The Russian government is prepared to support the development of a homegrown military shooter akin to Call of Duty through measures including reduced corporate tax rates and insurance premiums for developers who make it. Confirmation of those potential incentives comes a month after a Russian lawmaker called for a ban on the Call of Duty series in the country, accusing Western nations of using it to spread “Russophobic propaganda.”
The commitment comes from a Gazeta.ru report (Google translated, via Insider Gaming), which quotes the Ministry of Digital Development as saying, “if the [government] receives an application for funding for the development of a game on the topic specified in your letter, it will be reviewed in accordance with the established procedure and within the framework of existing competitive mechanisms.”
What makes this case interesting is what prompted the comment in the first place. Shortly after Russia banned Roblox in December 2025 over extremist content and “LGBT propaganda,” Mikhail Delyagin, deputy head of the State Duma’s economic policy committee, requested that Roskomnadzor—the agency that monitors and controls mass media in the country—review the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series and, if warranted, ban them as well.
Delyagin, who said his request to investigate Call of Duty was initially sparked by complaints from Russian citizens—something we’ve seen in the past—also sent a letter to Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, according to a since-removed report that remains available via the Wayback Machine (you’re going to have to translate the text yourself, sorry, we’ve gone too deep here), He asked that it develop a comparable big-budget shooter in which the player is a member of the Russian military or intelligent, “and the antagonists and targets are representatives of unfriendly countries (Ukraine, Great Britain, the United States, France, and others).”
He said the massive budgets of such projects—the Gazeta report estimated the cost of developing a Russian Call of Duty equivalent could be as much as 10 billion rubles, which works out to nearly $130 million—would likely put it out of the reach of domestic developers without “additional support” from the Russian government.
Delyagin is correct in saying that Russians are the traditional enemies of the West in the post-World War 2 world (and not just in videogames), only stepping out of that role when covertly collaborating with Western forces—typically against Russian or Russian-aligned enemies. And US cultural hegemony means that if Russian gamers want to play the biggest and most popular military shooters in the world, well, they’re probably going to be shooting at their own boys.
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