‘War Thunder’ disables in-game chat to prevent “political discussions”

The developer of War Thunder has decided to disable an in-game chat feature due to “political discussions.”

War Thunder is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online (MMO) military game, made by Hungarian developer Gaijin Entertainment. On February 28, War Thunder received a patch that temporarily disabled in-game chat.

At the time of the patch, Gaijin Entertainment did not provide an explanation as to why it did this. Motherboard reached out to the developer for comment, receiving the following response:

“We’ve temporarily closed our in-game chat to make sure that it is not used for political discussions that might offend other players. We’ve always stayed out of politics and we feel that it’s important that people from all over the world can have fun together in a safe space.”

However, in these trying times we think it is improper to post anything that can be portrayed as promotion of war, and оur game is ultimately about military vehicles.

We have always stayed out of politics and will further restrain from statements that can be colored as such.

— War Thunder (@WarThunder) February 26, 2022

While Gaijin Entertainment has made no reference to the on-going invasion of Ukraine, it is likely that this is the reason behind the removal of in-game chat in War Thunder, and what the studio means by “political discussions.”

On February 26, two days before the patch was released, the developer tweeted: “In these trying times we think it is improper to post anything that can be portrayed as promotion of war. We have always stayed out of politics and will further restrain from statements that can be coloured as such.”

Gaijin’s tweets also did not reference the invasion of Ukraine, but given the timing this is likely what it is referring to.

According to Motherboard, Gaijin has not confirmed when players can expect in-game chat to return to War Thunder. 

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