Comic Con Igromir 2025: The Monopoly of Russian Game Development

Color, revelry, excitement, anticipation, impatience! Our people are having fun and rejoicing.

Recently, a significant event for domestic gamers took place – the return of the once-cult festival Comic Con Igromir. The people waited six years, hoped, and perhaps even believed. And now, finally, it has happened! The long-awaited Comic Con Igromir 2025 has taken place in Moscow. The Gamer’s traveling team visited the Timiryazev Center and is ready to tell the whole truth about the long-awaited festival.

Sobakistan – A Harsh Dog Dystopia

Attention, comrades, our leader – comrade Druzhok, decided to rehearse his funeral! In honor of this significant event, our magnanimous leader commanded to lower the iron curtain so that the cursed capitalists could personally verify the well-being of our great state. Journalists from all countries have already been informed about the event. But do not lose vigilance, comrades; foreign guests are not our friends. Our valiant law enforcement officers will closely monitor the foreign guests to prevent provocations and data leaks. Anyone who comes under suspicion will be immediately detained. We remind you that reporting suspicious individuals to the security service is your duty, comrades! And remember: Druzhok lived, Druzhok lives, Druzhok will live! Hooray, comrades!

The game Sobakistan is a visual dystopian novel in a retro graphic style. The setting is the Republic of Sobakistan, where secrets of this seemingly happy country gradually unfold before you. But remember, you are being watched closely, and any careless action could lead to immediate arrest. The author of the universe compares his game to Minesweeper, hinting that the game does not tolerate mistakes. The game also features mini-games, stealth elements, and other mechanics. Caution, hardcore gameplay detected!

Frozen Ship – The Ark of Hope in Deadly Frost

In the endless frost, amid the cold and death, a huge all-terrain vehicle is rushing – the refuge and last hope of survivors in a world of icy post-apocalypse. In a world of eternal tundra, a handful of survivors have developed and built a mobile ark base, with which they hope to find a new home. Will their search be successful, or will they perish from cold and hunger? Prepare to make difficult decisions.

Frozen Ship is a survival game that combines multiple genres. You have the responsible task of managing the survivors' mobile base. You must ensure the functionality of the equipment and the survival of the crew. Roughly speaking, you are like an administrator of a mobile complex, collecting resources and modifying the mobile base. However, you need to think not only about technical equipment and a smart distribution of duties among the crew but also to provide your people with heating, food, and other essentials. For this, from time to time, you will have to leave the safe tundra ship and venture into the harsh open world in search of resources. But remember, the cold can kill you, and the base keeps moving. So don't relax; this is an important task, not a leisurely stroll, rookie! As you progress through the game, your colony will grow and demand even more of your attention, strategic thinking, and management skills. Another hardcore game in today's parade of games.

Scale of the Festival

The first thing to note is its compactness: this year's Comic Con Igromir is about half the size of its 2019 counterpart. The venue has also changed: replacing the four halls of Crocus, we now have the Timiryazev Center with its two and a half halls. The largest halls have been allocated for Igromir and Comic Con, while the third and smallest has become the territory for tabletop games.

Rus against Lizards 2 – The Return of the Slavic Egg-Squeezing

The cursed lizards are once again bothering the Russians. Having suffered defeat in the first Russo-Lizard War, the green bastards are again trying to invade Holy Rus. This time with new technologies and the support of powerful reptilians. The lizards have become outrageous and organized the extraction of resources from the conquered sacred lands of the Russians, while destroying the nature of the Russian land. Russian nature, culture, and spirit are under threat of extermination, which means it’s time for the four legendary heroes to unite forces once more against the green horde in order to crush the treacherous invader in this unequal battle.

The quartet of legendary Russian heroes returns to once again knock the lizards on their sly green faces. The developers admit that Rus against Lizards 2 is a fun game. Its main focus is on having a good time with friends. Therefore, this time the game emphasizes co-op for four players. The company of gamers is invited to chop the tailed foes into coleslaw to the upbeat funk for three hours. Three hours – the duration of the story campaign.

P.S. The official game description amused me. If you want to read it, visit the game's page on Steam or Vkontakte Play.

Cyber Slav: Eclipse – Cyber Technologies in Service of the Slavs

And once again, Rus is in danger. And once again, all hope rests on the hero. This time, Holy Rus is threatened not by reptiles, but by demonic spawn and all sorts of evil. Opposing them is a cybernetically modified organism hero – Cyber Slav. Cyber Slav is a hunter of evil spirits, traveling through a Rus changed by technology. The game is a dark slasher set in the world of cybernetic Rus. The hero destroys enemies, levels up himself and his weapons to become even more effective in exterminating foes. The hero's advancement is through implants, which reminds me of the timeless Deus Ex.

Exhibition Games

All the exhibition's games, except for Endfield, are domestic. Many would have liked to see foreign releases and international developers. But their place was taken by non-gaming partners' booths: Rosatom, Yandex, Auto.ru, and others. It is evident that the partners did a lot of work in preparation for the exhibition: their booths offered diverse activities and were creatively decorated. Pyaterochka treated everyone with pastries and drinks, Yandex offered a quest, and Auto.ru brought Doc Brown's car to the exhibition, but still, visitors to Igromir would have preferred to see foreign game releases. I believe that the absence of Western premieres is not the fault of the organizers, but a side effect of geopolitics.

Northern Path – Survival in Yakutia

And again the snow..., ugh! I can't shake the feeling that winter is the second favorite theme of modern domestic developers after Slavic epics. Another domestic project shares an atmosphere with Frozen Ship. The Northern Path, just like Frozen Ship, is a survival game set in the tundra, but that’s where the similarities end and the differences begin. The Northern Path tells the story of a young Russian officer who set out to the Land of San Nikolay to find his missing father. You are invited to embark on a difficult winter journey filled with adventures on a dog sled. In the game, you will have to survive, hunt, fish, complete quests, and interact with people in an open world. But the main feature of the game is upgrading your dog sled. The dog sled is the primary means of transportation and the main hero’s salvation. Sleds can be upgraded, and dogs can be bought and changed, increasing the speed of your sled. With proper upgrades, your sled will be able to compete in speed with Radagast Brown's and Hobbit's sleds. Moreover, the developers promise to introduce players to the culture of the Yakut people.

Children of the Birch – Don’t Walk, Children, in the Dark Forest!

Little children must not under any circumstances. Don’t walk in the Dark Forest! "Children of the Birch" is the only Metroidvania in my current selection. Again, Slavic mythology and hardcore. The plot: some ancient evil has rooted itself in a place called "Dark Forest." The main character is a Prince, but not Alexander Nevsky and not even Yaroslav the Wise, just a Prince. This very Prince must delve into the Dark Forest – the place of the resurrection of the dead, in order to destroy the source of the curse. Before you is a gloomy platformer with a complex combat system. In battle, the player has access to rolls, dodges, and special abilities. In the game, you will encounter difficult bosses, and defeating them will require high concentration. The enemies are cursed representatives of the forest flora and fauna.

Comic Con 2025

At Comic Con, visitors also had plenty to do. In the tabletop games area, you could play board games with visitors. Print publishers presented their new products. Premieres of series and films took place. There were concerts. Domestic and international stars held autograph sessions and gave interviews. Personally, I enjoyed two things the most. Firstly, meeting the legend of world wrestling, master of freestyle wrestling – Viktor Zangiev. Secondly, cosplay: the costumes were high quality, there were many characters. As a photographer, my eyes scattered like a child entering a toy store for the first time. I wanted to capture everything and everyone.

War of the Worlds: Siberia – Resistance in Russian Style

As we know from the school history course, in 1896, there was an invasion of Martians into the Russian Empire. The main character finds himself in St. Petersburg, captured by the aliens, from which he must escape to find salvation in the Siberian taiga. Overall, War of the Worlds: Siberia is a linear adventure action game with elements of stealth and puzzles. In the game, you will have to fight, survive, and hide from enemies. There is a system for studying the aliens: you can examine debris to effectively counter the extraterrestrial invaders. Trailers and screenshots look intriguing: the game resembles Half-Life 2 and the Resistance series. It would be great if the game turns out to be a quality clone of Resistance 3 set in pre-revolutionary Russia. And if the game also brings something of its own, yet high-quality, then it’s absolutely wonderful.

Arknights: Endfield – Colonization is Everything!

A distant future. By the behest of Tsiolkovsky, colonization of planets is in full swing. And everything would be fine, but the planet Talos-II has proven to be a tough nut to crack for colonizers. Anomalies, natural disasters, and hostile fauna significantly complicate the colonization of Talos-II. But that’s not a problem, as Endfield Industries has you – a talented manager and strategist, tasked with the complex and responsible task of colonizing the unfriendly planet. Explore territories, build automated complexes, gather resources, create weapons, and of course, fight fierce opponents. The gameplay has both combat and strategic aspects. The combat aspect is an action-RPG in which a squad of four characters – one under direct control and the others controlled by AI – fights the inhabitants of Talos-II. Each character in the squad has their own specialization: attack, defense, support, and so on. I found the strategic exploration aspect of the game more intriguing. In it, you need to build a base by erecting production, resource-gathering, and defensive structures, bringing them together into a cohesive infrastructure through technical communications. To extract rare resources, you need to build complexes in the most dangerous zones. In the controlled locations, you can establish automated resource extraction and not have to return to them while peacefully developing new lands. And since Endfield is an online game connecting players' worlds over the internet, you can leave messages and schematics of your bases for other players. The authors also promise vehicles capable of overcoming chasms and much more.

Festival Organization

The festival was organized not without errors. The time of year chosen for such a large-scale festival was evidently not the most suitable. People who arrived early froze in long queues, while by lunchtime, the queues had disappeared. In the cloakroom, there was not always enough space for numerous coats. However, the organizers took this into account, and Comic Con Igromir 2026 will take place in the fall, in a cozier environment, so to speak. The "Authors' Alley" was a long narrow corridor, even though there was enough free space in the halls, and if desired, it could have been made a bit roomier. Given the space, there should be more trash bins; I believe, as sometimes it was challenging to find one. I didn’t find any benches for resting, so tired visitors rested wherever they could, including on windowsills. However, once again, there was space available for arranging a rest area. After all, benches could have been placed along the walls of the halls and by the windows. We hope that the organizers take this into account, and Comic Con Igromir 2026 will be more comfortable than the current one.

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