A video game developer from the United States accused the Kalashnikov concern of stealing a shotgun design

The American indie studio Ward B, leading the development of the sci-fi shooter Oceanic, accused the Russian concern Kalashnikov of theft. The developer claims that the firearms manufacturer copied the design of one of his shotguns without permission.

EPM28 Mastodon (above) and MP-155 Ultima

Marcellino Sauceda, CEO of Ward B, told IGN about this.

According to him, the story began in early 2020, when Maxim Kuzin, one of the Kalashnikov contractors, contacted him.

Sauceda liked the idea of Maxim, who suggested turning one of the company’s guns into a real weapon. This would be an important milestone for the team and for the entire gaming industry as a whole. It was about the EPM28 Mastodon shotgun, whose concept was created for the Oceanic shooter, which Ward B has been developing since 2019.

Despite the concern’s interest in weapons, no papers and contracts were concluded between Ward B and Kuzin (or Kalashnikov). Therefore, the team was surprised when last year the concern announced the MP-155 Ultima shotgun, which, in their opinion, is very similar to the EPM28 Mastodon. According to Sauceda, Kalashnikov deliberately took their design and did not even indicate authorship.

Kuzin has a different view of the situation. As he told IGN, Ward B did not pay for the creation of the EPM28 Mastodon concept to the artist. Because of this, the discussion of licensing the shotgun lost its meaning, since the indie team did not have an unambiguous ownership right to it. Ward B assures that in the end the artist still received money for his work.

In addition, Kuzin claims that he abandoned the idea of working with Ward B, contacting a Russian designer who eventually created the MP-155 Ultima design from scratch. Sauceda found this position unconvincing and later contacted the Kalashnikov concern directly. However, they also told him that they were not familiar with the design of the EPM28 Mastodon, and the MP-155 Ultima was a completely original work.

The situation became even more interesting when Kalashnikov gave Battlestate Games the rights to use the MP-155 Ultima in Escape From Tarkov. As Sauceda noted, such a step turned out to be demotivating for the team: “We have witnessed how an international corporation simply takes everything away from us.”

Battlestate Games added a shotgun to its game in June. Sauceda says they don’t respond to his letters.