VK Play, the digital storefront, has released a free excerpt from the forthcoming Russian stage drama titled “Smuta,” inviting players to sample the upcoming production under the banner Time of Troubles. This preview serves as a window into the project, letting curious audiences gauge both storytelling elements and technical facets before the full game arrives. [Cited material from VK Play release notes]
The demo version of Time of Troubles occupies about 11.44 GB and is accessible exclusively through VK Play. Within this slice of gameplay, players can assess not only core gameplay mechanics but also a range of graphics settings. Those with modern Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs will find access to enhanced features such as Lumen-based lighting, DLSS upscaling, and refined frame rendering—options that demonstrate how the title leverages current-gen hardware to render a historically immersive Moscow in the 17th century. [Cited technical overview from VK Play materials]
In Time of Troubles, exploration centers on a fragment of 17th-century Moscow. Players glimpse at the exteriors and interiors of local houses and civic structures, walk along wooden pavements, and encounter iconic locales like the Tower of the Seven Hills, the Chertolsky Gate, Streletskaya Sloboda, and the Kolymazhny Dvor. There is also an opportunity to ride a horse, offering a tactile sense of movement through a richly recreated urban environment. Notably, this preview version contains no combat system and contains no adversaries. The player’s actions are framed by narration that guides the experience and places events in historical context. The historian character, voiced for the audio narration by Klim Zhukov, provides continuous commentary that anchors the narrative in its era.
Beyond exploration, the demo concludes with a distinctive interactive element: a “material knowledge” exam designed to test what players have absorbed about the period, society, and daily life of the time. This feature enhances immersion by prompting reflection on the historical material presented during the preview. [Cited narrative approach and voice casting details]
Countdown to release: The full Time of Troubles is scheduled to launch on VK Play on April 4. A pre-order window is open, offering the title at RUB 1,612 with a 20% discount applied at checkout, giving early buyers a clear value proposition ahead of the official release. [Cited pre-release pricing information]
Earlier communications indicated a plan to incorporate distinctive visual cues and icons to denote enhanced experiences within the game, a signal to players about platform optimization and graphical fidelity. [Cited industry practice notes]