Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian Games 2023–2025. Patch 1.2 (+ 19 games)
Back in early February 2023, when I started working on an article about Ukrainian games under development, I had no idea what I was signing up for. The material, the first part of which, Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian Games 2023 (33 games) was released on February 26, 2023, spanned five posts and already contains 114 games. And I’m afraid that this is far from the end.
In fact, the author is very pleased with such a large number of Ukrainian games, in my opinion, our game industry is experiencing a new renaissance, and this situation somewhat resembles the period of the birth of the game market in Ukraine in 1997-2008. But the new generation of developers already has experience and tools that were not available to pioneers and, and this is the main thing in my opinion, is no longer focused on the Russian market and is not associated with Russian publishers, although isolated cases still occur.
But let’s move on to the games. This is the last [but not certainly] entry in the “Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian Games” series this year, and it’s a patch to all the previous posts, which you’ll find links to at the end of the article. That is, there are Ukrainian games that have already been released since the beginning of 2023, there are those that are planned for 2023 and those whose release date has not yet been determined, and which we tentatively attribute to the games of 2024-2025.
Let’s go, 19 more Ukrainian games are in development. In order of release or planned release, games without specified dates – at the end in alphabetical order.
Sharded World
Developer Nasty Cat
Genre action/RPG
Release Date February 16, 2023 [Early Access]
Sharded World is a kind of Ukrainian Vampire Survivors. Yes, another one, but with a story, NPCs, chapters, quests, progression between quests, etc. The development of the game started on February 17, 2022, and the release of the story part and multiplayer is planned for the end of 2023.
The developers took the matter seriously, Sharded World has a separate website, authors hold contests and even publish their own comics. The game has a demo on Steam, but there is only the combat part, without the story and everything, besides, the demo is a bit outdated, the game has been updated a lot since its release.
The project looks interesting, but the number of Vampire-like games in 2023 already seems excessive, so the competition for a player in this segment will be very intense.
Ball laB 2
Developer Vitor Yurchuk
Genre platformer
Release date March 3, 2023
A minimalist and very complex platformer with a ball in the main role. In terms of gameplay and difficulty, Ball laB 2 resembles the classic Super Meat Boy.
The previous game, Ball laB was released on Steam and Google Play in 2018.
RUSLICSTAN INVADES
Developer SLAM AWAY GAMES
Genre first-person shooter
Release Date March 17, 2023 [Early Access]
We have already written about brutal, very bloody, and even disgusting shooter RUSLICSTAN INVADES, in which you, in the spirit of Serious Sam, must destroy hordes of russian invaders who have come to take over our toilets.
Since its announcement, RUSLICSTAN INVADES has received several updates and is no longer free. Now they ask for UAH 29 for the game (a 28% discount is valid until April 24, 2023), but there are also DLC with the support of the developer.
Maybe someone will need RUSLICSTAN INVADES to blow off steam after another news story about the savagery and crimes of the russians, but the fixation on the fecal theme is a bit of a distraction from this game.
Blood Sunset
Developer ModMaximuss
Genre role-playing game
Release Date April 2023 [Early Access]
Blood Sunset is a post-apocalyptic open-world survival role-playing game. Deserted island, zombies, all the classics. You have to forage for food and resources, hunt, build a camp, look for weapons, and more. Blood Sunset’s graphics are nice low-poly, a bit too bright for a zombie game in our opinion.
Blood Sunset will have a driving cars, friendly and enemy camps, different maps, interesting objects with a lot of resources and dangerous guards, gardening and farming and much more. Among the genre labels you can see MMO, but at the same time the game is labeled as single player.
Blood Sunset is coming to Early Access this month. The author of the game, and it seems to be only one person, Kostyantyn Mardiev from Lutsk, already has a game published on Steam – a card visual novel Blood Bay: Card History. Plus another game is in development – multi-user action Mimic Hunters.
Castle of Secrets
Developer Aliens games, AD.Gaming
Genre adventure
Release date May 19, 2023
Castle of Secrets is a psychological adventure with elements of horror from a team whose representatives live in Dnipro, Kyiv, and Odesa. The game engine combines fully 3D environments with 2D character models and it looks very interesting.
According to the plot, a young girl returns to the castle where she grew up and explores the world of the dead to find out who really killed all her relatives.
The authors promise unusual plot twists, various puzzles, and an original soundtrack. Castle of Secrets has 30 unique characters and must have full English, Ukrainian, and Russian (for free) voice acting.
Castle of Secrets will be released on Steam on May 19, 2023.
4 days in ***
Developer Tobi Torba Games
Genre adventure
Release date May 2023
A non-linear 2D horror-adventure about a hotel with a floor closed to residents and a girl who can’t sit still.
The player can explore the hotel and look for secrets hidden on each floor. The decisions made will lead to different options for the development of events and endings of the game, of which there are several. And of course, the player must be careful to survive to the final.
4 days in *** is developed by the Tobi Torba Games team, which participated in Indie Cup Ukraine ’22 with an interesting project Ambidexter. But for now, the authors, who are only two people, decided to pay attention to 4 days in ***. The release is planned for next month.
We are Eva
Developer Totally Normal Creature
Genre platformer
Release date May 2023
We are Eva is a hardcore platformer about a demoness who can travel between dimensions. Eva herself is a very talkative character who likes to break the fourth wall and constantly addresses the player, sometimes mocking them and reminding them that they are playing the game and she, Eva, made it possible. Interesting girl.
As for the gameplay, this is a rather complex platformer in which you can jump between dimensions that intersect, have different configurations and properties. Difficult, but interesting.
The authors of this game already have a hardcore platformer E.Z in their portfolio, which was released in 2018. And We are Eva itself will appear on Steam in May 2023.
The Icon Battles: Game
Developer Yenot Software
Genre action
Release date II quarter 2023
The Icon Battles: Game is an evolutionary development of the application The Icon Battles, which was released on Steam in September 2022 and turns your PC’s desktop into a battleground between icons. But if in The Icon Battles the user could not influence the course of battles between icons, that is, it was a kind of Screen Saver, then The Icon Battles: Game, as you can see from the name, is already a full-fledged game.
The player can choose any icon on the Desktop as their character, choose a class – archer, axeman, swordsman, melee, and fight with other icons. The combat system in the game is based on timings.
In Ukrainian Soil
Developer Bunker 22
Genre experimental game
Release date 2023
Project of the Anonymous art collective Bunker 22, authors of political action Putinist Slayer.
In Ukrainian Soil, you have to bring to light a lonely innocent Ukrainian soul who was buried under the ruins of a house destroyed by a russian missile.
The authors describe their project as a rhythmic psychedelic racing game in which the soul, a small grain of light, flies among asteroid-like lumps of Ukrainian black earth.
Ringlorn Saga Gaiden
Developer Graverobber Foundation
Genre action/RPG
Release date 2023
Ringlorn Saga Gaiden is a sequel to the retro RPG Ringlorn Saga, coming to Steam in November 2022. The author was inspired by classic Japanese RPGs of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
That is, you will find an 8-bit soundtrack in the spirit of MSX systems, an imitation of the image produced by CRT TVs, and simple but interesting game mechanics. And also an open world with the ability to complete tasks in any sequence and even the ability to capture the bodies of enemies, whatever this means.
The original Ringlorn Saga has exclusively positive user reviews (Steam rating 100 /100), but there are not many of them.
The Riddler
Developer SemanticOverlord
Genre puzzle
Release date 2023
The Riddler is a solo project of one of the members of the collective Bunker 22. This is a puzzle game, but the puzzles here are generated and posed to players by an AI based on the ChatGPT language model.
What’s more, all game art, including the interface and characters, is generated by AI and then processed by artists. According to the developers, AI helped write the code. Even the description of the game on Steam was created by AI.
We managed to play The Riddler demo. It is interesting, but also a little scary. Unfortunately, the developers have now removed the demo version from the game page.
to back from AFTERLIFE
Developer
Yehor Sunflow
Genre puzzle
Release date 2023
The events of the game to back from AFTERLIFE take place in the devastated city of Vivol, which lies in ruins after a catastrophic accident at the power plant, which turned it into a nightmarish exclusion zone. And in this universe, human souls have become a source of energy.
The author describes the game as a 2D action/platformer adventure with an emphasis on combat mechanics and story. to back from AFTERLIFE will have several completely different characters, with different storylines and game mechanics. The plot will be presented episodically in the form of a comic. The release of the first episode is scheduled for 2023.
Fishing Stories
Developers Two Cakes Studio
Genre simulator
Release date IV quarter 2023
Fishing simulator in low-poly graphics. The main character of Fishing Stories tries to fulfill their grandfather’s dream and catch a mystical fish in mysterious remote waters. To do this, they will have to travel to different parts of the world and catch fish in frozen lakes and tropical oceans.
The game will feature fishing, cooking, and crafting, i.e. survival simulator elements, time and weather manipulation, collectibles and tournaments, and learning how to tie fishing knots.
Fishing Stories is developed by the Two Cakes Studio team. Additionally, they are working on a VR puzzle game Jurassic Lab: Dinosarium DNA, which we wrote about in one of the previous parts of our research.
Great Hopes City I
Developers STELLARIUM.gaming
Genre role-playing game
Release date 2023-2024
Great Hopes City (the Latin number “I” in the name is the number of the part, of which three are planned) is a retro-style pixel satirical 2D RPG about Ukraine in the 1990s.
The events take place in the fictional city of Erebograd, immediately after the collapse of the USSR. Among the enemies are criminal elements, former communists, drug addicts, preachers, and other interesting characters. When creating the combat system, the authors were inspired by various mini-games.
The simplified role-playing system still involves non-linearity and variability when communicating with NPCs. The player will be able to choose the path of development of the characters, of which there are two in this game.
According to the screenshots, it seems that the authors are already not young people who caught the beginning of the 1990s, but in fact the average age of the team, which is currently 8 people, is a little over 20 years old. The developers are currently working on a demo version of Great Hopes City, after which they will look for funding and a publisher. The release of the game is planned for the winter of 2023-2024.
Answenarium
Developer Nasty Cat
Genre quiz
Release Date TBA
The compilation, as well as the constructor of quizzes for fun with friends during parties, or over the Internet. Many categories and topics and the ability to create your own tasks.
Answenarium is created by the studio Nasty Cat, which also works on the Ukrainian Vampire Survivors, the game Sharded World.
Argumentum ad culpam
Developers Tagetes Team, TellerySpyro_GTX
Genre visual novel
Release Date TBA
A gothic visual novel developed as part of Ukrainian Visual Novel Jam#2. After the competition ended, in which the game took 14th place out of 71 participants, the authors decided to expand, improve, in some places rethink the novel and release it on Steam.
Argumentum ad culpam offers players an interesting story about a decadent world awaiting its executioner. The main characters of the game are very strange creatures with manipulative logic. The game has nine endings, each of which is self-contained, and each of the characters, including the main character, can die.
Freedom’s Fury: Orc Hunters
Developers cybernation.team
Genre cooperative shooter
Release Date TBA
Freedom’s Fury: Orc Hunters is a cooperative first/third person shooter based on the real events of the Russian-Ukrainian war. But the shooter is not an ordinary one, but a satirical one that will make fun of stereotypes and narratives of russian propaganda.
Therefore, the “well-known soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” Stepan Andriyovych Bandera, and other characters, created in the likeness of real Ukrainian soldiers, will be chopping orcs in russian uniforms and packing them in black bags. In addition, the game has a real banderamobile based on the “Zaporozhets”, secret biolaboratories, “palyanytsia” and everything else.
The cybernation.team consists of seven people who already have some development experience, but have not yet worked on such a large project. Freedom’s Fury is powered by Unreal Engine 5.
Freedom’s Fury is currently undergoing registration and should receive Steam pages soon. The developers plan to transfer a significant part of the income from the game to the AFU. And for now, they themselves need help.
Unlike the developers of Glory to the Heroes, the authors of Freedom’s Fury: Orc Hunters deliberately did not add to their project the opportunity to play as russians. Russian-Orcs can only be destroyed here.
Hollow Home
Developers Twigames
Genre role-playing game
Release Date TBA
Hollow Home is a narrative RPG about survival in urban combat, inspired by projects such as This War of Mine and Disco Elysium. Hollow Home tells the story of 12-year-old Max living in Mariupol and begins on February 23, 2022, the day before a full-scale invasion. According to the authors’ idea, the goal of the game is to show the horrors of war through the eyes of a child. Players will see how people despair and lose hope, and the crowded and beautiful Mariupol becomes a battlefield and turns into its own shadow.
Quests in the game are based on real events and are mostly about survival and helping others. But due to the fact that the number of actions that can be taken each day is limited, players will be forced to make painful decisions.
The game is being developed by the Kyiv studio Twigames, which previously created custom mobile, PC, and console games.
In fact, the question of whether it is worth creating games on sensitive topics now, before the war is over, remains open. But such projects about the current Russian-Ukrainian war as The Nightmare Winter and Ukraine War Stories already exist.
Sacura
Developers Tagum Play
Genre platformer
Release Date TBA
Sacura, that’s right, with a “c” and not a “k” – a platformer about a ninja girl who avenges her emperor father.
The game doesn’t have a Steam page yet, and the trailer you see above is a bit dated, showing the game as it looked in the summer of 2022. So far, three of the fifteen planned levels and the core mechanics are ready.
The game is being developed by a team of like-minded people from Berdychiv at their own expense.
That’s all for now. In total, we have collected 112 Ukrainian games for PC and consoles in five materials. 100% we missed something. Plus, we cannot yet talk about some projects that we are well aware of.
We will continue to write about Ukrainian games as they are announced, but we will prepare the next consolidated material-patch at the end of 2023.
If you are a developer and are currently working on a game for PC or consoles, write to us and send us news and announcements about your game. With a probability of almost 100%, we will publish them on Mezha.
In previous episodes:
Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian games 2023 (33 games)”
Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian Games 2023. Patch 1.1 (+ 10 games)
Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian Games 2024-2025. Part I (25 games)
Made in Ukraine: Ukrainian Games 2024-2025. Part II (25 more games)