Andrew Stephan is the director of Conflict Recreation: The Making of S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2, a documentary from Microsoft in regards to the ordeal of the sport builders at GSC Recreation World, the Ukraine recreation studio that needed to make S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2: The Coronary heart of Chornobyl, a triple-A recreation, in the course of a conflict zone.
The movie depicts the lives of the sport staff — maybe the largest in all of Ukraine with 460 folks — as they found out the way to get the sport executed within the midst of the Russian invasion. On and off within the works for a decade, the sport is scheduled to ship on the PC and consoles on November 20, 2024.
It’s emotional story that facilities on a husband-and-wife staff, Ievgen Grygorovych and Mariia Grygorovych, the leaders of the sport studio, and the selections they needed to make in saving the sport, the studio and the lives of their staff. It affords classes round making choices underneath stress.
I puzzled how the filmmakers captured the footage of the corporate and its recreation builders as they labored via the disaster of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The video exhibits the making of the sport from its earliest days via the onset of conflict and its aftermath. Stephan instructed me that his movie groups weren’t in a position to go to the nation in the course of the time of conflict. Quite, the GSC Recreation World staff themselves selected to file their experiences within the documentary. It’s outstanding that a lot of the historical past captured within the uncooked footage was because of the foresight of the staff itself.
It’s a compelling video and story, and I encourage everybody to observe it for inspiration. It’s exhibits the bounds of human visibility throughout conflict and the willpower of a staff to adapt and end a recreation underneath essentially the most making an attempt circumstances.
The staff’s resilience within the face of conflict and different obstacles confirmed via within the emotional movie, which is a type of microcosm for the toil 1000’s of individuals working in video games in Ukraine or within the Ukrainian diaspora — underneath the shadow of conflict the place all the odds are in opposition to them.
“There’s not a single person at that company that we interviewed, or that we didn’t, who hasn’t lost someone. Who hasn’t lost friends or family,” Stephan mentioned in his interview with me.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: What has the reception been like to this point? Have you ever heard some good issues about the way it’s being considered?
Andrew Stephan: I’m not in tune with the numbers myself. That was by no means my MO. I’d defer to Microsoft on what the viewership is like. I do know that for me, the primary response, constructive response I hoped to get, and the viewers I used to be most inquisitive about, was the staff at GSC. I had the fortune of attending to fly out to Prague final week to display screen it with them for the primary time. Many of the staff had not seen the movie. It was a robust alternative to observe it with greater than 100 of the folks on the staff, and get to satisfy a number of of them that I’d by no means had an opportunity to satisfy earlier than. To an individual, they had been all deeply touched and grateful to Xbox, to the manufacturing staff for doing their story justice, for taking the time to be deliberate with the story. That’s been nice.
In all places I’ve seen a remark, or I’ve seen somebody weighing in with an opinion, it appears to be overwhelmingly constructive. That’s been my early expertise.
GamesBeat: What was among the preliminary impetus for you? Why deal with Ukraine, and why this explicit staff?
Stephan: I can’t chalk it as much as something greater than luck and timing. I knew Tina Summerford, who appeared in Energy On, from my time at G4 TV method again when, within the early 2000s. She’s the one who introduced me on to do Energy On for the twentieth anniversary of Xbox. What was alleged to be a stand-alone characteristic documentary, perhaps 45 minutes or an hour, ended up changing into six episodes, a few years within the making, and helped the staff at Xbox land a few Emmy nominations and their first win. That was an especially constructive expertise. I had a good time making it. The model was very proud of the end result, with the reception.
We stayed in contact, and she or he first alerted me to GSC’s story in the summertime of 2022, when it was first placed on her radar. She stored monitoring their progress. She earned the studio’s belief. She and Glenn at Microsoft, the 2 of them earned the studio’s belief and obtained them snug with the concept of documenting their journey. She re-approached me within the spring of 2023 about throwing my hat within the ring to try to direct a movie, to make a pitch to Microsoft. I leapt on the alternative. They purchased into my pitch and the remaining was historical past.
GamesBeat: If you concentrate on all of the footage that turned out to be so on the bottom there–had been they deciding to movie themselves? Or had been you truly having your staff go there and seize the whole lot with them on a regular basis?
Stephan: All credit score goes to them for having the prescience to doc their very own journey. On the very starting, as we began, they’d–I neglect his title. Nick was his first title. However they’d an in-house photographer and bibliographer who had documented a ton of conferences and simply the method of creating the sport. They had been documenting stuff earlier than the conflict began. Even earlier than the upcoming risk of conflict. They had been filming all via 2021 and 2022. On the very starting, they handed us an enormous pile of fabric that we needed to comb via. They weren’t capturing with the intent of getting this footage utilized in a documentary like this. However we had been in a position to cherry-pick.
Any of those movies, what actually brings it to life is the archival. Having the ability to set up a way of place and time, making a extra intimate connection along with your topics. Due to the extremely charged and difficult nature of the subject material, it’s not like we might have boots on the bottom in Kyiv. We needed to depend on them completely to provide us a few of that footage. However that’s a course of for them. Keep in mind, past that preliminary dump, this staff is heads down, simply cranking daily to get a recreation out the door. They’re repeatedly coping with requests from me and my staff about making an attempt to get footage. I feel it labored out nicely. All the best way down, near the final weeks of edit, they had been nonetheless sending footage over once we had been searching for particular moments of protection.
GamesBeat: I hope you didn’t have to enter Chernobyl, into the radiation zone there.
Stephan: I feel I’d have–my intuition as a filmmaker, I’d have cherished to have gone. However from a household perspective and a Microsoft perspective, and from an insurance coverage perspective–it’s a sophisticated factor. We’re very lucky that we had been in a position to make the movie we made on the distance we had been at. Luckily I used to be in a position to go to Prague a number of instances to movie the interviews there with the staff, capturing them within the workplace and capturing some B-roll, a day within the life. We made just a few journeys on the market.
One thing that’s fascinating is how many individuals don’t truly know that Chernobyl was in Ukraine. I used to be shocked to seek out out–I don’t even suppose I knew how shut it was to Kyiv earlier than this all began. That was an interesting ingredient to all of this. A number of folks have mentioned to me, “I had no idea.” For them, wanting their story instructed is a part of it. It’s an opportunity to study extra about their tradition, what’s impressed them, what’s pushed them to create the best way that they do, create the issues that they create.
GamesBeat: What’s a great way to explain what you captured?
Stephan: I used to be all the time intrigued by the ability of expression and creating artwork throughout a time of conflict. The significance of making, I used to be all the time intrigued by the significance of making. Drawn to the ability of making artwork throughout a time of conflict, and the necessity to creatively specific your self as an outlet. I spoke at size with among the staff members about whether or not the sport felt like a distraction or salvation. Is it your job? Is it a foolish distraction? Or does it provide you with that means at a time whenever you desperately must have one thing to carry onto? I feel each side of the coin, Kyiv and Prague, all of them noticed the latter as the worth within the recreation. It was a giant supply of that means for them in a troublesome time.
It considerably actually says that within the movie. That is how we approached it. We noticed the sport as an act of resistance, an act of defiance, an act of inventive expression throughout this insanely intense interval. Somebody within the movie says it. “The game, for us, is now an act of resistance.” We had that thought in thoughts nicely earlier than we’d ever captured that piece of sound. It was nearly in a roundabout way validating. That’s what I hope the message of the movie conveys, that it’s seen as precisely that.
GamesBeat: There was a line, one thing like, “We have a gun in one hand and a computer mouse in the other.”
Stephan: That’s proper. “We make the game with one hand and load our weapons with the other.” Actually and metaphorically, it seems. That’s the opposite factor, simply being drawn to the truth that–how surreal it’s to have these staff that not solely stayed behind, however felt the sense of responsibility to nation to go serve on the entrance traces. And nonetheless keep linked. They speak in regards to the staff returning to the sport sooner or later, however within the meantime these staff members nonetheless test in. That’s fascinating. They’ll bounce on a name each on occasion. Their daily isn’t what it was, however I feel that’s spectacular.
GamesBeat: I do surprise in the event you then extracted–are there classes for builders in every single place, given that everybody is having their very own powerful instances? Not as excessive as this, however nonetheless, morale is being challenged.
Stephan: I don’t know if I extracted a lesson personally. I’m not of their sneakers. I wouldn’t fake to know the impression. I’ll say that as a inventive, for any inventive–this held true right here, listening to their tales. The factor you’re making, the artwork you’re making, generally is a life preserver. Not an escape, however there’s nothing fallacious with it if you wish to name it an escape. However one thing which you could sink your self into, put your coronary heart and soul into, and it’ll present you some type of respite from the insanity occurring round you.
I’ll say, lots of people have been very supportive. The Xbox staff has been extremely supportive. Individuals within the gaming neighborhood, from day one, have been very supportive. I feel a staff like GSC feeds off that. It’s helped preserve them pushed. It’s a contributing think about serving to preserve them pushed, that assist. They’ve stayed centered, and I feel they’re going to make one thing fairly particular. There’s a degree of–if there’s a takeaway, it’s perseverance, private {and professional}.
GamesBeat: In some methods it looks like all of Ukraine acted this manner. They understood that in the event that they stopped working, stopped their financial system, they’d lose the conflict that method.
Stephan: What’s outstanding about what GSC did, although, that perhaps differentiates them–from the little I dug, I didn’t see anybody else that was doing this. However once they left, they supplied that chance to everybody and their households. Staff previous and current. They supplied an opportunity at sanctuary, to get out. If folks stayed, GSC stored them employed. Retaining folks employed throughout a time like this was perhaps extra the exception than the rule. It’s fairly unbelievable that they’d this factor to rally round and preserve them going, preserve folks gainfully employed and supplied for, and in flip additional the staff’s efforts to push again throughout the board, via their recreation and thru the daily of the conflict.
GamesBeat: It was life-saving to have the corporate take care of its staff.
Stephan: It was life-saving on many ranges, for my part. I’d say it was life-saving and soul-saving.
GamesBeat: It’s an trustworthy and uncooked take a look at the whole lot. I did surprise about a few points the place perhaps you needed to resolve how a lot to incorporate in it. There have been a few troopers from GSC who had been killed, who had both labored on the primary recreation or executed voice appearing. Was there a selection you needed to make about how a lot of that topic to reference or embody?
Stephan: No, I feel it sorted itself out. I didn’t wish to sensationalize something. It felt misplaced to inform the story of a developer who didn’t have a daily hand within the making of the sequel. He was on the unique staff, so it felt acceptable to post-script the movie in reminiscence of him. The opposite particular person wasn’t even dropped at my consideration till deep into the submit manufacturing course of, his passing. I’m undecided that it might have modified something.
Our selection wasn’t to make this–I feel these two persons are extra consultant–if you concentrate on it, there’s not a single particular person at that firm that we interviewed, or that we didn’t, who hasn’t misplaced somebody. Who hasn’t misplaced pals or household. In some unspecified time in the future these two names that seem within the postscript on the finish of the movie, and to all our fallen pals and comrades–I can’t keep in mind the precise language proper now. But it surely was in reminiscence of all of them. We didn’t select or care to single out anybody as the first type of the narrative. The narrative was in regards to the staff. We needed to deal with the folks. To your level, even when that had occurred to among the modern staff members, I’m undecided that’s a highway we might have gone down. We needed to deal with the achievement that this staff had achieved.
GamesBeat: Is there some good that you simply hope might come from telling this story?
Stephan: Actually I hope that something my staff and I make–we’re not salacious filmmakers. You search for deeply human tales and also you look to amplify these tales, to familiarize folks with perhaps lesser-known tales which are about folks. It’s about folks first, to create a way of empathy for the staff by making folks perceive that there’s a staff of people on the opposite finish of the sport. It’s the identical factor with Xbox and Energy On. It’s not only a console. These are the individuals who made it. That is what they suffered via. There have been emotions on the road. On this movie there are lives on the road.
The nice, you hope, is that individuals who–once more, for me, this was one of many objectives of the story, to have the ability to inform a narrative the place–it was a part of the director’s assertion. I wrote one thing to the impact of all the time having been sympathetic to recreation builders, who face intense criticism and weighty expectations from actually passionate fanbases. For comprehensible causes. However they’re underneath intense stress. So many followers are pushed by their intense love for these franchises, and so they typically lose contact with the truth that actual human beings exist behind these fictional video games they love a lot.
As I began to immerse myself within the story a yr and a half in the past, seeing the feedback from the individuals who had been impatient in regards to the delays and the assaults on the studio, for me it was a uncommon alternative to humanize a staff on this world. I’d needed to do that for some time. The concept of builders simply generally, artists generally, and the pressures on them to create artwork. Commerce and artwork don’t all the time go hand in hand very gently. That was vital to me, to humanize the method of recreation improvement, each for the folks on this intense scenario, but in addition–hopefully folks will step again and take into consideration builders generally, who face an uphill battle simply to make a recreation, a lot much less a particular recreation. Simply to finish one thing is an achievement.
That was vital to me, and clearly to make clear their story, the GSC staff’s story, the conflict generally and their place in all this. I hope what comes out of that’s that folks see it and people two issues resonate. To return to your earliest query, in regards to the response, tons of feedback are alongside the traces of, “I get access to this game on Game Pass, but I’m going to buy it anyway because I want to support this team.” There’s been a ton of assist for the staff. Individuals are beginning to see–even you. You led this off by saying, “I had no idea.” If it’s not in your radar this manner, you wouldn’t have the ability to admire it the identical method now you can. I hope that’s the common response.
GamesBeat: What did you consider Ievgen and Maria as kind of the precept folks, the primary characters of this story, so to talk?
Stephan: They had been fantastic folks. I don’t know whenever you figured it out, however I didn’t know they had been husband and spouse for fairly a while, as a result of of their opinion it’s irrelevant to the story. As a filmmaker it clearly grew to become very related sooner or later, however they don’t lead with that. They had been each related spirits. Form. They perform as excellent enhances, enterprise and strategic and artistic.
They had been apprehensive at first, like nearly each topic of any movie has been. You don’t know who you’re actually letting into the home. However over time I feel, as is often the case, we earned that belief. They might see we had been coming from a very good place. You attempt to stay goal as a filmmaker, however you are feeling an immense sense of stress to get it proper and do the story justice. Over the course of a yr and a half the connection continued to strengthen. We reached a degree the place they’d the requisite degree of religion that we had been going to do proper by the story. That’s why it was extremely gratifying to get to observe it with them on the massive display screen and see how moved they had been.
