Andrew Stephan is the director of Conflict Sport: The Making of S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2, a documentary from Microsoft concerning the ordeal of the sport builders at GSC Sport World, the Ukraine sport studio that needed to make S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2: The Coronary heart of Chornobyl, a triple-A sport, in the midst of a warfare zone.
The movie depicts the lives of the sport staff — maybe the most important in all of Ukraine with 460 individuals — as they found out the best way 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 staff, Ievgen Grygorovych and Mariia Grygorovych, the leaders of the sport studio, and the choices they needed to make in saving the sport, the studio and the lives of their workers. It gives classes round making selections underneath strain.
I puzzled how the filmmakers captured the footage of the corporate and its sport builders as they labored by way of the disaster of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The video reveals the making of the sport from its earliest days by way of the onset of warfare and its aftermath. Stephan advised me that his movie groups weren’t capable of go to the nation in the course of the time of warfare. Somewhat, the GSC Sport World staff 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 staff itself.
It’s a compelling video and story, and I encourage everybody to observe it for inspiration. It’s reveals the bounds of human visibility throughout warfare and the willpower of a staff to adapt and end a sport underneath essentially the most attempting circumstances.
The staff’s resilience within the face of warfare and different obstacles confirmed by way of 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 — underneath the shadow of warfare the place the entire 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 stated 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 seen?
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 interested by, 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. A lot of the staff had not seen the movie. It was a strong alternative to observe it with greater than 100 of the individuals on the staff, 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 have 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 give attention to 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 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 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 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 comfy with the concept 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 concentrate on all of the footage that turned out to be so on the bottom there–have been they deciding to movie themselves? Or have 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 overlook 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 have been documenting stuff earlier than the warfare began. Even earlier than the approaching risk of warfare. They have been filming all by way of 2021 and 2022. On the very starting, they handed us an enormous pile of fabric that we needed to comb by way of. They weren’t capturing with the intent of getting this footage utilized in a documentary like this. However we have 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 may 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 staff is heads down, simply cranking each day to get a sport out the door. They’re repeatedly coping with requests from me and my staff about attempting to get footage. I feel it labored out properly. All the way in which down, near the final weeks of edit, they have been nonetheless sending footage over once we have 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 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 an advanced factor. We’re very lucky that we have been capable of make the movie we made on the distance we have been at. Luckily I used to be capable of 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 component to all of this. A number of individuals have stated to me, “I had no idea.” For them, wanting their story advised is a part of it. It’s an opportunity to be taught 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 facility 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 facility of making artwork throughout a time of warfare, and the necessity to creatively categorical 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 offer you which means at a time if you desperately must have one thing to carry onto? I feel either side of the coin, Kyiv and Prague, all of them noticed the latter as the worth within the sport. It was an enormous supply of which 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 properly earlier than we’d ever captured that piece of sound. It was virtually not directly 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 workers 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 concerning the staff returning to the sport sooner or later, however within the meantime these staff members nonetheless test in. That’s fascinating. They’ll leap on a name each from time to time. Their day after day just isn’t what it was, however I feel that’s spectacular.
GamesBeat: I do marvel for those who 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 footwear. I wouldn’t fake to grasp the affect. 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 incorrect with it if you wish to name it an escape. However one thing that you would be able to 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 staff has been extremely supportive. Individuals within the gaming group, from day one, have been very supportive. I feel a staff like GSC feeds off that. It’s helped maintain them pushed. It’s a contributing think about serving to maintain them pushed, that assist. They’ve stayed targeted, and I feel 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 economic system, they’d lose the warfare that approach.
Stephan: What’s exceptional 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 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 saved them employed. Retaining individuals employed throughout a time like this was perhaps extra the exception than the rule. It’s fairly incredible that they’d this factor to rally round and maintain them going, maintain individuals gainfully employed and supplied for, and in flip additional the staff’s efforts to push again throughout the board, by way of their sport and thru the day after day of the warfare.
GamesBeat: It was life-saving to have the corporate look after 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 the whole lot. 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 have been killed, who had both labored on the primary sport or finished voice appearing. Was there a selection you needed to make about how a lot of that topic to reference or embrace?
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 day after day hand within the making of the sequel. He was on the unique staff, 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 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 mates 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 mates 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 concerning the staff. We needed to give attention to the individuals. To your level, even when that had occurred to among the modern staff members, I’m undecided that’s a street we’d have gone down. We needed to give attention to the achievement that this staff had achieved.
GamesBeat: Is there some good that you simply hope could 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 individuals with perhaps lesser-known tales which are about individuals. It’s about individuals first, to create a way of empathy for the staff by making individuals 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 by way of. 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 underneath intense strain. 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 have been impatient concerning 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 thought of builders simply usually, artists usually, and the pressures on them to create artwork. Commerce and artwork don’t at all times go hand in hand very gently. That was vital to me, to humanize the method of sport improvement, each for the individuals on this intense state of affairs, but in addition–hopefully individuals will step again and take into consideration builders usually, 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 vital to me, and clearly to make clear their story, the GSC staff’s story, the warfare usually 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, concerning 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 be capable of respect 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 principle characters of this story, so to talk?
Stephan: They have been great individuals. I don’t know if you figured it out, however I didn’t know they have 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 have been each related spirits. Variety. They perform as good enhances, enterprise and strategic and artistic.
They have 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 feel, as is normally the case, we earned that belief. They may see we have been coming from place. You attempt to stay goal as a filmmaker, however you are feeling an immense sense of strain 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 stage of religion that we have 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 have been.