Andrew Stephan is the director of Battle Sport: The Making of S.T.A.L.Ok.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.Ok.E.R. 2: The Coronary heart of Chornobyl, a triple-A sport, in the midst of a battle zone.
The movie depicts the lives of the sport crew — maybe the most important in all of Ukraine with 460 individuals — as they found out learn how to get the sport performed 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 crew, 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 questioned how the filmmakers captured the footage of the corporate and its sport builders as they labored by means of the disaster of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The video reveals the making of the sport from its earliest days by means of the onset of battle 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 battle. Quite, the GSC Sport World crew 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 crew 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 battle and the willpower of a crew to adapt and end a sport underneath probably the most attempting circumstances.
The crew’s resilience within the face of battle and different obstacles confirmed by means of within the emotional movie, which is a type of microcosm for the toil hundreds of individuals working in video games in Ukraine or within the Ukrainian diaspora — underneath the shadow of battle the place all the 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 mates or household,” Stephan stated in his interview with me.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: What has the reception been like thus far? 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, constructive response I hoped to get, and the viewers I used to be most inquisitive about, was the crew 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 crew had not seen the movie. It was a strong alternative to observe it with greater than 100 of the individuals on the crew, 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 crew 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 constructive. That’s been my early expertise.
GamesBeat: What was a few of the preliminary impetus for you? Why concentrate on Ukraine, and why this explicit crew?
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 purported to be a stand-alone function documentary, possibly 45 minutes or an hour, ended up changing into six episodes, a few years within the making, and helped the crew at Xbox land a few Emmy nominations and their first win. That was a particularly constructive expertise. I had a good time making it. The model was very pleased with the 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 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 attempt 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–have been they deciding to movie themselves? Or have been you really having your crew 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, 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 have been documenting stuff earlier than the battle began. Even earlier than the upcoming menace of battle. They have been filming all by means of 2021 and 2022. On the very starting, they handed us a large pile of fabric that we needed to comb by means of. They weren’t taking pictures 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 solely to provide us a few of that footage. However that’s a course of for them. Keep in mind, past that preliminary dump, this crew 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 crew about attempting to get footage. I believe it labored out effectively. All the way in which down, near the final weeks of edit, they have been nonetheless sending footage over once we have been searching 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 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. Happily I used to be capable of go to Prague a number of instances to movie the interviews there with the crew, capturing them within the workplace and taking pictures some B-roll, a day within the life. We made a number of 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 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 aspect to all of this. A number of individuals have stated to me, “I had no thought.” 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 ability of expression and creating artwork throughout a time of battle. 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 battle, and the necessity to creatively categorical your self as an outlet. I spoke at size with a few of the crew 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 while you desperately must 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 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 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 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, “We’ve got 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 obligation to nation to go serve on the entrance strains. And nonetheless keep linked. They speak concerning the crew returning to the sport in some unspecified time in the future, however within the meantime these crew members nonetheless examine in. That’s fascinating. They’ll bounce on a name each now and again. Their daily will not be what it was, however I believe that’s spectacular.
GamesBeat: I do marvel in the event you then extracted–are there classes for builders all over the 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 know 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, could be a life preserver. Not an escape, however there’s nothing unsuitable 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 occurring round you.
I’ll say, lots of people have been very supportive. The Xbox crew has been extremely supportive. Individuals within the gaming group, from day one, have been very supportive. I believe a crew like GSC feeds off that. It’s helped maintain them pushed. It’s a contributing consider serving to maintain them pushed, that assist. 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 fashion. They understood that in the event that they stopped working, stopped their economic system, they’d lose the battle that method.
Stephan: What’s outstanding 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 after 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 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 they’d this factor to rally round and maintain them going, maintain individuals gainfully employed and offered for, and in flip additional the crew’s efforts to push again throughout the board, by means of their sport and thru the daily of the battle.
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 sincere and uncooked take a look at every part. I did marvel about a few points the place possibly 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 performed voice appearing. Was there a alternative you needed to make about how a lot of that topic to reference or embody?
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 daily hand within the making of the sequel. He was on the unique crew, 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 alternative wasn’t to make this–I believe these two persons are extra consultant–if you concentrate on 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 mates or household. Sooner or later 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 crew. We wished to concentrate on the individuals. To your level, even when that had occurred to a few of the modern crew members, I’m unsure that’s a street we might have gone down. We wished to concentrate on the achievement that this crew had completed.
GamesBeat: Is there some good that you simply hope might come from telling this story?
Stephan: Actually I hope that something my crew 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 crew by making individuals perceive that there’s a crew 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 means of. There have been emotions on the road. On this movie there are lives on the road.
The great, 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, they usually 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 12 months 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 crew on this world. I’d wished to do that for some time. The thought of builders simply normally, artists normally, 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 additionally–hopefully individuals will step again and take into consideration builders normally, 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 crew’s story, the battle normally 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, concerning the response, tons of feedback are alongside the strains of, “I get entry to this sport on Sport Cross, however I’m going to purchase it anyway as a result of I need to assist this crew.” There’s been a ton of assist for the crew. 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 fashion, you wouldn’t be capable of 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 individuals, the primary characters of this story, so to talk?
Stephan: They have been fantastic individuals. I don’t know while 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 in some unspecified time in the future, however they don’t lead with that. They have been each comparable spirits. Form. They operate as excellent enhances, enterprise and strategic and inventive.
They have 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 normally the case, we earned that belief. They might see we have been coming from a superb 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 12 months and a half the connection continued to strengthen. We reached some extent the place they’d the requisite degree 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 and see how moved they have been.
