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It’s not uncommon for video game projects to be delayed by unexpected issues. But GSC Game World, the developer behind STALKER and its upcoming sequel, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, had the terrifying and unique experience of being disrupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, the first trailer for a new documentary, War Game: The Making of STALKER 2, chronicles the struggle that the team had to go through in order to finish the game.
Andrew Stephan directed War Game, which takes viewers behind the scenes at GSC Game World as their lives were upended by the invasion. Creative director Maria Grygorovych and her team were previously based in Kiev before the start of the war. But GSC Game World ultimately had to move development from Kiev to Prague while the fight for their homeland continues to this day. War Game was sponsored and produced by Microsoft, and it will be released on Xbox’s official YouTube channel.
“It wasn’t my dream to do this film,” Grygorovych told Variety. “But I really think it’s important to share… We are really not public people and it’s hard to share something personal. But when this opportunity comes to us from Microsoft, we thought that it’s important to share with the world a little bit more about how difficult it is to live in a wartime from the personal side… When you see specific people who can share some real story, maybe someone can imagine how hard it is and why any war is something bad. It’s impossible for me to find some reason to start a war.”
Not all of the team members fled the country, and some stayed behind in Ukraine to fight. One of STALKER 2’s developers, Volodymyr Yezhov, gave his life while defending the city of Bakhmut from Russian forces in December 2022. Grygorovych noted that some of GSC Game World’s programmers, QA members, and community managers enlisted with the Ukrainian army despite not being professional soldiers, and she hopes to welcome them back to the company when the war comes to an end.
War Game: The Making of STALKER 2 will premiere on YouTube on October 3. STALKER 2 will be released on Xbox Series X|S and PC on November 20.
