In a statement on their recent activities, 4A Games. The founders openly admit that many of the studio’s creators still work in Ukraine, despite the fact that a sizable portion of the country’s population has been fighting Russian forces for almost a year.
The developers left for Malta because of happenings in the country, despite 4A Games’ emphasis in an August 2014 letter that its staff “are not traitors.” Since then, a lot has occurred; the corporation still maintains branches in Ukraine; and as a result of the ongoing conflict, the studio’s representatives cannot rely on peace.
“With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, all Ukrainians’ lives were drastically altered. Normality has been demolished and remade over the past several months, and we’re still figuring out what it means to live and work in a country that’s at war. We are, nevertheless, as strong as we can be in spite of the challenges.”
The bulk of the company’s employees, according to 4A Games, are Ukrainians who work in the Kiev or other offices throughout Ukraine and Europe, despite having an international staff. Some employees have enlisted in the military to defend their nation, and the business is supporting them by offering financial and logistical support.
However, the company made the decision to indicate that it is still working on a new Metro game, which was altered as a result of the war.
“The following Metro game also improves. Not simply because of the situation we are in, though. The Metro series has always had a strong political and anti-war message, and we have never tried to hide it. Although we always aimed to amuse you and draw you into our post-apocalyptic universe, we also had a larger narrative to tell. Furthermore, the conflict in Ukraine forced us to reconsider the theme of the upcoming Metro. Conflict, power, politics, tyranny, and repression—all the themes of Metro—are now a part of daily life. We, therefore, take it and incorporate it into the game with a new goal.”
However, the battle has brought about a number of issues that developers must deal with.
As far as our Kyiv studio and personnel in Ukraine are concerned, they are currently working in the strangest and scariest conditions, therefore we too need to manage our expectations. Some days begin with waking up and drinking coffee. Some of them begin with rocket attacks and emergency sirens. On certain days, we use the subway to travel to work, but on other days, we are compelled to seek safety there. We make an effort to live as normally as possible every day, but we still deal with power and water outages, families that need to move, and friends and coworkers that volunteer or are called to duty. Our “new” normality is by no means typical. War is a fact of life, and it inevitably influences our games.”
However, 4A Games made use of the chance to set up the Metro Exodus SDK, which serves as the game’s official toolkit for making modifications. The entire editor, which enables you to produce fantastic creations, will be available for free installation to game owners:
“The ability to build standalone content that runs from the main executable is included in our entire editor, exactly as it was on the day Metro Exodus was published, thus it goes beyond mere mod support. It is really simple to manage and share your material because we have integrated Mod.io support. Our editor leaves a lot of room for creativity if you’re also comfortable with visual scripting, so get to work! Along with many lesson levels and a fully unpacked Metro Exodus level that you may disassemble with our tools, we’ve also included an example of a fully functional shipping level. We have incorporated everything our designers, artists, and animators have access to, so you can feel like a member of the 4A Games team!
Locations, models, particles, topography, weather, and even “visual scenarios,” which are scripts for intricate game mechanics and AI behaviors, can all be created by fans.
From the studio’s website, where you can also find out more, you may download the Metro Exodus SDK.