‘At this point it’s not just a game’: the making of Ukrainian RPG Stalker 2 – during wartime

Based in Kyiv until the Russian invasion - and still mourning colleagues who went to the frontline - the makers of long-awaited apocalyptic survival game Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl describe how their lives began imitating their art

As the 400 employees of GSC Game World, creators of the hit video game Stalker, filtered into their Kyiv office in January 2022, most didn't even notice the strange buses parked around the corner. While tensions were growing with their neighbours across the border, the frost-coated shlep to the office felt almost normal. Routine. Or so they told themselves. As whispers of war spread throughout the country, regular reassurances from their business partners - and President Zelenskiy - made it seem foolish to worry. Life, they were told, would carry on as usual.

Weeks later, their fears no longer seemed so foolish. On 24 February 2022, at 4am local time, Russian forces crossed the border, invading Ukraine from the north, east and south, shelling more than a dozen cities and killing 40 Ukrainian soldiers in 24 hours. The bombs fell hard and fast, levelling buildings less than a mile from GSC's office. Luckily, those ominous blacked-out buses had sprung into action a week prior, whisking more than 200 GSC employees and their families to Uzhgorod, a town on the Ukrainian border.