Video games set in the Cold War, I should note, are developed by Eastern Europeans. It is interesting that the historical period does not get enough attention elsewhere. One will never find any among Western (the vast majority of which is American) or Japanese developers, the majority of which tend to focus on other historical periods, on existing works, or come up with original settings. Unfortunately, I remain skeptical that either will dabble in that period.
That being said, I thought I should mention that I have been following up on the latest news from Russian Cooperative and indie game developer Kremlingames regarding its development of a sequel to their 2017 title, Crisis in the Kremlin, which was a spiritual successor to the 1991 MS-DOS title of the same name. The sequel is proposed to build upon the lessons learned from developing that title, plus subsequent experiences from Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall, China: Mao’s Legacy, and Collapse: A Political Simulator. It would retain some of the features which made the original CitK such a remarkable improvement from the 1991 original, refining them to include additional replay value and customization. From what I heard, Kremlingames is looking to get it released sometime later this year, after announcing development on Steam late last year.
Another notable development was also reported by Slovakian game studio 3Division regarding Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. After years of early access testing and improvements, the developer is confident that the v1.0 can be released later this year. Having played the latest version myself, I can attest that significant patches were made to enhance the overall experience. There is a noticeable degree of polishing that was made in the year or so since I last played that game back in late 2022. Yes, this game is complex and intricate, but it offers a revolutionary take on the city-building genre, which admittedly suffered from Neoliberal models of urban planning like SimCity 4.
There is so much potential for both games that I am curious to see how they turn out later in 2024. Hopefully sometime before the end of this year, I will report on them in greater detail once more news becomes available.
Categories: Blog Post
The Fourth Estate 
Leave a comment