“Stalker 2”, a game haunted by the war in Ukraine, for the best and for shooting – Libération

The latest creation from the Ukrainians of GSC Gameworld, where the player tries to survive in a post-apocalyptic world with a successful aesthetic, echoes the war, which pushed some of the creators into exile.

A Thousand and One Days After the Start of the War in Ukraine is released Stalker 2from the GSC Gameworld studio, long based in Kyiv. Quite a symbol for a shooting game which inevitably emerges transformed and damaged by a development disrupted by the exile of its creators. In western Ukraine first, before the team finally settled in the Czech Republic, without some of the developers leaving to join the ranks of the army. Targeted by multiple hacker attacks in recent years, the studio once again found itself in Moscow’s sights a few hours before the game’s publication, with a Russian MP threatening GSC Gameworld through the press, promising “draconian measures” and Stalker came to “justify terrorism” or to promote a “anti-Russian sentiment”. A warning especially intended for Russian players (for whom the first part is very popular) tempted to use a VPN to access the creation of GSC, which the studio refuses to market in Russia anyway. The credits of Stalker 2, they leave little room for ambiguity regarding feelings towards the Russian invader: “In pain, death, war, fear and cruelty inh