{"id":779906,"date":"2025-12-01T04:51:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T04:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling?utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=feed"},"modified":"2025-12-01T04:51:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T04:51:42","slug":"abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Abubakar Salim on Metroidvanias as a vehicle for grief and storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling.jpg\" \/> <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;The beautiful thing about what Black Panther did was it essentially showed there can be heroes that look like me,&#8221; says Abubakar Salim. &#8220;The feeling I had when watching was I wish I had this when I was a kid, because it shows to me, as an actor, I don&#8217;t have to be the best friend of the cop, or the buddy character. I can actually be a hero.\n<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;If this game has that same effect to audiences and to players and developers, then great. We&#8217;re doing a good thing. I want to go for that.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nSalim is perhaps best known as the voice actor of beloved Assassin&#8217;s Creed: Origins protagonist Bayek. Now he&#8217;s jumping into the world of game development with Tales of Kenzera: Zau. On the surface it&#8217;s a Metroidvania inspired by the Bantu Tales of African myth with a dash of the sort of Afrofuturism seen in Black Panther. Beneath that, it&#8217;s a narrative about coping with grief, paralleling Salim dealing with the passing of his game-loving father with whom he would play together.\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling?utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=feed\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling?utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=feed\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The beautiful thing about what Black Panther did was it essentially showed there can be heroes that look like me,&#8221; says Abubakar Salim. &#8220;The feeling I had when watching was I wish I had this when I was a kid, because it shows to me, as an actor, I don&#8217;t have to be the best friend of the cop, or the buddy character. I can actually be a hero. &#8220;If this game has that same effect to audiences and to players and developers, then great. We&#8217;re doing a good thing. I want to go for that.&#8221; Salim is perhaps best known as the voice actor of beloved Assassin&#8217;s Creed: Origins protagonist Bayek. Now he&#8217;s jumping into the world of game development with Tales of Kenzera:&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/abubakar-salim-on-metroidvanias-as-a-vehicle-for-grief-and-storytelling\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":779907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[259,542,79,75,2275,59,136,1928,8773,54,9398,9399],"class_list":["post-779906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eurogamer","tag-action-adventure","tag-electronic-arts","tag-fantasy","tag-indie","tag-metroidvania","tag-pc","tag-platformer","tag-puzzle","tag-side-view","tag-single-player","tag-surgent-studios","tag-tales-of-kenzera-zau"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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