian Kickstarter accounts (we even got death threats). There are over 16,000 comments on our Kickstarter, which is unprecedented for the amount of supporters that we have, and a lot of our comments are hate filled. Some sites, in light of this, chose to report based on sources from direct competitors or from the myriad of comments based on lies. Others chose a neutral ground, because of the confusing situation around us, and still others wrote positively about us. All in all, more than a 1,000 news results come up when you type in "Areal Kickstarter" on Google.
For what it's worth, West Games will keep donations open on the Areal website. However, it might be that too much damage has been done to keep this ship from sinking. There was an overabundance of red flags even before the Kickstarter was suspended, so at this point, West Games doesn't have much if any ground to stand on.
