Xbox and “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2” maker GSC Game World are set to release a documentary following the developers of the sequel game as they work to complete the title while living amid the war in Ukraine, the studio’s home country.
Per the description for the doc, titled “War Game: The Making of ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2,’”: “Previously based in Kyiv until Russia’s invasion in February 2022, GSC Game World has since moved their studio and the majority of their team to Prague to finish development on ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl’ before the game launches this November. In the documentary, the developers will provide firsthand accounts of working in a warzone and moving studios across countries, all while creating a sequel for a beloved video game franchise.”
Directed by Andrew Stephan, “War Game” centers on the very personal stories of creative director Maria Grygorovych and her team while living in a warzone. Grygorovych emphasized to Variety how “scary” it was to agree to the proposal from Xbox to make the film.
“It wasn’t my dream to do this film. But I really think it’s important to share,” Grygorovych said. “It’s not about like, I really want to share something from my personal life, or for our team, as well. 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. Because mostly people only see something if something terrible happens and everybody, I hope, thinks, ‘Oh, it’s bad.’ But 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.”
“At Xbox we were very aware of the circumstances surrounding GSC when the war began,” Xbox general manager of programming and events Tina Summerford said. “As time went on it became apparent their situation would continue to be dire not just for them professionally but personally. Every day we see firsthand the difficulty and challenges of making games, but this was on a completely different scale. In late 2022, we pitched the idea of a documentary film. GSC had a story that deserved to be told and shared, and we felt we were best positioned to help them tell it. Once we began having conversations with Maria, Zak and Eugene, it was clear they had been thinking the same thing, and we collectively decided we wanted to make a documentary film together. We hired director Andrew Stephan, who was our director on our most recent documentary ‘Power On: The Story of Xbox,’ to help us get this right, and we could not be prouder to stand behind not just this film but behind GSC Game World and ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.’”
Watch the trailer for “War Game: The Making of ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2′” below.