Jujubee studio, KURSK, has revealed new material from the game and confirmed its release for this year.
KURSK tells the tragic story of the K-141 Kursk submarine, which in August 2000 sank in the Barents Sea together with its entire crew. The circumstances of this catastrophe, reminiscent of the recent disappearance of the Argentinian submarine San Juan, have not been fully explained to this day.
We think that the time has come to tell true stories. It’s fascinating how much our industry has evolved over the last dozen or so years. Games are becoming more and more complex, they offer an incredible audiovisual experience and let us immerse ourselves in virtual reality, but we should expect something more from them. As developers, we realize how much time users spend with our products, but we often fail to remember the responsibility connected to it. We can make games something more than just exciting entertainment. Games can become a tool not unlike books or films. They can help us develop, educate us, broaden our horizons, and provoke discussions that go far beyond the world of video games. – says Michał Stępień, CEO at Jujubee. We believe that KURSK will be precisely that kind of creation. It’s a game that brings the Russian submarine crew’s tragic story to the fore while maintaining all the advantages of sandbox gameplay. We’d like players not only to feel an integral part of the world we’re creating, but also to be inspired by the facts of this fascinating, if not dramatic story.
KURSK is going to be the first fully fledged adventure-documentary game in history. The player will take on the role of a spy who is trying to gain information about Shkval supercavitating torpedoes, which at that time were of interest to all major intelligence services in the world. The game, which will show events from a first-person perspective, will allow players not only to fully explore the ship and uncover its secrets, but also to visit Moscow and the garrison town of Vidyayevo.
In KURSK, it is the narrative that takes on crucial importance, and the game mechanics are closely tied into it. Today, many games are based on the constant repetition of the same gameplay elements, while the plot is constructed to fit them. The creators of KURSK adopted the opposite approach. The game takes advantage of an entire collection of mechanics and solutions that have been worked out by the game industry over the years, and uses them to tell a specific story. Thanks to this, the players will be surprised by new ideas throughout the game, which should last at least 10 hours. The title will also introduce them to Russian culture and the realities of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The game will look at the story of the Kursk in a very comprehensive way. We aim for realism and as much immersion as possible. The player will not only have the opportunity to feel like a member of a submarine crew, but they will also be able to influence the story through their choices, including moral ones. The decisions they make will have a significant impact on the ending of the game, and there’ll be several of them – adds Michał Stępień.
The audiovisual environment is equally important to the developers. The game will undoubtedly be one of the best-looking titles built on the Unity engine. The task of creating the musical setting, essential in this type of production, is in the hands of Mikołaj Stroiński, while the sounds are being designed by Adam Skorupa (both previously worked on games from The Witcher series, among others).
Apart from publishing the latest gameplay screenshots, the developers have also announced two expansions to be released after the launch of the game.
The first of them will be a standalone DLC under the working title Kengir. It is inspired by the true story of the uprising in the Kengir labor camp and the escape of one of the prisoners.
The second expansion will introduce innovative VR technology support dedicated to next-generation devices (4K and above).
KURSK will be released this year on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, as well as on PC and Mac.
