The key to understanding the success of Polish science-fiction and video games is that they emerged as a means of circumventing Soviet censorship, says Jacek Dukaj

In the world of video games, when we talk about European developments, Poland is often one of the first countries to be mentioned. This is because this former Soviet republic is home to some of the biggest IPs in the global industry today, and it continues to thrive. The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, The Medium, Dying Light, Frostpunk, Blood of Dawnwalker...

But where does all that creativity come from? And why do Polish fantasy and science-fiction narratives, whilst familiar, still strike us as something unique? All these questions undoubtedly have many interpretations, but few answers carry greater authority than that of Jacek Dukaj, a Polish science-fiction writer, founder of Dukaj Games, and winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. We had the pleasure of meeting Dukaj at the Madeira Summit, where he took part in a panel alongside Gathin Aldous (with whom we also had a chat), and we were able to talk to him about science-fiction, deep-space cathedrals inspired by the Sagrada Familia, Soviet censorship, and much more. A full interview that you shouldn't miss, which you can find below.

Returning to the question we posed at the start, we asked Jacek directly why the rest of the world - and Europeans in particular - are so surprised by the richness, depth and talent found in Polish science-fiction. It all began some 50 years ago...

"We had a very strong literary movement in 70s and 80s called sociological science fiction. You have to remember it was still during the communist era. So, it was written under censorship and basically all of this was used as a pretext of deep sociological critique of communist system. Because it was possible to write science fiction critiquing communist role, but not so-called serious literature, because censors didn't really focus on science fiction. So, a lot of really good works drawing from the tradition of Orwell, Zamiatin, all those big creation of dystopia.

"They laid the foundations for later generations of Polish science fiction writers, also game designers, because those that set up the biggest, most successful Polish game dev companies, they are all from this generation that was raised on those science fiction novels. So, they have it in their DNA. So, this is the way that something like Polish school of science fiction games came to be."

In fact, for Dukaj, the line separating his work as a novelist from his work as a video game scriptwriter (and as a gamer) is thin to the point of being almost atomic.

"·"I always played games and was fascinated by the games as a new form of culture, new form of art. So, even in my early writings there is a lot of things that can be described as a world building based on the set of rules taken from games. So, you treat the whole world as a kind of a game: You set up those rules. You look in what way it will develop. What kind of peculiar features it has."

"I've written something that was titled 'Irehare', novella, short novel, that was published, I think, 10 years before Matrix and it's basically the Matrix in different aesthetics. And also later on, I published a novel, Line of Resistance, which is more like a theoretical approach to this problem, mainly asking yourself in what way you can treat your whole life as a game. Can you gamify the whole world of human experiences? I will be going in this direction anyway."

Don't miss the full interview, in which Jacek talks to us about the role of AI in offering players absolute freedom to live out their stories, and also discusses his major project to adapt The Cathedral at Dukaj Games.