Soviet Jump Game is part Mario Bros, part battle royale, part Russia and 100% crazy gaming history

I’m a sucker for unpredictable gaming stories and thankfully for me, the tale behind Soviet Jump Game is just that. Carrying knowledge like this almost feels like being the proud owner of buried treasure or some secret that only you and a few others know. If you’re reading this article, you too will soon carry the myth of this bizarre, forgotten gem of a game.

Back in the 1990’s, a gaming console called the Dendy was released in Russia. It was home to many Nintendo Entertainment System inspired games made specifically for the Russian market. Through some strange strike of luck, Game Grumps, a modern day YouTube channel somehow discovered an unknown Dendy cartridge that revealed that the battle royale genre was actually born 30-years ago in Russia but never released. So what was Game Grumps to do? Finish the game and release it to the world at large, of course.

What you’ll find in Soviet Jump Game is a very Super Mario Bros inspired game, but in battle royale format, which is crazy considering how few people had access to the internet in the early 1990’s. Perhaps that very fact was the reason that Soviet Jump Game was never released? Regardless, what we have now on Steam is a legitimate side-scrolling battle royale with Mario-like power ups and everything. In place of goombas, weird buck toothed beaver enemies roam the map. Instead of mushroom power ups, you get potatoes and vodka. Instead of spitting fire balls, you throw hammers, transform into those Russian stacking dolls, drive a tank and more. If you literally imagine taking Mario Bros and totally recreating the game in Russia’s image, you have Soviet Jump Game. The game’s physics even feel very similar to those of Mario Bros, albeit slightly different.

Soviet Jump Game was released on Steam without warning and is available as a free to play game. What surprised me is that Game Grumps didn’t seemingly just finish the game, they actually have added skins to unlock and some of the features that you come to expect from more modern games. Or perhaps all the unlockable skins and characters were already there? If the original development team somehow envisioned a “last man standing” style battle royale long before games like Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite did, who knows what else they thought of? If they had only implemented microtransactions 30-years ago, the developers would surely be rich, today.

If you’re reading this and thinking that Soviet Jump Game might interest you, I highly recommend that you give it a shot. It’s a change of pace from anything else that you will play in the multiplayer realm right now and while you may feel some Mario Bros nostalgia while playing it, it’s just as interesting to look back through a window into Russia’s self-image of the past. Everything from the enemies to the color palette stand in contrast to that of Nintendo’s iconic creation that it is based on. Based on personal experience, I highly recommend that you play it with a controller rather than mouse and keyboard, for the record.

What really stands out to me about Soviet Jump Game is that even though it’s a side scroller, the principles and thrills of battle royale still shine through. You still see players getting aggressive and showing no fear as they ruthlessly chase down enemies across the screen. There were several occasions while playing Soviet Jump Game where I got pretty pumped up about taking out enemy players by jumping on their heads or pumping a tank shell into their face in 2D fashion. There’s just something about the last man standing concept that creates excitement, regardless of the setting or tools of the trade. That might have something to do with my collection of victories in thirty-something different battle royale games in the last year. It wasn’t until typing that out that I realized how much it sounds like Papa John’s recent exclamation about consuming more than forty pizzas in thirty days…

Pizza aside, if you’re wondering how the “circle” element of Soviet Jump Game works, you can see it on the left in the screenshot below. The map gets smaller and smaller from both the left and the right as the pink “iron curtain” pushes players toward the center and forces conflict along the way. While taking damage from a red wave in Apex Legends is intimidating enough, imagine being chased by a spiked wall that will instantly kill you with both player and AI controlled enemies running all over at the same time. It really is a sight to behold and run from, mixing both new and old school game design.

The fact that Soviet Jump Game exists is an awesome moment for the gaming industry. While I doubt that Soviet Jump Game will build a large community, or be remember by many a decade from now, the fact that it was uncovered, finished and released is a win for all of us. You can even take it a step further and contemplate how battle royale might be different if it had actually debuted in the early 90’s as a side scrolling platformer. All rabbit holes aside, take pride knowing that you now carry a small jewel of gaming history in your brain and if you want to take it a step further, go download and play Soviet Jump Game for yourself on Steam.