CHARLES GAMES

The small Czech developer making videogame history

- Adam Zamecnik

CHARLES GAMES

Founded 2020

Employees 5

Key staff Vít Šisler (lead designer), Lukáš Kolek (project lead), Eva Necasová (graphic designer and art director)

URL charlesgames.net

Selected softography Attentat 1942, Svoboda 1945: Liberation

Current projects The Legend Of The Spirit Bird, Train To Sachsenhausen

History is at the centre of everything Charles Games does. Its work has received acclaim for applying a historian’s eye to the Second World War, an era picked over by many games. But Charles Games prefers to avoid big action sequences in favour of recounting the firsthand accounts of ordinary people who experienced the horrors of Nazi occupation. Following the release of its debut, Attentat 1942, the studio also played a part in a momentous change in German law, one that saw Attentat become one of the very first games tackling such topics that was allowed to be released in the region without major changes.

Stepping back to the studio’s origins, though, the focus on history comes as no surprise. Initially formed as an educational venture between Charles University in Prague and historians from the Czech Academy Of Sciences with the aim of teaching history in Czech schools, it struck out on its own in 2020. “This will be the second year for Charles Games as an official game studio, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t worked together for a longer time,” project lead Lukáš Kolek explains.

In fact, the studio’s founding came almost three years after the release of