As the 400 employees of GSC Game World, creators of the hit video game Stalker, filtered into their Kyiv office in January 2022, most didn’t even notice the strange buses parked around the corner. While tensions were growing with their neighbours across the border, the frost-coated shlep to the office felt almost normal. Routine. Or so they told themselves. As whispers of war spread throughout the country, regular reassurances from their business partners – and President Zelenskiy – made it seem foolish to worry. Life, they were told, would carry on as usual.
Weeks later, their fears no longer seemed so foolish. On 24 February 2022, at 4am local time, Russian forces crossed the border, invading Ukraine from the north, east and south, shelling more than a dozen cities and killing 40 Ukrainian soldiers in 24 hours. The bombs fell hard and fast, levelling buildings less than a mile from GSC’s office. Luckily, those ominous blacked-out buses had sprung into action a week prior, whisking more than 200 GSC employees and their families to Uzhgorod, a town on the Ukrainian border.
“We were preparing for [the war] for about a month and a half,” says Evgeniy Grygorovych, game director and CEO at GSC Game World. “The drivers were sitting there 24 hours a day, each day – but no one really noticed.”
While he was still receiving assurances that Russia wouldn’t invade, Grygorovych’s gut was screaming at him to escape. “One day we held a big meeting, telling our teams that we believed there was a big chance that war would break out, and that they and their families could go [across the border] if they wanted. It’s hard to make this decision when almost everyone is telling you ‘It’s going to be OK. Don’t worry.’ But we didn’t want to risk our team. We weren’t concerned about the business, or about what was going on with the game. We just had to save as many people as we could.”
For the last 13 years, GSC has been diligently working on the globally anticipated direct sequel to its 4m-selling 2007 cult classic Stalker: Shadow of Chornobyl, an apocalyptic survival game depicting the aftermath of a second Chornobyl disaster in a war-ravaged Ukraine. It’s an alternate history, yet for Ukranians it has veered harrowingly close to reality. In March 2022, Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which they still hold today, prompting very real concerns about a combat-related nuclear disaster. GSC’s fiction had begun to blur with real life.
Families included, GSC have relocated around 700 people, with the last office run completed just a day before Russian troops hit the ground. With one suitcase allowed per family, and only three hours to grab essential tech from the office, there was little time to take stock of what was happening. One member of the HR team gave birth during the active stage of the invasion, and other staff were already grieving dead loved ones before they’d reached their destination. “Luckily we had a chance to start moving before the war started. But we didn’t expect that everything was going to be so cruel … so hard.”
Since the war began, it is estimated that more than 500,000 people have been killed or wounded. It’s a bloody conflict that shows no signs of slowing, and 170 GSC employees still remain in Ukraine.
“Some people’s position was: ‘Once the war starts I will join the army and be on the frontline.’ And that’s what they did. They immediately started defending our country. They’re still our employees – and we are paying them salaries because their army salary isn’t enough to cover everything. We are still helping them as much as we can.”
One person quick to head to the frontline was the series’ long-serving designer Volodymyr Yezhov. Serving as a volunteer in UVO company, Yezhov was killed in action on 22 December 2022, during a battle near Bakhmut.
“It’s impossible to imagine,” Grygorovych says, shaking his head. “Your friends say that they will stay in your country to fight the war – and some of those friends die there. This war is something that shouldn’t exist.”
Like many Ukrainians, those working at GSC have been forced to accept this pain as part of their day to day lives. While some developers traded their keyboards for Kalashnikovs, others stayed to work on Stalker 2 – either from GSC’s Kyiv office or remotely from across Ukraine. For those still in Kyiv, the office has become a refuge.
“We made it a shelter and tried to make it look as beautiful as possible – for people to feel that they’re as OK as possible,” says Grygorovych. “They play music, they have guitars, we have books there. We had one big floor for our motion capture studio and we’ve turned it into a place for children. It’s very soft because of all the mo-cap equipment, and now it’s a place where they bring toys.
“This winter, when there was intense shelling and fighting, there were often power cuts. So we made big generators. We’ve also made a corner where everyone can bring their relatives because there’s always electricity in our office, always hot water, so it’s better to be there than stay at home.”
It may be hard to understand why these developers would continue coding a video game in a war zone, but for many, Stalker 2 is their life’s work. After leaving Uzhgorod for a temporary refuge in Budapest, the departing GSC staff settled in Prague in March 2022. Like with many creative companies, the Kyiv office had become a home away from home for many of its employees. So attention was paid to ensuring the new Prague HQ sported familiar branding and ambience, in an attempt to provide some semblance of normality and respite from the horrors of war.
“All of this helps us a lot – and helps the team to survive. Every moment that you’re not working or creating something you just stay glued to social media watching all these videos about the war … and it hurts a lot. Going back to the office helps, because for eight or nine hours they are not thinking about the war – they are living a more normal life.” Grygorovych lets out a long sigh. “It’s really hard to make a game during a war. When we see developers say, ‘We are delaying our game for several years because of the pandemic’, we are laughing. Like, really?!”
Kyiv was liberated on 2 April 2022 yet, 18 months later, it is far from safe. Aside from the threat of Russian counterattack, a more pressing danger lies in the hundreds of thousands of unexploded landmines left in the invaders’ wake – a constant worry to Kyiv’s civilian populace. Landmines are just one of the many things that prey on GSC employees’ minds, and for Grygorovych and his team, getting out to global games events such as Cologne’s games convention Gamescom has been a welcome distraction.
“When we are here [at Gamescom], everything looks like it was before, like there is no war at all. Everyone is here working with games, talking about games, and it helps bring your thoughts to normal. For me, it helps a lot.”
Nearly two years on from the start of the invasion, however, Grygorovych feels as though the world has largely forgotten Ukraine.
“Last year everyone was asking about the war, they supported us – everyone. This year, we have almost no questions about it. Developers, publishers, people, they start to forget about what’s going on. It’s not their fault – you don’t want to think about something bad all the time, right? But it’s very important to bring everyone back to reality. If we ignore the fact that evil is happening, then that evil will win. We saw it in previous centuries. We shouldn’t allow it to happen again.”
As our conversation continues, it’s hard not to feel like this forthcoming Ukrainian-made and -set game is now more than just an intriguing RPG. It has become a symbol of resistance.
“At this point, it’s not just a game,” agrees Grygorovych. “It is very important for our people, nation and our culture. It’s not good if your country is known simply because someone attacked you, and not for your cool art, technology, engineers. This game can reach a lot of people – it can tell them that Ukraine makes world-leading products. That’s the biggest impact I think that we can have. For an artist, it’s not always wise to take a gun and go to the frontline when they don’t have any combat experience. But they can still help in some other way – and we are trying to help in our way.”
To date, Stalker 2’s most popular gameplay trailer has amassed more than 2.5m views. With this visibility, Grygorovych sees an opportunity to help prevent further Russian aggression. “A lot of us are dying. Keeping people informed is something that could save all of us. Ukraine is actually the biggest country in Europe, it’s not a small conflict – and it’s going to touch everyone. Yes we are making a game, but also our work is to bring people back to reality. You can all see the elephant in the room. You can’t say that there is no elephant, because it will just smash everything over there – and then it will come to you. It’s foolish to think it will stop. We are all sharing one planet – everything is connected.
“We didn’t want to be touched by this,” Grygorovych continues. “We don’t want to think about war. We want to live in a world where we can think about our families, friends, what we are going to do on the weekends. I want to live in a world where I don’t have to answer my confused three-year-old kid when he asks, ‘Dad, when are we going to fly back to Kyiv?’”
At this point Grygorovych breaks down, sobbing, and a harrowing silence fills the room. Our interview has come to a close. As a teary-eyed Grygorovych shakes my hand, I am struck by how frivolous reporting on video games suddenly feels. Yet for the 170 GSC colleagues making Stalker 2 under bombing runs and their anxious colleagues in Prague, this video game is what keeps them going.
• Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl will be released on PC and Xbox, 5 September, 2024
