Students at Pyatigorsk State University have announced the development of a new game titled God Instinct, envisioned as a national response to the popular God of War series. The project is being built on Unreal Engine 5, signaling a commitment to next‑gen visuals and immersive world design. This move aims to place a distinctly local voice within the action-adventure genre, while offering players a fresh narrative experience rooted in regional storytelling sensibilities.
Timur Shaimuratov, who leads the project, noted that a playable prototype with core gameplay loops is already in place, and the team expects a fuller version to arrive in the coming year. The core premise follows a teenage protagonist driven by a desire to avenge a fallen mentor and to obtain an ancient scroll believed to unlock formidable power, setting the stage for a journey filled with danger, discovery, and personal growth.
A standout feature of God Instinct will be a character-driven progression system where players shape the hero through the choices they make. Shaimuratov emphasized that although the game bears a visual kinship to God of War, its inspirations extend to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, games renowned for how decisions reverberate through the narrative and alter the protagonist’s fate.
Financially, the project will adopt a paid model, with plans to release two narrative expansions post-launch. The first release will target the SberPlay cloud platform, enabling access to the game for players with modest hardware. In the longer term, the team envisions availability on VK Play, Steam, Epic Games Store, and mobile ecosystems on Android and iOS, broadening reach for audiences across Canada and the United States. The development approach prioritizes accessibility and cross‑platform compatibility to maximize player engagement.
In related tech news, Nvidia recently highlighted advances in high-performance GPUs designed to accelerate AI and real-time rendering, underscoring the industry trend toward more powerful graphics capabilities that can support richer game worlds and more responsive gameplay. This broader hardware context informs the team’s ambitions for God Instinct, especially as Unreal Engine 5’s capabilities are harnessed to deliver cinematic visuals, detailed environments, and dynamic lighting that respond to player choice in real time. These advancements also align with a growing interest in cloud gaming, streaming, and portable access, making the game’s cloud‑centric launch strategy particularly timely for audiences in North America.
Overall, the project positions itself as a vehicle for Canadian and American players to experience an original storytelling framework while enjoying the depth and polish associated with modern, engine‑driven action adventures. The team’s iterative process, grounded in feedback from early playtests and community input, aims to refine combat systems, narrative branching, and the emotional resonance of the mentor‑student relationship at the heart of the story. As development progresses, further details about the game’s world, missions, and character arcs are expected to emerge, offering fans a closer look at how choice shapes destiny in this ambitious new title. Citation: Pyatigorsk State University development team notes and project brief.