Meet the Ukrainian game developers fighting back against Russia

Over 100 days have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine but that hasn't stopped Ukrainians from continuing to work to support the people of their country including game developers.

Ukrainian patriotism has inspired game developers to pivot the theme of their games to unite Ukrainians, raise money for the army, and express their feelings toward the war according to Oleg Danylov the co-founder and editor of Ukrainian technology website Mezha.media.

In a piece for Polygon, Danylov shared some of the ways Ukrainian game developers are doing so.

"These are mostly simple arcade games that were developed in bomb shelters during air raids, so they are designed to be played for just a few minutes at a time, get revenge on Russian invaders, and humiliate the missile launchers targeting our cities," Danylov writes.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

One game, eBayraktar, created by iLogos Game Studios, has players control a drone to drop bombs on Russian tanks. Nikolay Minaev, CEO of iLogos said the game was their contribution to volunteerism.

Since tractors and farmers have become a symbol of resistance in Ukraine, several games implemented them in the fight against Russia like Steal Russian Tank,Tractor vs. Tanks, Ukrainian fArmy, and more.

Ukrainian fArmy release videowww.youtube.com

Other games are educational and encourage people to learn about Ukraine like Learn Ukraine developed by Albert Kovnir.

”Since the beginning of the war, we’ve been learning the geography of Ukraine from military reports and air-raid notifications,” Kovnir told Danylov. “I realized that I didn’t know Ukraine’s geography well, so I decided to create a game to fix that.”

Ukrainian video games have caught the attention of the public in other ways too. Many realistic-looking games like Digital Combat Simulator World and ARMA 3 have fooled people online into thinking it is real footage from the war.

Video games have become a way for people to both escape the war and show their support for Ukraine. Polish game This War of Mine saw an increase in popularity at the start of the war because players take the perspective of civilians.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.