Kursk, the submarine-bound adventure game inspired by 2000 disaster that claimed the lives of 118 Russian sailors, is still a bit of a mystery, touting itself as a ‘documentary’ while keeping exactly how it documents a disaster with no survivors a secret. We’ll find out soon enough, however, as it’s coming to Steam in October, developer Jujubee announced on Saturday. It was originally revealed back in 2015.
On August 12, 2000, two explosions and a delayed rescue operation led to the sinking of the Oscar-class sub, Kursk, in the Barents Sea. A summary of a secret report was published by the Russian government two years later, blaming the disaster on negligence, lack of discipline and equipment that hadn’t been properly maintained.
More than a bit of poetic license has been taken in the retelling of this disaster. In Kurk, you’ll play a spy who has found their way onto the sub. Your objective: collect secret information about the Shkval supercaptivating torpedos. “While trying to complete your mission, you become witness to the dramatic events which shook the world at that time,” the Steam page says.
Knowing this, you might want to take the ‘documentary’ label with a pinch of salt. Jujubee claims that Kursk is “the first ever adventure and documentary video game inspired by real events,” but that wasn’t even true in 2015, when it was first announced. Kholat similarly takes a slightly mysterious tragedy and puts a more exotic spin on it, turning the Dyatlov Pass incident into a horror romp.
Kursk is due out on October 11.
