Right now RU and NA versions are not region locked - this part is true. BUT - as they both have different item IDs region locking on them can change at any given moment, so no, you can't be sure if you will be able to play at release.region lock can be added just to these separate IDs even 1 minute before release (or even after release) as it happened with several games already in the past.
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yes - if the game gets lock for "playing only in XYZ regions" not "activating only in XYZ regions" you won't be able to even launch it without using VPN (which is against Steam TOS). Ofc it's still very plausible that you will be able to play game without any problems, but as you asked if you can be 100% sure - no you cannot be.
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there's been plenty of retroactive region locks on Steam, more than one can remember, but from ones from top of my head of different retroactive region locks:
Valiant Hearts RU - wasn't region locked in any way, got price error in RU at launch day, next day all non-activated copies got trade lock.
South Park - Wasn't region locked at preorder at start, people traded it heavily and stocked it for trading, got trade and activation lock before release so all russian copies became immedately unuseable right away.
Total War: Rome 2 - Indian keys were cheap and not region locked. At the release all these copies got full India Region Lock, so if you had one in your library you still wouldn't be able to launch it. Even more - you couldn't activate other region copy - because you had one copy of game activated already. People had to write to steam support to remove game from they lib then pay for it again to be able to play. (Similar thing happened to COD Ghosts, but I don't remember which region was it in).
Skyrim - polish publisher paid Bethesda big chunk of monies to be the only game distributor in PL. Game was even blocked in Polish Steam Store (both preorder and at release day). Some folks just traded for copies from different countries, as they were not locked to PL. They worked fine at launch. 3 days after launch Bethesda locked all copies from PL, as asked by publisher, games working so far became unplayable and anyone wanting to play had to buy polish-publisher-copy. Even if he had game on steam before. Situation lasted for over 6 months, lock got lifted at 1st Skyrim Sale on steam.
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Huh interesting. I didn't know about a couple of these. Then again, I don't usually trade for newly released games and/or preorders anyways.
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there's surely been more - about many I prolly don't even know as I rarely trade outside of big-sales. These are just examples I encountered personally (VH I luckily activated before lock, SP I didn't activate in time and ended up buying another copy to play, TW:R2 my friend had this locked copy and he even bought polish retail copy, yet still had to write to support toi remove 1st one to add 2nd one, and Skyrim - well because I wanted to get a copy myself and were unable ;p)
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I'm guessing biggest one is Borderlands 2 where in last week of pre-ordered that announced RU copies will only have Russian language and RU locks and all that fun.
Pretty sure only reason why they gave ROW version along with RU was because they sold RU version in countries that doesn't use Russian language (like Lithuania).
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It is still not locked, for only russians, i mean in steam.
Yes you can http://store.steampowered.com/app/292030/ buy this from russian traders. But care with this...
Russian Communist
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There is no way to be sure before the game premiere. The only place where you can buy the copy of the Witcher 3 and you can be sure that it will work in any place in the world is www.gog.com - but you can't buy steam key there - only DRM free version.
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But, even if I activate it right away, theres no guarantee that it will stay without lock?
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It's Ru suffix, not Ru locked tag.
It means it has been bought for rubles in Russia, nothing above that.
The only possible way you won't be able to play it is if the publishers will make these copies Ru locked retrospectively, like Valiant hearts. But witcher 3 hasn't gone on sale with 99% discount (yet?) so you can guess the possibility of it.
Pretty popular question lately, I've seen steamrep report about that too.
Also seen some us trader bitching about ~"don't buy them, it's phishy".
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Hello!
I was looking for The Witcher 3 and saw that RU version is 9 keys and the NA is 13-14 Keys.
The trader claims that the RU is not region locked and that I will be able to play with no problems when the game releases.
Any ideas on wether this is true of false?
Thanks!
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