Ukrainian game developers use their art to fight back against the Russian invasion

polygon.com:

It has been more than 100 days since Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As the battles in the Donbas region to the east continue, many of the country’s game developers have continued working. Some do so out of necessity, while others feel a renewed sense of patriotism to bring attention — and much-needed revenue — to their country. Whatever their reasons, the games being made during this time of war are very different from the games made just a short time ago.

Polygon recently heard from Oleg Danylov, co-founder and editor of Ukrainian technology website Mezha.media, about some of those games. We invited him to share what he calls “games born of war.” His story, shared below, has also been translated from the original Ukrainian.

The Russian-Ukrainian war is the first great European war of the internet age. It is going on not only on the frontline. The war is taking place on the web, where an army of Russian bots is fighting Ukrainian patriots; in cyberspace, where hacker armies are trying to disrupt government websites; in art spaces, where Ukrainian artists create paintings, posters, and memes to support their country. War is also going on in video games.

After February 24, many developers began to create patriotic-themed games to express their feelings, calm their nerves, support Ukrainians, and raise funds for the army.

These are mostly simple arcade games that were developed in bomb shelters during air raids, so they are designed to be played for just a few minutes at a time, get revenge on Russian invaders, and humiliate the missile launchers targeting our cities. In these games, players must crush Russian vehicles, fight Russian president Vladimir Putin, beat Putin with sunflowers, steal Russian tanks,