How — and why — Assassin’s Creed Origins’ Bayek founded his own game studio

polygon.com:

Here’s a career progression you probably haven’t encountered before: actor to game studio founder. But that’s just the path that Abubakar Salim has taken. The 30-year-old British actor is best known in gaming circles as Bayek from Assassin’s Creed Origins (he has also appeared in Raised by Wolves and Napoleon, and will be in the second season of House of the Dragon). And now he has founded Surgent Studios to make a game that’s extremely personal to him.

That game is Tales of Kenzera: Zau, an action-platformer set in a fantastical world inspired by the Bantu legends of central and southern Africa. The player takes on the role of Zau, a young, grieving warrior shaman battling to bring his father back from the dead, under the guidance of Kalunga, the God of Death. A stylish and colorful Metroidvania, it’s been picked up by EA’s Originals publishing label and will be released on April 23, 2024, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

The impetus to make the game came from a pivotal moment in Salim’s life. He lost his father to cancer when he was just 20; he was at drama school, starting to meet with agents, and sensing his acting career taking shape ahead of him. The loss had a profound effect on him. “I still feel like I’m grieving,” Salim told Polygon in a video call. “Even though it’s been 10 years.”

Salim’s dad was a software engineer who played video games. He introduced his son to Sonic the Hedgehog when he was “very, very young” and bought him a Game Boy. Salim remembers playing Castlevania with his father a lot. “The amount of freedom he allowed me to play games and kind of breathe them and live them, and support me in that, kind of made me see, like, Ah, my dad’s a nerd, man,” he said.

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