Trainwrecks shares crazy Russian conspiracy theory about Escape From Tarkov

Popular Twitch streamer Tyler ‘TrainwrecksTV‘ Niknam shared a far-out conspiracy theory involving Russia and Escape from Tarkov while playing the game.

Escape from Tarkov is a multiplayer survival looter game that’s become popular since Michael ‘shroud’ Grzemiek started grinding it on stream.

Since then the game has exploded in popularity, but Trainwrecks thinks the whole thing is a ploy designed to collect American’s online information. No, really.

While playing Tarkov with fellow streamer Pokelawls, Trainwrecks shared his conspiracy theory that anyone who plays the game could become the “next Hillary Clinton.”

“We’re allowing an installation of their application on our PCs in America,” Train said. “Imagine one day you decide to go off and run for f**king president, okay? Now Russia has your entire compute search history, every file, guess what’s gonna come out? You’re gonna be the next goddamn Hillary Clinton.”

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As with all good conspiracy theories, there may be a kernel of truth in what Trainwrecks is saying, but his theory didn’t seem to convince Pokelawls.

“Maybe they’re right dude,” Poke admitted. “This game brainwashed me because it’s a good ass game.”

To be clear, there is absolutely no evidence Tarkov’s publishers, Battlestate Games, are in any way linked to the Russian government, and Trainwrecks’ conspiracy theory remains just that ⁠— a theory.

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But it’s probably a good rule of thumb to assume that anytime you’re giving out personal information on the internet or installing applications on your PC it can be used as a two-way street.

At the time of writing Tarkov remains one of the top-watched games on twitch, with just under 100,000 viewers on January 20.

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Trainwrecks’ conspiracy theory about Tarkov being a plant by the Kremlin certainly was entertaining and topical, but in the end it probably won’t do anything to dent the game’s current popularity.