Yesterday, Xbox and GSC Game World released the documentary War Game: The Making Of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. Today we are sharing a key story about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl’s development from this feature.
Let’s get this out of the way now: Andrew Stephan’s film is a straightforward account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and how it affected S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s development. It shares real footage of the war, and graphic content. If you haven’t watched it yet, you may choose to read summaries like this one instead. But if you are up to it, you can watch it on the Xbox YouTube channel here.
Mariia Grygorovych is creative director and executive producer at GSC Game World, and husband of its CEO, Ievgen. Maria had the foresight that Russia would go through with a ground invasion of Ukraine, after news that Russian troops started amassing around Ukraine’s borders.
In January 2021, Maria prepared plans to leave. She had a fleet of buses prepared without telling her employees, sitting next to the company headquarters. She also made arrangements so that there would be drivers ready to deploy 24/7.
A week before the war, on February 2022, the Grygorovychs called on the developers to go to their offices. The plan was to go to the city of Uzhhorod, which is locasted south of Ukraine, and is a the border of their NATO neighbors. Maria’s logic was that Russia would not dare to strike there and invoke NATO.
183 employees agreed to prepare for themselves and their families to uproot to Uzhhorod, while 139 employees chose to stay behind. When they saw how Russia launched their initial attack on Kyiv, however, the Grygorovychs decided that they had to leave the country.
They then chose to go to Hungary, rushing to cross miles in mere hours. However, they didn’t get to the Hungarian border before it closed. In their desperation, they walked through the snowy forest in the dangerous chill of night to cross over.
They eventually made their way to Prague, in the Czech Republic, and set up office there. But as you can imagine, even with what they managed to carry along, these devs had to rebuilt the studio. They recast voice actors and built a new motion capture and voice recording studio to restart and get to completion.
The remarkable thing about this story was how the Grygorovychs proved their character. The devs praised them for planning to save them and their families. This was clearly about more than making the game, as they said they felt Maria and Ievgen treated GSC Game World as their family too.
And GSC Game World also continued to support the developers who stayed behind. This had been reported before, but Maria and Ievgen chose to keep their staff who enlisted on their payroll, until the time came when they could return to work.
They also kept contact and sent support for other developers in shelters. Some of those devs told stories about writing and illustrating their ideas on paper, when faced with power outages in the shelters themselves.
The documentary does not shy away from the controversies surrounding making this game in the midst of war. Some developers did stay behind, but many of those who left felt guilt, especially those who had to leave family behind.
This is an intangible thing, but as Stephan’s film accounted, there was a point in the war where the fear and hopelessness Ukrainians felt were turned to anger and determination. It may seem strange to think about as well, but GSC Game World’s developers shared those sentiments as well. It seemed that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl gained a new symbolic meaning.
Community manager Oleksii Ivanov summed up these sentiments like this:
“The game for us is now an act of resistance. We’re working to prove that we cannot be broken.”
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is scheduled for release on November 20, 2024 on Xbox Series X|S, and PC, on Steam, Epic Game Store, and DRM-free on GOG. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
