Hello everyone!
Hosted by the Directorate of Gallipoli Historic Site (Çanakkale Savaşları Gelibolu Tarihi Alan Başkanlığı), we organised a Gallipoli event at Seddülbahir Fortress, the very same fortress that played an important role in the landings at V Beach! Here, press and content creators from Türkiye and around the world were able to watch the Gallipoli Launch Trailer and play the game early.
A small delegation of the BlackMill Games team went there and were heartily welcomed by the Directorate. Before the big night, we travelled to the ancient city of Troy, visited Anzac Cove and finally the location of the event, V Beach.
Here, we met up with the fantastic Onur Çobanoğlu, one of the two voice actors who recorded the Turkish voice lines in the game, and did vocals for the Main Theme of Gallipoli as well. We also invited Indy Neidell, known from the The Great War YouTube channel and his current project, The Korean War. Jos and Indy recorded a podcast together on location, which is currently being edited!
The main event started off with a signing ceremony to solidify our official partnership with the Directorate. This was followed by a 1 minute of silence to remember every soldier lost fighting on Gallipoli. Members of the military were present as well for this commemoration.
Content creators from around the world were flown in to Istanbul and driven to V Beach by bus. During the main event, they got to see the Launch Trailer of Gallipoli early, and play the game on PCs prepared at the fortress. This was even streamed to the big screen on stage so everyone could watch along, while enjoying a cocktail and the music of a live classical band.
Turkish press was also at the event, including the newspaper Hürriyet, and CNN TÜRK!
We’re still taken aback by the enormous enthusiasm for the game from everyone. This event, on location, was a great honor to have experienced. An incredibly sincere thank you to the Directorate of Gallipoli Historic Site for hosting this incredible event and all their work that has gone into it. For the location, the decor, the PCs, flying in everyone, and making sure they have a place to sleep and stuff themselves with fantastic food.
The historical sites the Directorate manage make up a large part of the peninsula, making sure the scars and memories of the war are well maintained and protected. There are dozens of monuments, museums, foreign cemeteries, and key locations to visit and learn, as well as some beautiful hiking trails.
You can visit the website for information and an interactive map of all the sites managed by the Directorate!
We are very glad to have this partnership, and are looking forward to working together on future Gallipoli projects! For now, there’s only one week left until the release of Gallipoli and we’re beyond hyped to get the game into your hands.