Collapse is a 3rd-person apocalyptic combo-based shooter-brawler from Kiev-based Ukrainian chaps Creoteam (no, not the Croatian fellas Croteam! A one-letter difference in typing makes for 1,500km in distance) that has oddly succumbed to deafening radio silence after a bit of a media blitz in late 2008.

“In year 2013 a terrible catastrophe happened in Europe, with a cause remaining unknown still. The major part of the continent turned into a huge abnormal zone. Great numbers of people died or disappeared, and those who survived were telling unbelievable things…”¹

Odder still, the game had already gone gold as early as September ‘08. The announcement was further reinforced with the release of a playable demo (that can still be acquired from http://www.collapse-game.com/sadm_files/collapse-demo.exe – do be warned that the demo is in Russian, though neither the menus nor the game are hard to navigate) only shortly afterwards.

“The anomaly couldn’t be viewed from a satellite, and all attempts to study it gave scant results… After ten years of silence that followed the catastrophe, an event happened, later called the ‘First Aggression’ - the anomaly started growing swiftly, claiming the territory of Europe and begetting thousands of bloodthirsty creatures.”¹

While neither the Russian or the English news sections of the game’s official website have been updated since late-oh-eight, the publisher Buka still promises a Russian release of the game during the 4th quarter of 2009. The best evidence I could gather as proof of the game’s ongoing existence is the fact that the developers have consistently taken part at the Russian Game Developers Conference, or KRI, winning a “Best Gaming Graphics” award with the game this year.

The game looks to have, at the very least, some very snazzy mo-cap animations (see the neat juxtaposition of motion capture and in-game footage above - there’s more of it, too) and a cool setting; Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Kieron Gillen gave the demo a go when it was released, so for first-hand information on the game’s mechanics, you could read his funky take on it (Do notice the shifted focus from the game onto Russian literature in the comments! Might be the very first time that I see people so willingly eschew the game in question and subsequently foray into a principally literary conversation on a gaming blog! Fascinating!).

Update:

As clarified by Anton (thanks!) in the comments section, the game I’ve referenced on Buka’s website is in fact a sequel to the original, and that the original did see a release in several territories, including Russia and Ukraine. Thanks for the update!

1. http://creoteam.com/en/games/collapse/ [↩] [↩]