Smuta (video game)
Smuta is an action role-playing game developed by a Russian studio Cyberia Nova. Set in the Tsardom of Russia during the Time of Troubles, the game features an interactive world, where you fight enemies and complete quests. The game's development was backed by the, a state-owned organization, giving the developers. The game released on April 4, 2024 for Windows through.
Smuta was negatively received at launch by various Russian outlets and players, who criticised the game's combat, locations, dialogue, and bugs, as well as the developer's actions on social media.
Gameplay
Smuta is a third-person action-role playing game. Set in the Tsardom of Russia during the Time of Troubles, particularly during the Polish–Russian War and the Ingrian War, the player fights enemies from that time period, including warriors and mercenaries from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish Empire, as well as some wild animals, like wolves. Certain game sections encourage stealth. The game features four playable character types: ratnik, archer, shish, and mercenary, which have different weapons and abilities. Non-playable characters can be talked to and give quests, completing quests grants rewards and progresses the story. In-game locations are separated out, as the game is not open world.According to the developers, Smuta was inspired by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Assassin's Creed, and Ghost of Tsushima.
Development
Game designer and manager Alexey Koptsev got the idea for Smuta in 2020. The game was inspired by a novel "Russians in 1612". 18 months of the game's development were spent in pre-production, during which employees of Cyberia Nova went to various museums, studied historical documents, hired consultants to ensure historical accuracy, and established the game concept. The main purpose of the game became to make youth more interested in Russian history. The developers chose Unreal Engine 5 as the game engine due to its technical capabilities.On May 23, 2022, it was revealed that the Institute of Internet Development, a state-owned organization, granted Cyberia Nova for the game's development, which was later increased to by June 2023. In June 2022, the development studio was rebranded from Cyberia Limited to Cyberia Nova.
Smuta
Post-release
In May 2024, Cyberia Nova has announced upcoming DLC expansions to Smuta. On 19 July, Kommersant announced that were allocated to Cyberia Nova by the IID for the development of the first expansion, noting that the possibility of further expansions will depend on the game's revenue.Leaks
On May 15, 2023, user Sergey Fedorcov uploaded a gameplay video of an early build of Smuta on a Russian blog platform DTF. On May 22, even more gameplay was shown to Igromania. Fedotsev claims to have found the build on a used laptop he bought. He also claimed that the build had two hours of story campaign finished. According to Igromania, the build was very unoptimized and crashed frequently. On May 26, Fedorcov leaked the build. Another build of the game was leaked in 2024.Reception
Pre-release
After unveiling SmutaOn June 4, 2022, shortly after Smuta
International reactions
Certain news outlets from outside of Russia have stated their discontent with SmutaCensorship from developers
Since February 2024, the VK group for Smuta have employed new rules, prohibiting users to insult developers and ask them to show the gameplay. This move was reported to have only worsened the developers' reputation.Post-release
Smuta received generally negative reviews from the Russian press. Igromania gave the game a 4/10, praising the game's atmosphere and soundtrack, while criticizing the bugs, describing the combat as "unbalanced", and calling the story structure "repetitive". StopGame.ru, who rates games on a scale of "amazing" to "trash", gave the game a rating of "trash" and likened the state of the game to The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Championat lauded the art direction, but criticized the game's combat and stealth sections, while also calling the game world "empty". 3DNews praised the attention to detail, but criticized the game's traversal mechanics and stated that the characters have "no emotional weight".Several State Duma deputees have commented on the game. Anton Gorelkin said that Smuta is "the first step in the new developments in Russian video games" and praised the idea of teaching youth history through gaming, but noted that the game will be hard to sell in the western world. On the other hand, Vitaly Milonov criticized the game, calling it "half-assed", believing that the state "should be held accountable" for spending almost 500 million rubles on the game. Institute of Internet Development's director Alexey Goreslavsky responded to Milonov, stating that the money was issued on a non-refundable basis and that "the mere fact" of the game's existence is "already an achievement".