1C Game Studios announced the development of a large scale project titled The War of the Worlds: Siberia. As anyone could easily guess, it takes inspiration from H.G. Wells’ classic novel to imagine a Martian invasion of an alternate version of Earth in 1896, focusing specifically on the events taking place in Siberia.
1C Game Studios director Albert Zhiltsov said in a statement:
We’ve always dreamed about making a ‘What if?’ kind of game. What if the invasion wasn’t limited to Victorian Britain and instead took place all over the world? We wanted to include Russia in that story. During that period, the country was a powerful empire plagued by internal struggles. An alien invasion is a historical trigger, much like the revolution of 1917: all the issues accumulated over the years spill out all at once.
Andrey Shumakov, producer of The War of the Worlds: Siberia, added:
When we were developing the concept of Siberia, our main inspirations were emotionally resonant, narrative-heavy games that are not so common nowadays. Our primary goal is to tell an interesting and believable story, introduce the player to a cast of colorful characters and immerse them in a large-scale spectacular adventure.
Sergei “SerB” Burkatovskiy, scriptwriter and author, stated:
The idea of The War of the Worlds was formed almost twenty years ago, during a once-popular Video Game Developer Conference in 2005. Martian tripods against the snowy Siberian landscape, Cossacks versus aliens—how cool is that? For years, this idea was slowly brewing, so to speak. We were learning to make our own games, watching what others were doing, and today the moment has finally come when we can say we’re doing this!
According to the press release, the story of The War of the Worlds: Siberia follows several characters fleeing Petrograd towards Siberia. These characters are said to be modeled after classic archetypes of 19th-century Russia. When it comes to gameplay, stealth elements and ‘spatial puzzles’ will be included alongside shootouts with ‘dozens of weapons’.
This will be an entirely new challenge for 1C Game Studios, which so far has released games like the free-to-play shooter Caliber and the combat flight game IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad. The official website makes it clear the studio is recruiting veteran developers, though given that the developer is headquartered in Moscow, 1C Game Studios is unlikely to be able to tap on Western talent for this project.
The War of the Worlds: Siberia doesn’t have a release date or even any announced platform yet.
