Playing the Ukraine-made video game impacted by war
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Loading... - Zeta Carpino
- 03 May 2023
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Kyiv studio Frogwares is releasing a video game created entirely during the war in Ukraine. How did the conflict influence the development of "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened?"
"We can't just stand by," tweeted the Ukrainian video game studio Frogware, a few hours after Russia invaded Ukraine on the morning of February 24, 2022. Since then, the Kyiv-based studio has used its social media platforms for more than the usual video game trailers and announcements — it also shares information about what it's like living and working during a war.
Among the images shared on their account are family photos and shots of destroyed buildings, men in camouflage clothing and civilians holed up in bomb shelters and subway shafts. There are also images of women and children on the run and people working with their laptops in the bathtub or sitting on the floor.
Personal stories, like that of artist Svitlana Gunchenko, who has been working as a 2D artist at Frogwares for 20 years, show the everyday chaos of life in Ukraine since the invasion. She shows overcrowded shelters, the missile that came hurtling right toward her house and swerved off course shortly before it hit, of escape and eventually the return home.
"We kind of wanted to use our platform and our position to shed some light on what's going on," Sergey Oganesyan tells DW over Zoom.
"And because we're a gaming company, we would like to reach gamers specifically and tell them about the horrors that happen in Ukraine on a daily basis," he continues. The 33-year-old lives and works in Kyiv as head of publishing for the independent development studio Frogwares, which will release the bone-chilling detective adventure "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened" on April 11.
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Kyiv is not only the capital of Ukraine, but also the center of the Ukrainian tech industry. More than 250,000 people worked in IT and tech before the Russian invasion in February 2022, including tens of thousands in gaming and e-sports. In fact, the tech industry is booming despite the war. According to the Ukrainian Digital Ministry, nowhere in Europe are there more university graduates in tech-related courses than in Ukraine. Next year, the number of tech specialists is expected to increase to 450,000, according to a forecast. Read More…
