Starni Games announce a new WW2 title following Nazi propaganda allegations from Russian Senate

Starni Games have announced a new title in the Strategic Mind franchise, called Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism. It’s a turn-based strategy with strong RPG elements offering the USSR’s perspective on WW2. The game will follow the historical path up to Berlin, but will also have an alternate history ending after the end of WW2. This will apparently include “staging the world Communist revolution,” according to the game’s description on Steam.

The announcement from the developer follows a somewhat scandalous launch of the previous installment in the series, Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg, in which the player leads the German Armed forces with a purpose of “claiming the ultimate bittersweet victory in Europe.” Specifically, the cinematic featuring the triumphant Hitler on the Red Square didn’t sit well with the Russian Senate and media, which accused the game of the Nazi propaganda. At the request of Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal body responsible for censorship in media, on June 5, the title was removed from Steam in the country despite positive user reviews.

The developer has since said that they are not “trying to glorify the Nazi ideology” and that they “strongly condemn their deeds.” They described Blitzkrieg as a “historical game with alternate history possibilities” and stressed that the next part in the series will focus on the USSR and Allies. The newly announced title seems to do just that. We are yet to see how this latest “what if” take on the WW2 history will be received in Russia and elsewhere.

Spectre of Communism will be the 4th game by Starni Games released on Steam, the first one being Panzer Strategy, released in 2018. The second one was Strategic Mind: the Pacific released on 25 October 2019. The third one was Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg released 22 May 2020. All games were self-published.