"I had 2 hours of free time, I wanted to eat and just relax." Gamer who brought computer to McDonald's to play video game turns out to be a lieutenant in the Ukrainian Armed Forces

When the video went viral, some commentators suggested that the boy was playing Escape from Tarkov, a multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Russian company Battlestate Games. It takes place in the «Russia 2028» universe in the fictional Russian city of Tarkov, isolated from the outside world by UN peacekeepers and the Russian armed forces.

«Hello everyone. I’m very happy that the video with me went viral) Firstly, this is not the shitty Tarkov, but Arena Breakout: Infinite, which the Tarkov pig-dogs even tried to sue. Secondly, I am a current lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, I came to Kyiv for a few days to finish all the work on transferring to a separate assault battalion,» Shevelyov said in the comments to one of the Telegram channels.

He noted that he moved into the 16th floor of a high-rise building on the left bank of Kyiv, where there is currently «no electricity, no water» and the elevator is not working.

«This computer was in the car, I had 2 hours of free time and I wanted to eat, spend time and just relax, I apologize,» the soldier added.

dev.ua spoke with Anton Shevelyov, who said he played on a monoblock. This is a type of PC that resembles a thickened monitor, but which contains all the computer hardware — a processor, a video card, etc.

«A friend of mine once gave it to me, and then it was in our office. I’m currently transferring and I took it away, so it was lying around in my car. This computer doesn’t need anything, just one wire, a socket, and that’s it. It’s a full-fledged computer,» Anton explained.

The military man noted that the processor in his all-in-one was replaced and now one of AMD’s Ryzen family chips is installed there; the PC also has a modern graphics card and 32 GB of memory, which is enough for video games and work tasks.

Anton Shevelyov said that the security guards and McDonald’s employees did not mind that he brought his computer to the establishment and connected it to the power supply. According to him, he chose Arena Breakout: Infinite because it was already installed on his computer, and he unfortunately did not have much free time (to search for and download other games). Anton also played World of Tanks before, but he does not remember the last time he launched it.

Arena Breakout: Infinite is a free-to-play tactical extraction shooter from Morefun Studios, owned by China’s Tencent. Many players are comparing it to Russia’s Escape from Tarkov.

«The goal of the game here — and Escape From Tarkov, the game from which Arena Breakout: Infinite draws inspiration — is to run around the map, collecting trophies and heading towards extraction. If you’re lucky, you’ll kill a few players along the way and take some of their gear,» said PC Gamer journalist in his review, who gave the project limited praise.

«If I’m not mistaken, in my opinion, the Chinese actually stole it from the Russians, or rather, they remade it, but I understood from the comments that they made [Arena Breakout] much better and more interesting. And [the developers of] Tarkov were going to sue them, they tried to do something. But they didn’t succeed,» says Anton Shevelyov.

He added that this is not the first time he has been in the news — last time, the information was driven by a Russian missile attack that destroyed his unit’s vehicle.

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