2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine - What You're Seeing Is Advanced Warfare

You joke but this pretty is exactly why the remake of AW1+2 got delayed. The plot of the first game featuring a fictional analog of Russia invading a neighboring country prompted Nintendo to go "look the timing is really bad right now, so we're gonna just hold off for the time being" (look at it from the businessman perspective: releasing the game in April when it was originally supposed to likely would have caused a PR nightmare). It's not the first time this has happened either, the Japanese release of AW1 got delayed back in the day because of 9/11 (Japan didn't get AW1 until the release of AW2, so for Japan those two games were always bundled together). By a case of bad coincidence, AW1's original GBA release in North America was literally on September 10, 2001.

Oh wait turns out the 9/11 part is actually an urban legend. The real reason why AW1 got delayed in Japan was because it turns out Japan was getting "Game Boy Wars 3" that same year and Nintendo didn't want one entry cannibalizing the other. Why they waited 3 years to finally release it in Japan is a bit of mystery, but yeah turns out the popular "AW1 got delayed in Japan because of 9/11" rumor is nothing more than an urban legend.