Following the announcement of Tales Of Kenzera: Zau at The Recreation Awards 2023, NME caught up with actor and Surgent Studios founder Abubakar Salim to debate the platformer’s “celebration” of Bantu tradition and exploration of grief.

The primary trailer for Tales Of Kenzera: Zau debuted as we speak (December 8), revealing a single-player platformer that follows Zau, a younger hero who bargains with the god of demise to carry his father again from the useless.

Zau is tasked with gaining new powers and defeating three mighty but “surprisingly acquainted” beings within the land of Kenzera, a realm impressed by Bantu tales that Salim was informed by his household.

The sport is about to launch on April 24, 2024, and though that is Salim’s first sport as a developer, his identify will already be acquainted to many. The actor performed Murderer’s Creed Origins protagonist Bayek in 2017, and this 12 months starred as French officer Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in Ridley Scott’s historic epic Napoleon. Subsequent 12 months, he’ll play Alyn Of Hull in season two of Recreation Of Thrones spin-off Home Of The Dragon. Briefly, it’s a busy time for him to be engaged on a sport.

“I ought to have simply purchased a automobile or one thing,” Salim informed NME over Zoom, laughing. Although he’s greatest identified for his performing, Salim selected to not inform Zau’s story via that medium as he felt the private nature of its story, which relies on his experiences with grief after shedding his father to most cancers, was greatest informed by letting gamers journey via it themselves.

“Each time I’ve performed a sport on grief, and even watched one thing on grief, they’ve all the time been married to this weight and unhappiness,” Salim defined. “For me, I needed to share that in a different way. I’m an enormous gamer, so it simply made sense to make this action-adventure platformer.”

Zau is a 2.5D metroidvania – a style that features the likes of Hole Knight and Ori And The Blind Forest. In these video games, a lot of the map is sealed off till gamers achieve new powers or instruments to assist them overcome obstacles, which signifies that there’s numerous exploring and backtracking.

“The style is designed and virtually feels prefer it suits grief completely,” stated Salim. “You’re throwing a personality in the midst of nowhere, they don’t know what to do and easy methods to cope with it. They discover the instruments they want as they go alongside on their journey, and basically with these instruments, they start to slowly get an thought of the world they’re in. They virtually change into, not essentially masters of it, however they get used to the thought of it. That’s precisely what grief is.”

As for the realm of Kenzera that Zau takes place in, it’s been visually impressed by a few of Salim’s favorite mangas, together with Dragonball Z and Shaman King. But a lot of its lore attracts on Bantu tales that Salim’s dad handed down about his personal father, who was a Nganga – a religious healer. The sport will probably be voiced in each English and Swahili, and Salim described it as extra of a cultural “celebration” than one thing designed to be academic.

“I need folks to be excited by this,” he stated, pointing to the success of different mythological video games like God Of Battle. “When it got here to the Bantu tales and mythologies that my father shared with me, they’re as wealthy as Greek or Norse mythology.”

“This sport will actually discover and have fun it, and get folks intrigued by it,” Salim added. “Let’s say my daughter performs this sport, and hopefully she’s going to. She’s not solely going to see the love that I’ve for my dad and what drove me to make this, but additionally really feel that it’s a reasonably enjoyable sport to play!”

As some followers might have noticed within the trailer, the Ridley Scott Inventive Group (RSCG) is credited with supporting Surgent Studios’ imaginative and prescient. Whereas filming in South Africa for sci-fi drama sequence Raised By Wolves, the crew “took an actual fascination” to Salim’s artistic endeavors in gaming. Ridley’s son Luke Scott, who directed three of the present’s episodes and is the CEO of the RSCG, has helped Salim plot a “larger house” for Tales Of Kenzera exterior of a single sport.

“Zau’s story is necessary inside [this universe], nevertheless it’s solely a sliver of the world we wish to create,” shared Salim. “Luke, Ridley and his crew are serving to with regard to creating cool content material that can help and support this.”

In the end, Salim needs the setting’s first entry to be a platformer that may supply the identical enjoyment he’s present in video games like Ori. However on a deeper degree, he hopes it would paint a brand new image of grief utilizing his personal expertise as a signpost.

“We checked out this sport as not essentially a method of ‘that is the way you cope with grief’ – it’s a way of presenting the completely different shades and views of it,” shared Salim. “I need gamers to come back out and say look, it’s okay to not be okay. That’s key. That was one thing I want I’d informed myself 10 years in the past.”