GameDev Eng

2025 had many positive moments for Ukrainian gamers: new projects from domestic developers, a number of international recognitions, and more localizations in Ukrainian. dev.ua has collected key achievements that defined this year for the Ukrainian gaming community.

The first anniversary of the release of STALKER 2 is not just a calendar date, but the culmination of an unprecedented path of "fixing bugs." For many players, this year has become a long paid beta test, where they watched with their own eyes how the raw product gradually turns into the very game that was promised in the trailers. We tell you how GSC Game World fought technical disasters, returned cut features, and what came of it.

The Lord of the Rings has a huge fan base around the world, not only because of the work of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien, but also because of Peter Jackson's phenomenal film adaptation, which won 17 Oscars and still holds the record for the highest-grossing film of all time. As for video game adaptations, they experimented with different genres: from online MMO-RPGs to strategies with varying levels of quality. Most of the games came out after the films and have since become technically and morally obsolete. The latest game was released in 2017, and the developer's studio Monolith Productions was closed by Warner Bros. Games this year, and the Warner Bros. gaming division itself is in limbo after a deal with Netflix . Fans have taken matters into their own hands and are creating various modifications for other games that transform them into the world of Middle-earth. However, only a single group of enthusiast modders managed to reverse engineer Total War: Attila and, after more than 10 years of hard work, have created a dream game - a turn-based strategy with battles of thousands of orcs, uruks, elves and humans in real time based on the works of Tolkien called Dawnless Days. We tell you about the largest modification ever made for Total War with comments from the developers.