Why are games about the war in Ukraine needed at all
Developers of various games about the war in Ukraine talk about the special mission they feel and express when they tackle this topic. Serhii Voronov from spacedev games also says that Glory to the Heroes is an ideological project about the glorification of events and people who gave their lives in the war. This is what the main story campaign will be dedicated to. But they still donʼt give up the idea of multiplayer to the end, although it is still difficult to understand how it will be done. The very idea of command mode in such a shooter automatically implies the possibility of playing for another army, that is, Russian.
In an interview, Voronov said that they wanted to convey the peculiarities of playing as a Russian with various non-standard gameplay mechanics. For example, in Bucha itʼs planned for the player playing as a Russian to have periodic panic attacks — “simulating playing as someone who committed war crimes.”
But according to some developers, this approach doesnʼt solve the main problem. A multiplayer shooter is always a big space for a variety of player creativity that bypasses gameplay mechanics. And in the case of a real war, it can be dangerous, because the Russians can use it for their own propaganda.
“One of the precepts of game design that I have learned for myself from years of practice is that if a game situation can theoretically happen, it will certainly happen [...] Players are guaranteed to experience the events of such a game in a different way than you expected. They will either not notice the context in the heat of game mechanics (which is not about this at all, not about tragedy and pain), or will consciously or unconsciously mock the participants of the game world,” game designer Andriy Moroz from the Black Mermaid studio wrote in his column.
Moroz writes that personally he is still not ready to start a game on the topic of the Ukrainian war. He fears that such games can turn the war into an ordinary show, which will be discussed in the usual tone by Western streamers. And he advises other developers not to rush and not approach the experience of war in a straight line.
Oleksandr Volodarskyi, one of the developers of the game Death from Above, which is jointly developed by the Finnish studio Rockodile Games and the Ukrainian Octobear Knight Games, and published by the German company Lesser Evil, shared a similar opinion with Babel. But he draws a different conclusion — it is possible to make a game about war if you understand exactly what exactly and by what means you want to convey, and what you should not do.
“When developing a game on this topic, one should imagine how a Russian Z-brainwashed streamer will play it. He will test it not only for the sake of entertainment, but also to push his ideological message and make fun of it. What can he do? Will he be able to shoot civilians? Dig a trench in the shape of the letter Z? Want to make a stylish screenshot with the Russian flag? Mock dead Ukrainians in the game? This is important, because the media effect of the game is largely tied to streams and videos, on Twitch and YouTube. Therefore, freedom of action in such games cannot be made unconditional,” says Volodarskyi.
Death from Above is an upcoming arcade simulator about a Ukrainian drone operator who escapes from captivity and uses a drone equipped with grenades. Oleksandr clarifies that it will not be a realistic simulator, and the game has an element of power fantasy, that is, the hero will have more opportunities than even theoretically he could have in real life. And will kill hundreds and hundreds of enemies.
Volodarskyi says the game should challenge the "apolitical" nature of the industry and encourage Western players to donate to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, because many still believe that donations can only be made for humanitarian needs, not the military. In addition, the game portrays war in a very clear way — there are no shades, there is only a good side to support and a bad side to fight against. And, finally, the game is designed to destroy the myth of the invincible Russian army: it is somewhat mocked there.
Death from Above
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"I agree with the military that you cannot underestimate the Russian army, which brings death every day. But in the West, excessive fear of the Russian military machine paralyzed military aid to Ukraine for a long time. They said, why give tanks, the Russians will win anyway, and that way there will be less blood. Thanks to the bravery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the myth of an invincible army has been greatly shaken, but it must be finished precisely in the cultural field where it was formed," says Volodarskyi.
Games about Bucha and Mariupol
The war crimes of the Russians in the occupied territories shook Ukrainian society so much that games about them are developed almost as often as about the war itself. Back in the fall of 2022, the text quest Ukraine War Stories from Starni Games was released. The main characters of the game are Ukrainian civilians who have to survive in three separate stories about Bucha, Gostomel and Mariupol. To do this, the player chooses different behavior options from the ones offered. For example, to pack things faster, or go to the neighbors to find fuel for the car. The chosen options and their consequences make up the story.
Ukraine War Stories
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A similar project is currently being developed by the TeamBavovna — a visual novel about Mariupol The Nightmare Winter. In November 2022, the developers released the first of nine episodes of the game, but since then there has been almost no news about the project.
A larger project on the same topic was announced in March 2023 by the Twigames studio — Hollow Home. This is an upcoming role-playing game about a teenager trying to survive the siege of Mariupol by Russian forces at the beginning of a full-scale invasion. The developers say that the plot of the game is based on the real stories of the people of Mariupol, and in terms of gameplay, they are inspired by the Polish game This War of Mine from 2014 — a simulator of civilian survival during the siege and battles in the city.
Hollow Homeʼs announcement sparked some discussion in the gaming and professional communities, though not as strong as Glory to the Heroes. The fact is that the developers of This War of Mine once made a game about the fictional city of Pohoren, the capital of the fictional country of Graznavia. And although the game had fairly clear hints about the siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia in 1992-1995, no Balkan toponyms were specifically used in the game. Instead, the Ukrainian developers clearly say that the city of Hollow Home is Mariupol. Not everyone liked this approach.
“While Mariupol is occupied by Russia, it seems extremely incorrect to me. This War of Mine offers a sufficient level of abstraction so that you can perceive it at the level of mechanics, and not at the level of context that it wants to throw at you. This is the problem I had with Hollow Home when I first heard about this game, and it remains to this day," writer Ostap Ukrainets, one of the initiators of the public discussion around Glory to the Heroes and games about war in Ukraine in general.
Hollow Home concept art
The head of Twigames, Valery Minenko, published a statement in which he explained exactly how he sees the game and where the idea came from.
“We understand that we are working with very sensitive stories. And we try to do it with the utmost respect. In our country, it will not be possible to drive a tank around the city. Neither in Ukrainian nor in Russian. Actually, we do not have a combat system. In Hollow Home, we want to show how quickly war can destroy normal life, convey to our players emotions of horror and despair,” he wrote.
In a comment to Babel, Minenko said that he is not yet ready to discuss the game objectively. The team only released concept art and talked about the general theme of the game. In May 2023, they plan to publish the first gameplay video, and a little later — a demo version. And already then, according to Valeriy, substantive discussion with the community should begin.
Ostap Ukrainets agrees with this, saying that Hollow Home may turn out to be a useful educational and informational material rather than a marketing one, as was the case with This War of Mine. Therefore, we have to wait for more details about the game to make a fuller impression.
“Though I donʼt think it will change my mind about using real topography. Simply because this very nuance, if it is not about documentary, rubs me against the wool a little," concludes Ostap.
Oleksandr Volodarsky believes that there are several ways to tell about war crimes in games. There is a documentary approach of the games of the Berlin studio Paintbucket Games, which works seriously with the German past and the crimes of the Nazi regime. In 2020, they released the strategy Through The Darkest of Times, in which the player finds himself in the role of the leader of an anti-Nazi resistance group in 1933, campaigning, organizing sabotage, and hiding from the Gestapo. Recently, the developers announced The Darkest Files, an investigative game about the trials of the Nazis, where the player will play the role of the prosecutor at the trial, work with documents and try to reconstruct the events.
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A radically different approach is the genre of alternate history and a deliberately fictitious world, such as the Wolfenstein series of games, in which the Nazis were able to take over the United States, where there are also zombies, demons, parallel worlds and much more. The fantastic nature of the events helps to raise important topics, but not to touch the triggers and avoid the involuntary image of the memory. Itʼs worse when developers make a game about war, but avoid the issue of war crimes altogether.
“Developers often do not want to seriously talk about Nazism, the Holocaust, genocide, fearing that they will be accused of profaning serious topics. As a result, there are many games in which the Wehrmacht was "just an enemy army", which paradoxically contributes to the humanization of the image of the Nazis,” Volodarskyi believes.
A question of profit and audience
Developers of games about the war in Ukraine mostly say that they do not plan to make a profit from them. Visual novels like Ukraine War Stories and The Nightmare Winter are generally free. Larger projects will still be sold for money.
Valery Minenko from Twigames says that Hollow Home is a large and expensive project in itself, and a small studio cannot, in principle, make it free, because it is a full-time job. The simulator Death from Above will also be sold for money, but the goal is not to make money — 30% of sales will go to Ukrainian humanitarian organizations. And when the game pays off, 70% from the next sales will go on the humanitarian needs.
The scandalous Glory to the Heroes is still looking for a publisher, but itʼs not planned to be free-to-play either, given its scope.
All of these games are in one way or another aimed at Western players and a general audience around the world. Games with a conventional plot, such as Death from Above, have no problems here. But with games that raise ethical issues, everything can be more complicated. Ostap Ukrainets believes that in such cases, the Ukrainian public should generally accept such a game, otherwise it turns out that the developers will sell the experience of Ukrainians to Western players, with which the Ukrainians themselves do not relate.
"And what does a product, a game, or whatever it is that tells a foreign public that this public should hear, but we shouldnʼt? From the outside, it will look like a discussion about us without us. If you are trying to share some kind of Ukrainian experience that will be foreign to the Ukrainian public, then you are not actually doing it to share experience. And to make money, or something else," he says.
And Oleksandr Volodarskyi believes that war hype is a generally unsuccessful marketing strategy in the Western markets of the gaming industry. Because the topic of war in Ukraine is perceived as risky there, and the production of large projects is too expensive to risk investments. "Exploitative" games or films on this topic are created in the grant segment, where they do not risk their contributions. In commercial activity, according to Oleksandr, these are reputational risks from all sides — you will be responsible for mistakes in front of Ukrainian public opinion, and even a high-quality product will be viewed with fear in the West because of "engagement".
"Although human stupidity cannot be underestimated. I assume that in this field too there will be people who really want to make money on the topic of supporting Ukraine. But they are unlikely to be particularly successful. In terms of profitability, itʼs about like trying to set up serial production of Patron dog dolls in the USA," he concludes. And he adds that developers who work with the theme of war are usually sincere, but this does not relieve them of responsibility for quality, because you can create disgusting things from the bottom of your heart.
Is it necessary to censor the topic of the war in Ukraine?
The relevance of the topic of the war in Ukraine and the war crimes of the Russians arises not only in the gaming industry. Public debates also take place around, for example, fiction. In November 2022, a scandal broke out over the novel Bucha. The story of one captivity by Daryna Hnatko. Ultimately, the publishing house Family Leisure Club decided not to publish the novel. Another book related to the crimes in Bucha was announced by the writer Kateryna Babkina — the presentation of the story Mom, do you remember? will take place in May 2023. The Ukrainian Film Academy has called for a public discussion about the film Bucha directed by Stanislav Tiunov, which should be released in the fall of 2023.
Ostap Ukrainets says that this situation cannot be influenced by legislation, because there is no censorship in Ukraine and there is no need for it. And it is not possible to establish "red lines" for all such products once and for all, because they will be established every time new products enter the information space. But society can still influence this process.
“I apply Gandalfʼs logic that we have no power to change what has already happened. Create art that wasnʼt created for a reason. And we cannot remove the art that has already appeared. We do not have the tools for this, but we have leverage on the market. To point out the inappropriateness or fallacy of certain strategies, to discuss them and, ultimately, to keep in mind that every legal entity that publishes books, releases films, publishes games also has a certain concept of ethics,” he says.
But, in Ostapʼs opinion, if we try to make a plan of action for the future, how to "separate the wheat from the chaff", then we simply will not succeed.
Death From Above
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Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.
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