Latest news with #AbubakarSalim
The Verge
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Dead Take's best scares come from real-life performances
Dead Take, the second game from Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios, is a quiet horror game where the monster is ambition and the lengths a person will go for stardom. Like a lot of horror games, Dead Take relies on jumpscares to get the heart pumping. But playing this game, my deepest, most upsetting scares didn't come from the startle of a sudden knock but from the performances of the game's actors. In Dead Take, you play as Chase Lowry (Neil Newbon), a struggling actor who has come to the creepy mansion of Hollywood producer and kingmaker Duke Cain (Abubakar Salim), to look for his friend, Vinnie Monroe (Ben Starr), another struggling actor. The game mixes the exploration and puzzle solving gameplay of a Resident Evil game with a narrative delivered almost entirely via full motion video cutscenes, or known to us Olds as FMVs. I know FMV games have been around for a while, but this is my first, it felt novel in a way video games hadn't made me feel in a long time. As you journey through the mansion, the main thrust of the game is piecing together what happened to your friend Vinny. You do that through finding snippets of videos — interviews, auditions, and video messages — and splicing them together to create wholly new videos through the use of a fancy schmancy AI editor. These new videos reveal plot elements and puzzle solutions which all sound rather like the normal course of a video game until you realize these performers are acting their asses off. Throughout Dead Take, you watch Vinnie try to secure a role in Duke Cain's next big picture, something he is hungry to the point of desperation for. When a concerned call from Chase interrupts an audition, and Duke questions Vinnie's commitment, Vinnie brutally insults Chase. I like to inhabit the characters I play in video games. After all, they're mostly blank slates on which you can project your own thoughts and feelings. The character you pilot becomes a proxy for you even when they have their own personalities. I can't do that in Dead Take. Watching real, flesh and blood people act is so much more engrossing than hearing them act with the action mapped onto polygonal bodies. I played both Baldur's Gate III and Final Fantasy XVI, in which Newbon and Starr gave excellent performances. But watching them act, they're on another level. This is only a sample of what to expect from Starr. Starr scared me in this game. A couple of jumpscares got me real good, and even the quiet, unsettling mansion created an atmosphere where I literally jumped at my own shadow, but Ben Starr is the scariest thing in this game. There's a moment when, during yet another audition take, he starts screaming at his costar like Christian Bale that one time. It was so well done, so reminiscent of all the times I've had run-ins with violent, abusive men, that I forgot he was acting. Not all the performances are bone-chilling depictions of what it's like selling your soul to become the next big thing. There's some humor in there too. Sam Lake, known for his work (and dance moves) on Remedy's Alan Wake series, gives a hilarious appearance playing a washed up director. Because of plot shenanigans, Ben Starr and Neil Newbon are two British men, playing American actors pretending to be southern, and it is quite funny when those three-layers-deep accents occasionally break. But don't get me wrong, this game is all about the scares. Without FMVs, Dead Take would be a perfectly fine but forgettable game. Through the use of technology that peaked in the days of the LaserDisc, it's become one of my favorite horror games ever. I don't mind horror games, but I don't seek them out. I'm glad I sought out Dead Take is out now on from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Ash Parrish Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Games Review Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All PC Gaming
WIRED
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
'House of the Dragon' Actor's New Horror Game Skewers Hollywood
Aug 8, 2025 11:24 AM Abubakar Salim's game Dead Take explores scandals, exploitation, and AI-fueled media manipulation. Still from Dead Take. Courtesy of Surgent Studios Abubakar Salim has a lot of beef with Hollywood—and he's getting it off his chest in his latest video game. The actor, known for his roles as Alyn of Hull on House of the Dragon and Father in Raised By Wolves , has been balancing his time between the big screen and gaming, two industries that have been affected by a slew of similar issues: long hours, shrinking jobs, abuse of power, and, more recently, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence use and generative AI. Salim's sophomore game, Dead Take , is a story of Hollywood, ambition, and exploitation, dressed up as a horror game that takes aim at his industry's problems, from corruption to AI use. 'Hollywood is pure horror,' Salim says. Dead Take is a firm departure from his debut game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau . Where Zau told a vibrant, heartfelt story about grief, Dead Take is a psychological thriller set in the dark rooms of a Hollywood mansion. After his friend Vinny goes missing, struggling actor Chase breaks into the home of the industry's hottest director, Duke Cain, in search of clues. The game is an escape room by way of home invasion; room-by-room puzzles unlock more areas of the house, whether that means digging through bedrooms and closets, or navigating a poolhouse. Duke's domain is littered with clues about a lost child and a failed marriage, along with hints about how far he's willing to push actors in his films. Salim likens writing the game to an exorcism. 'You hear these stories,' he says of whispers about headline-making abuse and bad behavior. 'It is horrific. To then make a game that explores that felt like 'oh fuck you' to the industry and the machine. It really is mad what people get away with, the amount of toxicity that exists on an industry level.' Dead Take lets players piece together these sorts of stories, much as you would in real life, through emails, notes, and context. An actress caught in a MeToo-like scandal. A director pitting his actors against each other, or pushing them beyond their limits. Throughout their search, players find flash drives containing video clips of the game's actors. Salim made the unusual choice to let these scenes play out as real-life footage instead of as animation. Although the use of full-motion-video in games has enjoyed newfound popularity, thanks to titles like Immortality, it's still uncommon. Ben Starr ( Final Fantasy XVI , Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ) and Neil Newbon ( Baldur's Gate 3 , Date Everything ) act as the game's leads, Chase and Vinny. Both actors have worked for years, but it's only recently that they've had the spotlight, thanks to more prominent roles in popular games. 'They're fucking good and I wanna show that, rather than putting them behind a character,' Salim says. As a creative professional, there's a lot for Salim to dislike about AI use—and he certainly does dislike a lot—but one fear stands out to him: images or videos being 'bastardized' in ways actors and artists have no control over. 'I think that's disturbing and disgusting,' he says. 'The last thing I want is someone to generate a horrific image of myself and then my daughter to stumble upon it as we're older. That would be horrible.' It's a fair concern in our current world. Actor Pedro Pascal is currently being smeared via AI-generated videos, which falsely show him groping fellow actresses. In May, players turned a digital Darth Vader, voiced by an AI replica of James Earl Jones in Fortnite , into a swearing, slur hurling foe in a matter of hours. In the game, these found video clips are key to unlocking the story. Players can use a computer bay inside Duke's mansion to edit film, 'splice' together clips, and create new footage. An interview of a single actor, for example, becomes a tense conversation when combined with another's. With each new clip, players are given an alternate view of the game's characters, allowing them to draw new conclusions. Each unlocked clip triggers a new series of puzzles. The machine, which Salim describes as 'cheaper than an editor, but expensive as hell,' isn't so far off from what a modern AI-powered editing suite can realistically produce. 'It's all about cutting corners,' Salim says. 'Furthering human evolution—it isn't about that.' AI may be able to do some tasks more quickly than humans, but comes with its own costs of job loss and climate impact. 'It's a threat,' Salim says of AI. It's currently being used across entertainment in different ways, whether it's for writing, animation, or video editing. Still, he doesn't believe it will ever be able to replace actors. 'The biggest threat is the content people are going to be taking in is just so fucking bad …to have this idea of a generation being brought up on computer generated, weird AI slop, it's terrifying. You're all gonna start thinking the same.'
Newsweek
03-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Surgent Studios Announces New Horror Game with Palworld Publisher
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Surgent Studios and Pocketpair Publishing have announced the former's brand-new game, a psychological horror game called Dead Take. Dead Take is a psychological horror game where you play as an actor exploring a dark, spooky mansion, solving puzzles and splicing together video clips to get to the heart of the mansion to find and save your friend. It's said to be a single-player game "shaped by real experiences in the entertainment industry," with players able to "[discover] the monstrous cost of creation for yourself." Key artwork for Dead Take showing a dimly lit man staring at the Dead Take logo in a cinema. Key artwork for Dead Take showing a dimly lit man staring at the Dead Take logo in a cinema. Surgent Studios/Pocketpair Publishing Here's how Surgent Studios describes the game: In Dead Take, you play as an actor who becomes uneasy when your friend won't answer the phone. Delve into the gilded rot of the entertainment industry and show up at the last place he was before he went quiet: a dark, opulent mansion. Haunted by mysterious humanlike figures, you advance into the house by solving object-based puzzles and splicing together the video clips you find along the way. Oddly quiet for the site of a glamorous party just hours before, the house is now populated by the figures that seem to turn up where you least expect them. As you advance toward the heart of the mansion, the fate of your friend rests in your hands. Will you find him and uncover the truth about what happened last night? The game marks the second release for Surgent Studios, the game development and multimedia studio founded and operated by actor Abubakar Salim, best known for his roles in games like Assassin's Creed Origins, and in television shows like Jamestown, Raised by Wolves, and House of the Dragon. It comes after the studio's previous game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, failed to see commercial success despite its critical acclaim, with the studio suffering a wave of layoffs shortly after the game's release. "We're being secretive for a reason," Salim said in a press release. "The subject matter of this game is delicate, and it hits close to home. When it comes out, and it won't be long until it does, I want players to think, 'I can't believe they actually did this.'" Dead Take is being published by Pocketpair Publishing, the fairly recently established publishing arm of Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, which surpassed 32 million players earlier this year. It comes as Pocketpair is embroiled in a legal battle with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, with the Pokémon publisher alleging Pocketpair infringed on many of its gameplay patents. No release date or console platforms have been announced for Dead Take, but the game is currently available to wishlist on Steam, with its release date said to be "coming soon."
The Guardian
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bafta games awards 2025: full list of winners
In a video game year dominated by dark, bloody fantasy adventures – and continued job losses and studio closures – it was a cute robot that stole the night at the 2025 Bafta video game awards. Sony's family-friendly platformer Astro Bot won in five categories at yesterday evening's ceremony including best game and game design. The rest of the awards were evenly spread across a range of Triple A and independent titles. Oil rig thriller Still Wakes the Deep was the next biggest winner with three awards: new intellectual property, performer in a leading role and performer in a supporting role. Clearly actors looking for Bafta-winning roles need look no further than the North Sea. The only other multiple winner was online shooter Helldivers 2 which won in multiplayer and music. The night's most nominated title, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, was victorious in just the one category: technical achievement. Elsewhere, the British game award was taken by perhaps the most British game ever made, the Yorkshire-based adventure Thank Goodness You're Here. Smash hit card puzzler Balatro may only have won a single award – debut game – but it was surely also victorious in the non-existent best acceptance speech of the night category, thanks to actor Ben Starr's appearance in full jester make-up and three-pronged hat. There were a couple of surprise triumphs. Hardcore role-playing adventure Metaphor: ReFantazio won in the highly competitive narrative category, while sumptuous side-scrolling platformer Neva claimed artistic achievement and Vampire Survivors swooped in for Evolving game. The game beyond entertainment award went to Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a magical adventure inspired by the death of creative lead Abubakar Salim's father and based on Bantu mythologies. Finally the Bafta fellowship was awarded to legendary soundtrack composer Yoko Shimomura, who has scored games such as Street Fighter II, Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XV. 'Music has always been there with me, when things were sad or when I was filled with anger, shifting my mood from negative to positive,' she said in her acceptance speech. 'I've sometimes felt I have no talent for music, when I've been unable to write or play in the way I wanted. But now I am working in my dream job, writing music for the games I love.' Animation Astro Bot Artistic achievement Neva Audio achievement Astro Bot Best game Astro Bot British game Thank Goodness You're Here Debut game Balatro Evolving game Vampire Survivors Family Astro Bot Game beyond entertainment Tales of Kenzera: Zau Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Game design Astro Bot Multiplayer Helldivers 2 Music Helldivers 2 Narrative Metaphor: ReFantazio New intellectual property Still Wakes the Deep Performer in a leading role Alec Newman, Caz McLeary in Still Wakes the Deep Performer in a supporting role Karen Dunbar, Finlay in Still Wakes the Deep Technical achievement Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Bafta fellowship Yoko Shimomura
