Andrew Stephan is the director of Warfare Sport: 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 Sport World, the Ukraine sport studio that needed to make S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2: The Coronary heart of Chornobyl, a triple-A sport, in the course of a warfare zone.
The movie depicts the lives of the sport group — maybe the largest in all of Ukraine with 460 individuals — as they discovered tips on how to get the sport finished 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 group, 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 presents classes round making choices beneath stress.
I puzzled how the filmmakers captured the footage of the corporate and its sport builders as they labored via the disaster of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The video reveals the making of the sport from its earliest days via the onset of warfare and its aftermath. Stephan instructed me that his movie groups weren’t capable of go to the nation throughout the time of warfare. Relatively, the GSC Sport World group themselves selected to report their experiences within the documentary. It’s outstanding that many of the historical past captured within the uncooked footage was as a result of foresight of the group itself.
It’s a compelling video and story, and I encourage everybody to look at it for inspiration. It’s reveals the bounds of human visibility throughout warfare and the willpower of a group to adapt and end a sport beneath probably the most attempting circumstances.
The group’s resilience within the face of warfare and different obstacles confirmed via within the emotional movie, which is a form of microcosm for the toil 1000’s of individuals working in video games in Ukraine or within the Ukrainian diaspora — beneath the shadow of warfare the place the entire odds are towards them.
“There’s not a single individual at that firm that we interviewed, or that we didn’t, who hasn’t misplaced somebody. Who hasn’t misplaced pals or household,” Stephan mentioned in his interview with me.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: What has the reception been like up to now? 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 might defer to Microsoft on what the viewership is like. I do know that for me, the primary response, optimistic response I hoped to get, and the viewers I used to be most inquisitive about, was the group at GSC. I had the fortune of attending to fly out to Prague final week to display it with them for the primary time. Many of the group had not seen the movie. It was a robust alternative to look at it with greater than 100 of the individuals on the group, and get to fulfill a number of of them that I’d by no means had an opportunity to fulfill earlier than. To an individual, they had been all deeply touched and grateful to Xbox, to the manufacturing group for doing their story justice, for taking the time to be deliberate with the story. That’s been nice.
All over the place I’ve seen a remark, or I’ve seen somebody weighing in with an opinion, it appears to be overwhelmingly optimistic. That’s been my early expertise.
GamesBeat: What was a few of the preliminary impetus for you? Why deal with Ukraine, and why this explicit group?
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 approach 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 imagined to be a stand-alone function documentary, perhaps 45 minutes or an hour, ended up turning into six episodes, a few years within the making, and helped the group at Xbox land a few Emmy nominations and their first win. That was an especially optimistic expertise. I had a good time making it. The model was very proud of the result, with the reception.
We stayed in contact, and he or she first alerted me to GSC’s story in the summertime of 2022, when it was first placed on her radar. She saved monitoring their progress. She earned the studio’s belief. She and Glenn at Microsoft, the 2 of them earned the studio’s belief and acquired 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 remainder was historical past.
GamesBeat: If you consider 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 really having your group go there and seize every part 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, that they had–I neglect his identify. Nick was his first identify. However that they had an in-house photographer and bibliographer who had documented a ton of conferences and simply the method of constructing the sport. They had been documenting stuff earlier than the warfare began. Even earlier than the approaching menace of warfare. 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 taking pictures with the intent of getting this footage utilized in a documentary like this. However we had been capable of cherry-pick.
Any of those movies, what actually brings it to life is the archival. With 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 solely to offer us a few of that footage. However that’s a course of for them. Bear in mind, past that preliminary dump, this group is heads down, simply cranking every single day to get a sport out the door. They’re repeatedly coping with requests from me and my group about attempting to get footage. I believe it labored out effectively. All the way in which down, near the final weeks of edit, they had been nonetheless sending footage over after we had been in search of particular moments of protection.
GamesBeat: I hope you didn’t have to enter Chernobyl, into the radiation zone there.
Stephan: I believe I might have–my intuition as a filmmaker, I might have cherished to have gone. However from a household perspective and a Microsoft perspective, and from an insurance coverage perspective–it’s an advanced factor. We’re very lucky that we had been capable of make the movie we made on the distance we had been at. Luckily I used to be capable of go to Prague a number of instances to movie the interviews there with the group, capturing them within the workplace and taking pictures 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 really know that Chernobyl was in Ukraine. I used to be stunned to search out out–I don’t even suppose I knew how shut it was to Kyiv earlier than this all began. That was a captivating aspect to all of this. A number of individuals have mentioned to me, “I had no thought.” 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 way in which 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 at all times intrigued by the ability of expression and creating artwork throughout a time of warfare. The significance of making, I used to be at all times intrigued by the significance of making. Drawn to the ability of making artwork throughout a time of warfare, and the necessity to creatively categorical your self as an outlet. I spoke at size with a few of the group 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 offer you which means at a time if you desperately have to have one thing to carry onto? I believe each side of the coin, Kyiv and Prague, all of them noticed the latter as the worth within the sport. It was a giant supply of which means for them in a tough 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 artistic expression throughout this insanely intense interval. Somebody within the movie says it. “The sport, for us, is now an act of resistance.” We had that thought in thoughts effectively earlier than we’d ever captured that piece of sound. It was nearly ultimately 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, “Now we have a gun in a single hand and a pc mouse within the different.”
Stephan: That’s proper. “We make the sport with one hand and cargo our weapons with the opposite.” 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 group returning to the sport in some unspecified time in the future, however within the meantime these group members nonetheless test in. That’s fascinating. They’ll soar on a name each infrequently. Their daily is just not what it was, however I believe that’s spectacular.
GamesBeat: I do marvel if you happen to then extracted–are there classes for builders in all places, 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 footwear. I wouldn’t faux to know the impression. I’ll say that as a artistic, for any artistic–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 mistaken with it if you wish to name it an escape. However one thing that 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 happening round you.
I’ll say, lots of people have been very supportive. The Xbox group has been extremely supportive. Individuals within the gaming group, from day one, have been very supportive. I believe a group like GSC feeds off that. It’s helped hold them pushed. It’s a contributing think about serving to hold them pushed, that help. They’ve stayed centered, and I believe 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 economic system, they’d lose the warfare that approach.
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 after they left, they provided that chance to everybody and their households. Staff previous and current. They provided an opportunity at sanctuary, to get out. If individuals stayed, GSC saved them employed. Protecting individuals employed throughout a time like this was perhaps extra the exception than the rule. It’s fairly unbelievable that that they had this factor to rally round and hold them going, hold individuals gainfully employed and offered for, and in flip additional the group’s efforts to push again throughout the board, via their sport and thru the daily of the warfare.
GamesBeat: It was life-saving to have the corporate take care of its staff.
Stephan: It was life-saving on many ranges, in my view. I’d say it was life-saving and soul-saving.
GamesBeat: It’s an trustworthy and uncooked take a look at every part. I did marvel 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 sport or finished voice performing. Was there a selection you needed to make about how a lot of that topic to reference or embrace?
Stephan: No, I believe 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 group, so it felt acceptable to post-script the movie in reminiscence of him. The opposite particular person wasn’t even delivered to my consideration till deep into the put up manufacturing course of, his passing. I’m unsure that it will have modified something.
Our selection wasn’t to make this–I believe these two individuals are extra consultant–if you consider it, there’s not a single individual at that firm that we interviewed, or that we didn’t, who hasn’t misplaced somebody. Who hasn’t misplaced pals or household. Sooner or later 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 bear 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 group. We needed to deal with the individuals. To your level, even when that had occurred to a few of the modern group members, I’m unsure that’s a highway we’d have gone down. We needed to deal with the achievement that this group had completed.
GamesBeat: Is there some good that you simply hope could come from telling this story?
Stephan: Definitely I hope that something my group and I make–we’re not salacious filmmakers. You search for deeply human tales and also you look to amplify these tales, to familiarize individuals with perhaps lesser-known tales which can be about individuals. It’s about individuals first, to create a way of empathy for the group by making individuals perceive that there’s a group 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 targets 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 at all times having been sympathetic to sport builders, who face intense criticism and weighty expectations from actually passionate fanbases. For comprehensible causes. However they’re beneath intense stress. So many followers are pushed by their intense love for these franchises, they usually 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 12 months 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 group on this world. I’d needed to do that for some time. The concept of builders simply basically, artists basically, and the pressures on them to create artwork. Commerce and artwork don’t at all times go hand in hand very gently. That was essential to me, to humanize the method of sport growth, each for the individuals on this intense state of affairs, but additionally–hopefully individuals will step again and take into consideration builders basically, who face an uphill battle simply to make a sport, a lot much less a particular sport. Simply to finish one thing is an achievement.
That was essential to me, and clearly to make clear their story, the GSC group’s story, the warfare basically and their place in all this. I hope what comes out of that’s that individuals 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 entry to this sport on Sport Go, however I’m going to purchase it anyway as a result of I wish to help this group.” There’s been a ton of help for the group. Individuals are beginning to see–even you. You led this off by saying, “I had no thought.” If it’s not in your radar this manner, you wouldn’t be capable to admire it the identical approach now you can. I hope that’s the common response.
GamesBeat: What did you consider Ievgen and Maria as kind of the precept individuals, the primary characters of this story, so to talk?
Stephan: They had been fantastic individuals. I don’t know if 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 turned very related in some unspecified time in the future, however they don’t lead with that. They had been each related spirits. Form. They operate as good 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 believe, as is often the case, we earned that belief. They may see we had been coming from place. You attempt to stay goal as a filmmaker, however you’re feeling an immense sense of stress to get it proper and do the story justice. Over the course of a 12 months and a half the connection continued to strengthen. We reached some extent the place that they had 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 look at it with them on the large display and see how moved they had been.
