Developing a video game under the bombs: Russian hackers and the story of Stalker 2

stalkers 2 it was postponed again. stalkers 2whose full title is Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobylwas one of the most anticipated video games of 2023, after being one of the most anticipated video games of 2022. It is now one of the most anticipated video games of 2024, but its developers are not to blame. No: the Russians are to blame.

stalkers 2 is what is called an FPS, a first person shooter set in the Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant: is the first real sequel to a hugely successful video game released (only on computers) in 2007 and the first in the series to also be available for consoles. When it’s available, of course.

youtube: the trailer of Stalker 2

twitter: the GSC Game World appeal of February 24, 2022

Fleeing from Kiev to Prague

The studio responsible for the development of Stalker is called GSC Game World and was founded in Kiev in 1995but with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia at the beginning of 2022, the headquarters was moved to Prague, in the Czech Republic. This has enormously complicated the work on the video game, the release of which has in fact been postponed several times.

Via Twitter, as we have already told about Italian Tech, the studio asked for help from the fans and also to specialized journalists to send donations to the Ukrainian army to support the country’s war effort. Not only that: in December 2022, one of the developers, Volodymyr Yezhov, was killed while fighting near Bachmut and in recent months the team has often been the victim of attacks and threats from Russian hackers, even recently.

twitter: GSC Game World’s tweet about the attack

The early June hacker attack

The last episode of the genre, confirming the troubled development of stalkers 2dates back to the beginning of June: again via Twitter, GSC Game World informed fans that the same Russian hackers “who have been attacking the company for almost a year and a half” would again be “able to access and compromising some of our internal test data of various aspects of the game.

It’s not clear what information this is, bro artwork, videos, images, maps and even bits of code, nor how many: the latest attack, that of last March, managed to steal about 30 GB of material, in this case it would have been close to 200 GB. What is known is that there are pieces of Stalker 2 around the Dark Web and more or less easily accessible: “Don’t watch or share the material leaked from the game – the developers asked – Although these materials are used only for testing purposes and are not ready for release, they could ruin the future experience (with the game, ed)”.

twitter: confirmation of the information leak

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Writing code under the bombs

This is what happens in the virtual world, but in the real one it is worse: according to recent data, in Ukraine there are about 200,000 people working in the field of coding and software development, exponents of a highly successful industry that the Russian invasion threatens to destroy every day.

There are internationally recognized startups that they were on the verge of losing everything, abandoned projects, broken dreams. And many, many people who continued to work despite the scarcity of resources, the bombings, the frequent runs to shelters. This is precisely the case of GSC Game World, which has about 300 employees who no longer work together for some time: some have agreed to move (together with their families) in Uzhhorod, near the border with safer Slovakia and Hungary; 130 are still near Kiev (some actively engaged in fighting); about 200 are in Prague, in what has become the company’s main office.

And where now the software houses hopes to be able to complete the work on stalkers 2 (which is so called because that’s what the first explorers of the Exclusion Zone were called, as anyone who has read will know Roadside picnic): the game has in spite of itself become a symbol of that Ukrainian resistance that Russia has been trying to overthrow for almost a year and a half, and leafing through Amazon it is understood that the new release date is set for January 2, 2024. Putin permitting, of course.

@capoema