Review of our modern Russian game “Troubles” (2024). Great history book, but what about the game?

The long-awaited release of the Russian game “Troubles” has arrived.

There were many rumors surrounding the project about its development, although the authors constantly published “diaries” in which the status of the project and changes in it were noted.

The other day they even released a demo version of the game, in which gamers only had access to training battles in Moscow. Its release was not without a scandal: absolutely all players complained about terrible optimization and an abundance of bugs.

What did Cyberia Nova ultimately do? Let’s figure it out together. Spoiler: not good enough.

Troubled times have overtaken us

The game is based on the novel “Yuri Miloslavsky, or the Russians in 1612” by Mikhail Zagoskin – this is one of the most popular novels in Russia of the 19th century, which went through 8 editions during the author’s lifetime alone. It would be that the authors took good reading as a basis, but still had access to a huge state library, but for some reason they decided to focus on more than one fragment of the life of the main characters of the works. Okay, these are all digressions, let’s move on directly to the game.

The authors promised a complex and complex story in which we would show various historical events, including interest in the Battle of Moscow. The result was… a history textbook. That’s the only way I can personally describe it countless dialogues that contain almost no meaning.

Players are constantly bombarded with endless facts that not only have nothing to do with the development of the plot, but they don’t affect anything at all and don’t allow for immersion. You just always read about how someone somewhere didn’t finish something, how someone wasn’t given something, and so on. These facts are mentioned once and are never mentioned again. Yes and no in some ways.

Take, for example, Yuri Miloslavsky, the main character of the game. For more than 10 hours, they didn’t even try to open it. We have a certain “Hero X” (any name can be substituted), who loves his homeland very much and is eager to punish foreign invaders. He is a brave fighter who constantly strives to be a fighter. And throughout the entire game, his ardent and explosive character was tamed and never served.

Not that anyone even tried. Except for Kuzma Minin, who took Miloslavsky into the service. And then, this happened only at first, but then, it seems, he came to terms with the fact that the good fellow would do as his soul pleased.

So, what am I getting at with all this? In “The Troubles” the plot is presented bit by bit. Yes, you meet historical figures here, but their characters are hardly revealed. It’s simple talking heads with famous names that are just impossible to shut up.

There is a lot of external conversations not only in the plot, but also among side characters. You listen/read a whole lot of bravado about how the pathetic merchant makes his life difficult and how difficult it is for him to get money. For what? What does this give? How does atmosphere, revelation, development work, what details of the world are revealed? No answer. What emerges and turns out is a kind of history textbook that lists the facts, but not everyone will be as interested in them as the authors.

Even the authors do not deny that they included an educational component in the game.

Right at the design stage, we included a serious educational component in the game, implemented in the form of code. The main character controls game locations, collides with other objects, personalities, and so on. For example, he sees a berdysh (battle ax) for the first time, a light comes on, and the dictionary entry “Berdysh” appears.

—Head of the Cyberia Nova studio, head of the Troubles project Alexey Koptsev

The plot is bland and boring and doesn’t offer much of an interesting story. He bores and bores, getting stuck in his own scrupulousness. And only one of the large-scale events. Well, two, no more.

This is a game, and it must live once. Why is it that the same company in South Africa, Ubisoft, has the most beautiful locations in the Assassin’s Creed demos and is actually interested in presenting material to entertain the player from the very first minutes? I understand that the budgets are very consistent, but maybe we shouldn’t strive for AAA and make the game a lower category? Spend more time working on the universe around you.

The game mechanics are terrible. Almost all

Yes, there is a change of day and night, but through a special menu

The game consists of three slot elements: dialogues, battles and movement through open locations. Sometimes there are also missions with stealth, but more on that separately.

Here no open world, but there are extensive (and not so extensive) locations. They drew very high-quality maps for them to navigate. They look authentic, just like any game interface. They did their best here, everything corresponds to the era.

Only some small locations look extremely stupid. For example, you were told that you need to visit a village from which there has been no news for a long time. And it is located 50 meters from Minin’s camp. Was it difficult to get there on your own? Don’t refresh this scale.

For the special interests of complex people, there are Code. It lists facts about Russia in the 17th century, and they are divided intelligently. This really is a good history textbook.

Returning to the world of the game. Unfortunately, it turned out dead. Here. At all. It’s just not in his life, that’s all.

All NPCs in the game perform 1-2 scripts, most often representing a state on the spot or a passage somewhere. At least some active actions take place only at the very beginning of the game, after we get out of the snowy forest.

As soon as we get to Nizhny Novgorod, we immediately plunge into the illusion of a location rich in various details. Either buffoons perform for a holiday, then some wandering artist asks for money, then a man repairs a hut. Overall, it looks great until you start looking at the repeating animations (which you’ll notice very quickly). Local residents do not have a clear daily routine, only 2-3 prepared animations.

Residents and ordinary warriors do not react in any way to the player’s actions; they cannot even be pushed.

Our warrior-hero does not know how to jump. And this is where a problem very often arises when transforming successive fields and forests. The developers managed the nature in the region very well, but they placed countless invisible walls that Yuri could run into. They can even pass behind you on a small hill, which is why you won’t be able to climb it at a certain angle, but once you walk 2 meters, everything will work.

The transition between all locations occurs through loading screens, on which you again introduce various historical facts. You can’t even enter the house here—you’ll always be greeted with a loading screen. Fortunately, it will take no more than two seconds.

I will note an interesting mechanic. If you are a magpie, follow it. It will definitely lead you to some kind of treasure, which can later be put into pumping.

When creating the combat system, as stated in Cyberia Nova, the emphasis was on The Witcher 3, Ghost of Tsushima and other games.

And yes, it is clear here that the authors really carried out the transfer of the “combat” from the 2015 Witcher to the 2024 game. There’s just one small problem: connections in the 2024 game look and feel less noticeable than in the 2015 title.

The impact is there, but he hardly thinks. You cannot take over the blow inflicted on your opponent. But in those cases when the enemy hits you, you have a two-second animation, for which you can simply kill three or four enemy characters on the spot. Be it robbers, wolves or even a bear.

With this system of evasion it does not work at all. It is carried out every once in a while, the button may simply not respond to pressing or respond with a long delay, which is why you will miss the next connection. There are no soulslick elements here, but the game seems to be getting old to go into this particular genre of behavior. The enemies have timings, but they are difficult to count.

The hitboxes seem to play when touched, part of the blade. And with firearms it’s a real problem. You get hit every other time, and it depends only on whether the script worked or not. You can even shoot a gun at point-blank range and your health will not decrease.

Yuri’s stamina quickly runs out, causing his dodges to quickly become useless.

All in all, I’m writing in “The Troubles” – it’s such a pain. This element is poorly implemented, although there is an approach to realism.

There is also stealth in the game, but it is also extremely primitive. To understand, this mechanic is similar to hide and seek with an infant: if you close your eyes, I don’t see you, if you open your eyes, I see you. Here everything clearly works according to the same principle.

Buddy, I’m right in front of you

The enemies might not have noticed Yuri coming from a distance of a meter. They do not react to the body or the corpse behind them. It’s just that you can kill a comrade right behind his back, and your neighbor won’t even move.

There is also an indicator that shows how well the enemy sees you. Fuck him. It just doesn’t work. The game has a rich arrangement of bushes and various obstacles, but the player can indicate “just because.” Or it may not seem like it. How the card will fall.

There is also leveling in the game, as I said above. But personally, while going through the game, I invested only one stone to increase the damage. And I’m far from a professional gamer who can handle any title with a bang. It’s just that this mechanic is not needed here, it has almost no effect on anything.

And finally, “The Troubles” has its own “witcher sense.” It will be useful only 3 times during the entire passage. He clicked Q, saw the desired object with his touch view, took it and left.

Graphics are great, but animation is bad

What I can really praise “The Troubles” for is its graphical component.

Many landscapes you just admiring, they did it very effectively and with love. Many locations have been worked out, and the Russian style and soul are recognizable in them. The cities and forests are especially well designed. It was as if I felt it there myself.

But the immersion breaks immediately when you look at your surroundings. It’s looped.

Plus, very terrible dialogue. Remember when I said NPCs are talking heads? The animations give exactly the same feeling. Very often these heads freeze and only their mouth moves. Or, on the contrary, they begin to move their heads wildly, creating epilepsy in them, and after a second the mover foams at the mouth.

And how The characters themselves are poorly voiced. This sensation, like voice acting, was not done by professional actors, but by the developers themselves. Almost the entire game needs to change this element. The words may not match the animation, many actors overact, sometimes they just yell for some unknown reason, and the “accent” of foreign characters simply makes you laugh. In general, there are enough complaints.

That’s not all

The article will be updated a little later, but I think you have already grasped the main idea.