PC Gamer - UK (2022-07)

F

or Hjalte Tagmose and Gustaw Mackay, the

frustration started with mislabelled food in

The Witcher. “The pierogi is called a

dumpling,” says Tagmose. “It’s like calling

sushi a rice sandwich,” adds Mackay. Now,

these two Polonophiles are determined to counter the

Americanisation of games by creating, in their words

“the least American game possible”.

The result is Szrot. “It’s a Polish word,” says Mackay. “You

have to know how to do the rolling, trilling R. It can mean

junkyard, or it can also just refer to an old, beat-up car.”

That’s fitting, since Szrot is a driving game about

steering jalopies around post-Soviet cities. One in which

even the countdown to a race is written in Croatian and

translated in subtitles – as if in the opening credits of a

foreign language film. It’s reflective of the Danish

developers’ fondness for Eastern European cinema, which

began with the cult Russian neo-noir Brat, before

extending to more esoteric movies from Poland.

The idiosyncrasies don’t end there. The masterstroke

was to render Szrot as if it were a PS1 game. “Communist

blocks are kind of low-poly already,” Mackay says.

“There’s not a lot of smooth shapes.” Pairing a nostalgic

aesthetic with the brutalist buildings of Beograd has

struck a chord on Twitter, where early Szrot footage has

been watched by tens of thousands. “This could come off

a bit pompous, but it’s kind of like French impressionism,”

Mackay says. “All the detail’s not there, so you have to fill

in some holes yourself.”

That capacity for low detail to set the mind racing

worked wonders for Resident Evil and Silent Hill – but it’s

not horror that Mackay is looking to evoke so much as

mystique. “The first game I ever played was Riven,” he says.

“Totally alien, the atmosphere was just out of this world.

The mystique of old games is unmatched today.”

There’s a practical benefit, too. Szrot’s uncomplicated

visuals lend a clarity that helps when avoiding collision in

busy streets. The team has even created lower-poly

models for incidental traffic – so that opponents’ cars

stand out amid the noise. “We don’t need to have a giant

marker or anything,” Tagmose says.

CRAP-TASTIC

While the team hasn’t been afraid to make use of post-PS

advancements in physics, there’s a recognisable early

PlayStation bounciness to its clunky Fiats. “The driving

experience is about feeling the spongy suspension and the

holes in the road,” Tagmose says.

Gran Turismo 2 was an important influence – though

the cars in Szrot are more likely to benefit from simple

repairs than performance tuning. “We took some

inspiration from GTA IV, because the feel is very shitty,”

Mackay says. “It’s like a crappy car, not the supercars of

GTA V. That’s kind of the feeling we want to invoke.”

As a player, you’ll take these broken-down hunks of rust

to street races throughout the former Soviet Union,

competing for glory and new rides. And if you need extra

funds to fix your steering or upgrade your engine, you can

hustle on the side. “In between the main storyline you’ll be

in a semi-open place – right now Beograd, in the future

more places – and can do smaller missions,” Tagmose says.

At that slightly slower pace, the hope is there’ll be more

time to soak in the culture. And to take on daft tasks, like

driving a drunk friend home, or whisking an old lady to the

grocery store in two minutes flat – premises inspired by the

winningly goofy backstories of Ridge Racer Type 4.

You might argue that this vision of Eastern Europe,

created with help from Google Maps by two Danes, risks

becoming a kind of cultural voyeurism – made by

Westerners, for Westerners. But whenever the Szrot team

posts a new video, a Beograd resident will reply, spotting

their own neighbourhood in the fuzzy, wonky footage.

“It’s cool for people to see the places they live,”

Mackay says. “They never got a PS1 game that looked like

this. Our theory on why this style works so well is that it’s

an oxymoron. This game is not possible. It’s supposed to

look like the ’90s, but it could never be released in the

’90s, when only the US and Japan made games. That

makes it cooler. What if?”

Jeremy Peel

GRANDMA TURISMO

How streetracer SZROT became a celebration of Eastern European cultures

ROAD BLOC

Other games that drive the European way

BEWARE

A wild escape from

murderous pursuers,

loosely based on

creator Ondřej

Švadlena’s real-life

escape from

Czechoslovakia.

OMSI 2

This legendary and

uncompromising

simulator is the only

place you can ride

Berlin’s bus routes

both before and after

the wall came down.

JALOPY

Take a single car –

heavily based on the

infamous East

German Trabant – on

a road trip from

Berlin to Istanbul,

fixing it up as you go.

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