Andrew Stephan is the director of Struggle 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 workforce — maybe the largest in all of Ukraine with 460 individuals — as they found out find out how to get the sport achieved 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 workforce, 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 workers. It presents classes round making selections below stress.
I questioned how the filmmakers captured the footage of the corporate and its sport builders as they labored by the disaster of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The video reveals the making of the sport from its earliest days by the onset of warfare and its aftermath. Stephan instructed me that his movie groups weren’t in a position to go to the nation throughout the time of warfare. Moderately, the GSC Sport World workforce themselves selected to document their experiences within the documentary. It’s exceptional that many of the historical past captured within the uncooked footage was because of the foresight of the workforce 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 dedication of a workforce to adapt and end a sport below probably the most attempting circumstances.
The workforce’s resilience within the face of warfare and different obstacles confirmed by within the emotional movie, which is a form of microcosm for the toil hundreds of individuals working in video games in Ukraine or within the Ukrainian diaspora — below the shadow of warfare the place all the odds are in opposition to 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 buddies 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 to this point? Have you ever heard some good issues about the way it’s being seen?
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 interested in, was the workforce 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 workforce had not seen the movie. It was a strong alternative to look at it with greater than 100 of the individuals on the workforce, 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 workforce 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 optimistic. That’s been my early expertise.
GamesBeat: What was a number of the preliminary impetus for you? Why concentrate on Ukraine, and why this explicit workforce?
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 means 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 purported to be a stand-alone characteristic documentary, possibly 45 minutes or an hour, ended up changing into six episodes, a few years within the making, and helped the workforce at Xbox land a few Emmy nominations and their first win. That was a particularly optimistic 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 he or she 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 comfy with the thought of documenting their journey. She re-approached me within the spring of 2023 about throwing my hat within the ring to attempt 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 truly having your workforce go there and seize all the pieces 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 title. Nick was his first title. However that they had 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 warfare began. Even earlier than the upcoming risk of warfare. They had been filming all by 2021 and 2022. On the very starting, they handed us an enormous pile of fabric that we needed to comb by. 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 offer us a few of that footage. However that’s a course of for them. Bear in mind, past that preliminary dump, this workforce is heads down, simply cranking on daily basis to get a sport out the door. They’re repeatedly coping with requests from me and my workforce 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 once we had been on the lookout for 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 liked 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 workforce, 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 attention-grabbing is how many individuals don’t truly know that Chernobyl was in Ukraine. I used to be shocked to search out out–I don’t even suppose I knew how shut it was to Kyiv earlier than this all began. That was an interesting 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 specific your self as an outlet. I spoke at size with a number of the workforce 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 while you desperately have to have one thing to carry onto? I believe either 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 that 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 inventive 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 virtually 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 now 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 workers that not solely stayed behind, however felt the sense of responsibility to nation to go serve on the entrance strains. And nonetheless keep related. They discuss in regards to the workforce returning to the sport in some unspecified time in the future, however within the meantime these workforce members nonetheless verify in. That’s attention-grabbing. They’ll soar on a name each every now and then. Their each day just isn’t what it was, however I believe that’s spectacular.
GamesBeat: I do surprise in case you then extracted–are there classes for builders in every single place, given that everybody is having their very own robust 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 grasp 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 you can 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 workforce has been extremely supportive. Individuals within the gaming group, from day one, have been very supportive. I believe a workforce like GSC feeds off that. It’s helped maintain them pushed. It’s a contributing consider serving to maintain them pushed, that help. They’ve stayed targeted, and I believe they’re going to make one thing fairly particular. There’s a stage of–if there’s a takeaway, it’s perseverance, private {and professional}.
GamesBeat: In some methods it appears 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 warfare that means.
Stephan: What’s exceptional about what GSC did, although, that possibly differentiates them–from the little I dug, I didn’t see anybody else that was doing this. However once they left, they provided that chance to everybody and their households. Workers previous and current. They provided an opportunity at sanctuary, to get out. If individuals stayed, GSC stored them employed. Conserving individuals employed throughout a time like this was possibly extra the exception than the rule. It’s fairly improbable that that they had this factor to rally round and maintain them going, maintain individuals gainfully employed and supplied for, and in flip additional the workforce’s efforts to push again throughout the board, by their sport and thru the each day of the warfare.
GamesBeat: It was life-saving to have the corporate take care of its workers.
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 all the pieces. I did surprise about a few points the place possibly you needed to determine 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 achieved voice appearing. 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 need to sensationalize something. It felt misplaced to inform the story of a developer who didn’t have a each day hand within the making of the sequel. He was on the unique workforce, so it felt applicable 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 might have modified something.
Our selection wasn’t to make this–I believe these two persons 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 buddies 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 buddies and comrades–I can’t bear in mind the precise language proper now. However it 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 workforce. We needed to concentrate on the individuals. To your level, even when that had occurred to a number of the up to date workforce members, I’m unsure that’s a highway we might have gone down. We needed to concentrate on the achievement that this workforce had achieved.
GamesBeat: Is there some good that you just hope might come from telling this story?
Stephan: Definitely I hope that something my workforce 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 possibly lesser-known tales which might be about individuals. It’s about individuals first, to create a way of empathy for the workforce by making individuals perceive that there’s a workforce 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 by. 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 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 below intense stress. So many followers are pushed by their intense love for these franchises, and so they generally 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 workforce on this world. I’d needed to do that for some time. The concept of builders simply on the whole, artists on the whole, and the pressures on them to create artwork. Commerce and artwork don’t at all times go hand in hand very gently. That was necessary to me, to humanize the method of sport growth, each for the individuals on this intense state of affairs, but in addition–hopefully individuals will step again and take into consideration builders on the whole, 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 necessary to me, and clearly to make clear their story, the GSC workforce’s story, the warfare on the whole 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 strains of, “I get entry to this sport on Sport Go, however I’m going to purchase it anyway as a result of I need to help this workforce.” There’s been a ton of help for the workforce. Persons 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 recognize it the identical means 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 while 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 in some unspecified time in the future, however they don’t lead with that. They had been each comparable spirits. Form. They perform as excellent enhances, enterprise and strategic and inventive.
They had been apprehensive at first, like virtually 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 normally the case, we earned that belief. They might see we had been coming from a superb 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 that they had the requisite stage 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 massive display screen and see how moved they had been.
