‘We were all ready to die’: STALKER 2 documentary reveals the war behind the game

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War Game: The Making of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Documentary

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been a long time coming. Not only have fans been waiting for a follow-up to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl since 2007 but an unexpected event further delayed developer GSC Game World’s plans: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Kyiv, Ukraine-based developers have been transparent on social media about all the violence and world-upending situations that have caused the game to be delayed out of its original 2022 release window. Their story has since been compiled into War Game: The Making of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, a 97-minute documentary about struggle, war, and determination that’s now available on YouTube. You can watch it above.

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The documentary starts out with a history of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and the studio, but then transitions into how the war afffected both development and the lives of the team members. At first they didn’t think Russian President Vladimir Putin would go so far as to attack Ukraine, but CEO Ievgen Grygorovych and his wife, executive producer Mariia Grygorovych, made plans to evacuate team members on buses to Uzhhorod, a town in western Ukraine within 50 kilometers of a theoretically secure NATO border. Buses were booked and parked outside the offices with drivers 24/7, ready to transport employees, their families, and some former staff to relative safety.

Mariia said they didn’t tell the team at first about the buses to not cause a panic. “I doubted myself and wondered if I hadn’t lost my mind,” she says in the documentary. The team had had very different thoughts about what they would do in the event of an invasion. Some knew they would be staying to volunteer and join the military, and many just wanted to keep working on the game.

In total, the team transported 183 employees, their families, and former staff and set up stays in a hotel. The other 139 declined and stayed in