This War of Putin’s

By Jack Coleman 

This article originally began as a look at the game “This War of Mine” in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, I expanded it to include some of the responses from the gaming industry at large, the experiences of Ukraine-based game developers and Ukrainian esports players and teams. This invasion has shaken everyone to their core and the scenes we are witnessing in Ukraine are sickening.“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason” - Ernest Hemingway. This quote is displayed on the opening screen of the 2014 anti-war survival game “This War of Mine”. I’ve been thinking about This War of Mine more and more in the wake of the ongoing abhorrent invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. It’s a game that does not glorify war, it focuses on the dark and grueling experiences of civilians living during conflict. In This War of Mine, you play as three characters simply trying to survive in an apocalyptic cityscape. The game offers little guidance before you gain control of your three protagonists, sheltering in a crumbling building. You’re immediately placed into a pressing situation as one of your characters is sick and requires medicine. Your head will immediately be awash with thoughts on what needs to be done to survive, you’ll need to scavenge what little materials are available in the house, find a method of gathering clean water, build beds for your characters to rest in and find a means of defending your home from violently desperate individuals. During the night, you are given the option of sending your characters to scavenge in nearby locations, this is an absolute must as you will quickly fully loot your house. On my third day, I entered a location called “Quiet House”, expecting any number of horrors to be waiting for me behind its door. I was met with something unexpected, an elderly couple sitting by a fire. They were confused by my arrival, but not hostile. Realizing my people were already struggling for supplies, I knew I could not go back empty-handed. I made the harrowing decision to steal from the couple. When the old man exclaimed “Please do not take my wife’s medicine”, it broke my heart. One of my characters was sick. I took the medicine. After arriving back at the house, one of my character’s status effects was simply “sad”. A dark choice fit for the tragedy of war. The game helps to uncover the psychology of a civilian during war. I found myself not trusting anyone. As soon as there was a knock on the door, I attempted to arm my character before opening the door (this isn’t a feature, as far as I can tell you are safe during the day). It turns out the man at the door was just Franko, a friendly traveling trader and a great source of wood. I’ve only put a couple of hours into the game so far but from what I’ve read online, it only gets bleaker as the game progresses. I know character death is a possibility and I’d like to avoid that at all costs, this is the reason why I ended up stealing from that elderly couple. Honestly, an accurate representation of wartime as people get more and more desperate for scarce resources. Let’s hope peace can be brought to Ukraine before this level of desperation is reached. Developer of This War of Mine, 11bit Studios held a fundraiser in support of the Ukrainian Red Cross which began on February 24th. For the last two weeks (as of the time of writing) 11bit Studios have been donating all proceeds from sales of This War of Mine to the Ukrainian Red Cross. As of March 4th, over $850,000 has been raised by the initiative. The Polish game studio also inspired other indie game developers to follow suit, State of Play (KAMI), Beetlewing (Slipways), Crunching Koalas, ALL iN!, Huuuge Games (Traffic Puzzle), RedDeer.Games (Buck Bradley), Thunderful Games (Steamworld Heist) and Acid Wizard Studio (Darkwood) have all started similar fundraising efforts. I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight some Ukrainian game developers that may be struggling due to the ongoing invasion. The developer of the Metro series, 4a Games, was founded in Kyiv in 2006 and remained there until they moved their headquarters to Malta in 2014. Though, they retained their Kyiv location as a sub-studio. Their statement regarding the invasion includes: “There are no simple words that happen in Ukraine at this very moment, in the country that is home to many of us. None of us has ever thought that the world of the 21st century can get to the borderline beyond which our game scenarios start resembling reality”. At the onset of the invasion, 4a offered to relocate all Kyiv-based employees to any other studios owned by their parent company, Saber Interactive. Frogwares, developers of “The Sinking City” and the recent “Sherlock Holmes Chapter One” are headquartered in Kyiv with subsidiary offices in Dublin. They have been live-tweeting the experience of their team during the invasion. One of these tweets that struck me was “Day 7. Last week we were making games. Today there are people on our streets running with guns in their hands. Bombings of our cities haven’t stopped. Our people remain strong. Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine)”. It’s astonishing how quickly things can change, I don’t think I’m the only one who believed Russia would never launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine despite their posturing on the border. As of Day 10 of the invasion (March 5th), Frogwares reported that “the team is overall ok” despite their difficult situation. GSC Game World, most famous for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series of games, is based in Kyiv. As Russian forces crossed the Ukrainian border, the developers tweeted out a statement that included: “Our country woke up with the sounds of explosions and weapons fire, but is ready to defend its freedom and independence, for it remains strong and ready for anything”. The studio later released a video, showing some of the footage captured of the Russian invasion. They ended the video promising to continue game development “after the victory, glory to Ukraine”. Vostok Games is a breakaway from GSC known for developing “Survarium” and “Fear the Wolves”. On February 25th they tweeted “As things stand we are safe. We continue our work remotely for the moment and will react to the situation, depending on how it develops. Lastly, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to our brave soldiers fighting to defend our nation. We salute you! #StandWithUkraine”. Unfortunately, the ten-year anniversary of Vostok was not a happy one as war still rages in Ukraine. The senseless fighting in Ukraine has upended the lives of the 41 million people living within its borders, from the game industry and beyond. Ukrainian-born Oleksander “s1mple” Kostyliev, widely regarded as one of the greatest Counter Strike: Global Offensive players of all time, tweeted on February 24th: “I cry thinking about my family and friends in Kyiv. I’m “lucky” that I’m not at home, but you can’t even imagine how much I want to be there”. His professional esports team, the famous Ukrainian organization NAVI, released a statement shortly after the invasion commenced: “Russia attacked Ukraine. And now there are hostilities that take human lives and destroy actual destinies on the territory of our country. It is impossible that during the war we pretend that everything is okay. It is not. We are devastated. Our main goal right now is to try and stay calm and take care of ourselves, our loved ones and those who need help. We are all together in this. And together we’ll get through it”. All we can do is hope for peace in Ukraine soon. The international community needs to maintain its economic pressure on Russia and make Vladimir Putin regret his warlord fancies. I sincerely hope all the game developers and esports personnel that I have highlighted here remain safe in these dark times.