Twenty-second: Stories of Underground Kharkiv

Empathizing with others is difficult when you don't know what they say.

You play the part of a teacher forced to seek refuge in a subway. The game is a linear walking simulation with no challenges or obstacles. You're simply following your character as he spends several days in the subway shelter, listening to the stories of others.

The subway isn't particularly large, but it's a decently designed location that still feels plausible with multiple people. They don't do much other than sit around, but they have a lot to say when you go past them. Your current objective is always indicated by a visual waypoint, and there is no way to get lost.

Nothing exciting happens because you'll just be running around interacting with tasks. Every day, you wake up, sip your tea, talk to someone, assist them with a tiny chore, write down the person's story in a diary, and go to bed. Because you play a teacher, you also get to converse to a kid about current events and history. There is quite a lot of text.

The majority of the information, including objectives, character conversations, and notes, is written in English. Unfortunately, all voices are without subtitles. If you don't understand the language, you'll miss everything the main character says or hears from others on the subway or over the radio.

If you ignore this, the game isn't particularly long. It takes around 30-45 minutes, and the endings lets you know what happened to other people in the subway.

Alright. Twenty-second: Stories of Underground Kharkiv is done and dusted. This is really less a game and more a propaganda piece with some Ukrainian history lessons mixed in. I sympathize with the people caught in the middle of this conflict. But I also do recognize propaganda as propaganda. I did very much appreciate the history lessons though. It took about 25 minutes to complete. I purchased it for 59 cents not too long ago, which I would say is exactly the correct price for this game. Anyway, let's begin this review with a bit of a discussion regarding a scene I took a screenshot of from the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3320992297

She is also Russian, but she has no humanity in her. Like most Russians. This is a clear example of propaganda being placed within a game. Obviously, the actual people in both nations are actually just people. And as a rule, they're placed in untenable positions due to the very nature of nationalism. They are as human as the next person. What the real problem is....is borders themselves. What are borders really? Borders are arbitrary lines on a map that indicate which oligarchs' control which areas. We call those areas 'nations'. But they're really just playgrounds for oligarchs and corporations. And all the people living within those borders have to follow the specific set of rules their oligarchs have set forth and which they enforce via their henchmen. And that filters on down to people who really are just trying to live their lives within the restrictions placed on them in within the borders of the nation they live in. Additionally, people are typically restricted from living anywhere else without express permission. Which is in and of itself also crazy.

And so people are taught to hate and fear people outside the purview of their own borders. On top of that, oligarchs don't always get along and usually covet areas controlled by other oligarchs. And for their greed, we get warfare, where normal people are tasked with the job of killing other normal people who simply have the misfortune of living in an area their oligarch(s) covet.

So, when I see propaganda designed to dehumanize the people, where you are told they are your enemies and not human because of the directives of their oligarchs, it does not sit well with me despite completely understanding why it happens. Blindly following the directives of oligarchs also does not sit well with me, and in the case of the Ukraine/Russia conflict, we get to see all of this in real time. There are currently 2692 billionaires in the world, which are effectively the world's oligarchs. Juxtapose that with the roughly 8 billion people alive in the world, and that statistic tells a stark tale about the reality of our world, how said oligarchs as a matter of policy sow division to keep people from looking squarely at them, and how frail their rule truly is. Something to ponder, I think.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3320992446

As you can see from the above, I have English selected as my language. Overall, the written translations are decent. There are however instances of there being no translation from Ukrainian. Additionally, while everything is voice acted, it is all in Ukrainian, and there are no subtitles. And often, this is conversation, not somebody reading something. Which makes those conversations quite mysterious to someone like me who does not speak Ukrainian. I would have liked for there to at the very least have been subtitles.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3320992414

So, in the game itself, you play as a history teacher who, like many other people, have taken shelter in the Metro system to keep safe from the bombing and invasion they expect to be forthcoming. You really just run around the Metro chatting a few people up, offering history lessons to a kid, getting wi-fi set back up, drinking tea, making journal notes, and of course having a tasty plate of eggs and tomato sauce (?). You'll also read some books lying around the Metro station. Nothing too complicated from a gameplay perspective. I will say though that the objective marker is difficult to see. I found the way to make it more visible was to step into a train for a moment. For some reason, that makes the marker stand out better.

Should you buy and try this game out? Sure. It is interesting enough. But don't give into the temptation of dehumanizing the Russian people for the sins of their leadership. But also, don't forget what the Ukrainian people are having to go through, also as a result of the Russian leadership's greed. It's always normal people who suffer for their leaders' excesses.

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Playing this game is diving into the life inside Kharkiv's metro at the beginning of the full scale invasion, but without blood, without action. You will follow the steps of a man who just tries to keep on going, and still tries to understand what is happening around him.

Also, you will have some historical facts about Ukraine, which is very nice.