If the story above about Areal sounds familiar, it's probably because it's reminiscent of Survarium, a different project in the works at from Vostok Games, a developer also composed of ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developers. Survarium makes similar spiritual successor claims to Areal, and according to MCV, a thread on the Survarium forums included threats of legal action, but this has been deleted. VG247 has a statement from Vostok Games PR and Marketing Manager Oleg Yavorsky refuting some of West Games' pedigree and rights to some of the materials they're using to promote their campaign:

So that you understand, over the years of development of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and then Metro series, there have been literally hundreds of people involved in working on various bits and pieces, starting from beta-testers up to modellers responsible for certain weapon models.

Many people came to the studio to work for a few months just for the sake of adding “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. development” to their portfolio. Frequently they claimed afterwards to be the ‘core’ developers behind the game (you wouldn’t know anyway, right?).

Yet, my biggest concern is that West Games are using the footage and assets of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and representing them as their own, which is not only illegal, but simply just not right. I guess it’s all made for the sake of getting extra publicity (which unfortunately works), but guys on Kickstarter should probably pay attention."