''Nuclear Union'' (Russian: Новый Союз / ''Novyy Soyuz'', actually meaning "New Union") is a cancelled post-apocalyptic

role-playing video game Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...

. It was developed by the Ukrainian company

Best Way Best Way is a Ukraine, Ukrainian company which develops real-time strategy video games. The company was founded in 1991 in Sievierodonetsk, Luhans'k, Ukraine. Its first title was ''Soldiers: Heroes of WWII''. The Best Way's games use the Gem game ...

, and supposed to be funded and published by the Russian publisher

1C Company 1C Company (, ) is a Russian software developer, distributor and publisher based in Moscow. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, related services and video games. In Russia, 1C develops and sells the business ...

, to be released in 2014 for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, but the latter pulled its involvement at the end of 2013 due to the political instability in Ukraine, resulting in the game's cancellation. The story begins during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

of 1962, with the majority of the narrative and gameplay taking place in an

alternate Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * Alternative comics, or independent comics are an alternative to mainstream superh ...

, modern-day

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

after a nuclear war. The artistic style of ''Nuclear Union'' was a dark retrofuturist one, with

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...

landscapes and older prototypes beside modern weapons, reminiscent of other famous Ukrainian games such as ''

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ''S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'' is a first-person shooter survival horror video game franchise developed by Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World. The series is set in an Parallel universe (fiction), alternate version of the present-day Chernobyl Exclusio ...

'' and '' Metro 2033''. Best Way published three trailers for ''Nuclear Union'': announcement trailer, concept art trailer, and th
gameplay trailer

Plot

''Nuclear Union'' was intended as a large-scale

, taking place in a post-apocalyptic alternative reality in which the world has survived a nuclear war that broke out after the

. Fifty years after the war, the fragments of the Soviet Union that were hastily brought underground have gradually become a real state with its own capital, a city called Pobedograd. The game's main protagonist is a former pilot of the Soviet military aviation, who is sent from the underground city of "Pobedograd" in the subsoil of Moscow to the

radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is conside ...

external surface, for various missions on behalf of the underground government of Pobedograd, including the recovery of advanced Soviet pre-nuclear war

technologies Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

and investigating a set of strange and mysterious phenomena that are happening on the outer surface. The protagonist is depicted as carrying the Korobov TKB-408 bullpup rifle, a Soviet prototype from 1946. According to in-game lore, the Korobov was revived when counter-revolutionary gangs found the documentation and the weapon began appearing in the regions of

Ryazan Ryazan (, ; also Riazan) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 C ...

and

Tambov Tambov ( , ; rus, Тамбов, p=tɐmˈbof) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, Central Federal District, central Russia, at the confluence of the Tsna River (Moksha basin), Tsna ...

; the deficiencies of the weapon were corrected with it being referred to as "Object 93" (''Ob'yekt 93'') in reference to the year its schematics were discovered.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official site
Action role-playing video games Alternate history video games Survival video games Video games about nuclear war and weapons Video games developed in Ukraine Cancelled Windows games