Ukrainian Video Game Studio Offers Fans Chance to Write Message on Artillery Shell

Ukrainian video game studio Frogwares is offering fans a chance to write a custom message on an artillery shell that will be used in the country’s war against Russia. 

The promotion is a celebration of Frogwares successful Kickstarter campaign to fund its remake of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, an adventure game originally released in 2007 that pits the detective against the terrors of the Cthulhu mythos. As of this writing, the campaign has racked up more than $200,000, far more than its initial goal of $70,114.

The campaign ends on September 3, and to celebrate, the company has offered its fans a surreal wartime opportunity. “A group of fans of the studio who are currently serving in the Ukrainian military reached out to the team to offer their help,” a press release about the promotion said. “The unit is part of the 24th Separate Assault Battalion and said that they would happily give 3 fans the chance to get any custom message of their choosing written onto a 152 mm howitzer shell simply in exchange for sharing the campaign link as it goes into its last few days.”

“Hi everyone,” an unidentified Ukrainian soldier said in a video tweeted by the Frogwares account. “If you’d like your custom message written on an artillery shell and help our friends at Frogwares at the same time, please get involved. We look forward to sending these special deliveries to our unwanted guests.” People who want a chance to write their own message need only like and retweet the video.

Custom messages written on artillery shells have become a popular way for Ukrainians to fundraise. Sites such as signmyrocket.com sell the chance to sponsor tanks, write messages on shells, and even buy space on jets to anyone over the internet. 

Frogwares Studio is an independent game studio most famous for its series of adventure games starring Sherlock Holmes. In 2019, it released The Sinking City, an open world detective game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The studio was disrupted when Russia escalated its war in Ukraine in March. According to a video on the Kickstarter for Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, several members of the team joined the Ukrainian armed services to fight against Russia.

“Frogwares currently [has] 4 members of the team serving in the military,” Paul Milewski, a PR representative at Wire Tap Media, which is working with Frogwares, told Motherboard. “Each of them are deployed in the east right now.” He also said several employees are working in various humanitarian aid groups in Poland and Ukraine and that their jobs at Frogwares are waiting for them when the war ends.

According to Milewski, a remake of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened was not what Frogwares intended to make next. “Development in general has been hit pretty darn hard,” he said. “Frogwares had to scrap their next game entirely as trying to create something that is open world and needed regular iteration proved impossible in the situation. That’s why they went with this Sherlock remake.”

Things have been stable recently, he said, but still difficult due to working in a war-torn region. 

“One minute you will be in a team meeting and the next, half of the people need to sign out because there is an air raid siren,” he said. “Internet and sometimes electricity connections come and go. Two people on the team are stuck in Kherson and the team regularly lose contact with them for days on end. Each morning people sign in on the dev Discord and there is this unease where people wonder ‘Is so and so late or did something happen?’”

When Frogwares launched its Kickstarter campaign, fans funded the project in six hours. “The overall outpouring of support and kind words for the team through this campaign has been overwhelming. All of our backers have given us something truly positive to focus on and a safety net that allows us to make the game at our own pace,” Sergey Oganesyan, Frogwares’ Comms Lead, said in a press release. “We will forever be indebted to these people who came to our side when it felt like our entire lives were falling apart.”