GOG has apologized after sending a June 5 newsletter for The End of the Sun that included symbols some readers associated with Nazi SS imagery, prompting confusion, criticism, and competing explanations from the storefront, the game’s developers, and users online.
What GOG said happened
The Steam rival said the issue stemmed from a “series of mistakes,” rather than any intentional choice to reference extremist symbolism. In its explanation, GOG pointed to several contributing factors: miscommunication with the German QA team, inconsistent font rendering, and staffing shortages during a bank holiday.
At the center of the problem was a newsletter promoting The End of the Sun, a fantasy game set in a universe inspired by Slavic mythology and culture. GOG said it used Slavic runes in the email to reflect the game’s setting, including the Sowilō symbol, which means “sun.”
According to one of GOG’s multiple explanations, some platforms — including mobile phones — rendered that rune as ϟ, a shape that can resemble symbols historically associated with the Nazi SS when viewed in certain combinations or contexts. That rendering issue, combined with the way the newsletter was assembled, appears to have been part of what led to the backlash.
The controversial newsletter
The newsletter itself was sent on June 5 and promoted The End of the Sun with symbols placed near the title. What drew attention was the inclusion of two runes together, which users quickly noticed could evoke Nazi imagery depending on how they appeared on a given device or in a given font.
That confusion widened after GOG’s explanation circulated, because the company’s own account suggested the symbols had not displayed consistently across platforms. In practical terms, the newsletter could have looked one way in internal testing or on one device and differently on readers’ phones or computers.
That kind of rendering problem is not unusual in digital publishing, but in this case it became especially sensitive because of the historical associations some users perceived. GOG’s apology acknowledged that the situation was mishandled, while emphasizing that the appearance of the symbols was the result of errors rather than deliberate intent.
GOG’s Reddit statement and the German-community question
Adding to the confusion was a statement posted on Reddit by a verified GOG representative. In that post, the rep said:
“I also recognize that placing two such runes next to each other could create an unfortunate association with symbols used by the Nazi regime. This was noticed before distribution, and out of respect for local sensitivities, the material was not sent to the German community.”
That comment raised immediate questions from users. If the association had already been recognized before distribution, they asked, why had the newsletter been sent to other localities at all? And if the symbols were considered potentially problematic, why were they used in the first place — especially doubled up in a way that could amplify the resemblance?
The Reddit statement appeared to suggest that GOG had been aware of the possibility of offense before the email went out, yet had still moved ahead with the campaign in some regions. That gap between foresight and execution became one of the most debated parts of the incident.
The developers say they were surprised too
Confusion was not limited to customers. The developers of The End of the Sun also said they were caught off guard by the newsletter. In a Reddit thread, they posted:
“We don’t know why GOG used symbols in their newsletter. Really, we were also totally surprised when we saw the logo in the newsletter (the old logo) and the symbols next to the newsletter title.”
That response matters because it separates the game’s creators from the newsletter design choices. According to the developers’ statement, they did not understand why the symbols were used, and they were surprised to see both the logo and the runes included in the promotional material.
The developers’ reaction also suggests that the email’s composition may not have been coordinated closely with the team behind the game, or at least not in a way that gave them visibility into the final promotional asset before it was distributed.
Why the symbol choice became a problem
On its face, using runic imagery in a game inspired by Slavic folklore would seem thematically appropriate. GOG’s own explanation indicates that the symbols were intended to match the title’s cultural and mythological setting, not to signal anything political or historical beyond the game’s worldbuilding.
But context matters. When symbols have long-standing associations outside their original meaning, their placement, spacing, and rendering can change how they are interpreted. In this case, the newsletter apparently combined several elements that made the issue more fraught: a fantasy title, runic text, mobile font differences, and the visual similarity of some rendered forms to Nazi-era imagery.
That is why the incident escalated quickly. What may have been intended as decorative or thematic design was perceived by many as alarming, especially once screenshots and explanations began circulating. The reaction was not only about the symbol itself, but also about how the design decision was handled and whether anyone flagged the risk soon enough.
Multiple explanations, one embarrassment
GOG’s public response tried to account for the issue from several angles. The company referred to miscommunication with German QA, inconsistent font rendering, and limited staffing during a bank holiday. Taken together, those factors suggest a workflow failure rather than a single isolated error.
Still, the fact that multiple explanations were needed seemed to reinforce public skepticism. Readers were left trying to reconcile different claims: that the issue was noticed before distribution, that the material was withheld from German users, that the render changed on some devices, and that the newsletter nonetheless went out broadly.
Those overlapping explanations made the episode harder to defend and easier to criticize. For many observers, the main issue was not only the accidental resemblance but the apparent breakdown in review, communication, and judgment.
How the incident landed with users
The immediate reaction from users was a mix of confusion, frustration, and disbelief. Some questioned why GOG would double up the runes in a promotional email if the arrangement could be read in a problematic way. Others wondered whether anyone had approved the final design with a clear understanding of how it would appear across devices and languages.
Because the statement posted on Reddit indicated the issue had been noticed before the newsletter was distributed, several users also questioned the decision-making process behind the release. If the risk was known, they asked, why not alter the artwork, redesign the message, or avoid the symbol entirely?
The episode also highlights how quickly a marketing error can become a reputational issue for a company that serves an international audience. What might have been a minor layout problem in one region can become a major controversy when the content travels across markets and platforms with different historical sensitivities.
What this means for GOG
For GOG, the incident is likely to be remembered less for the game it was promoting than for the company’s handling of the promotion itself. The apology may have been intended to close the matter, but the chain of explanations suggests that the underlying process deserves scrutiny.
Questions remain about how the newsletter was reviewed, who signed off on the design, what internal checks existed for culturally sensitive material, and how the company determined what would or would not be sent to specific regional audiences. The fact that the developers themselves said they were surprised only adds to the sense that communication broke down somewhere along the line.
It is also notable that GOG framed the problem as a combination of human error and technical inconsistency. That combination is common in digital publishing, but when the subject touches on symbols tied to Nazi history, the threshold for caution is much higher. A design decision that might otherwise have passed without issue became untenable once the resemblance was noticed.
The broader lesson for digital storefronts
The incident is a reminder that storefront newsletters are not just marketing assets; they are public-facing editorial products that can be scrutinized in detail. For global platforms, especially those distributing localized content, even small typographic choices can carry different meanings in different places.
In this case, the use of runes to evoke the setting of a Slavic-inspired fantasy game was not, by itself, the problem. The issue was the outcome: a layout that some viewers interpreted as resembling Nazi symbols, a discrepancy in how the characters rendered on various devices, and a distribution process that left too much room for confusion.
GOG’s explanation points to a series of operational lapses, but the public response makes clear that the company will be judged on the result. For a storefront trying to sell a game rooted in cultural mythology, the lesson is simple: when symbols can be misunderstood, the safest design is often the one that avoids the ambiguity altogether.
Source: Original report
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Last Modified: July 7, 2026 at 8:46 pm
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