Latest news with #SurgentStudios
Newsweek
6 days ago
- 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."
BBC News
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
House of the Dragon actor hides Bafta games award from daughter
A Bafta-winning game developer has had to hide his award in a desk drawer so his young daughter does not use the weighty award as a Salim, from Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, made Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a game about the grief he suffered after his father Salim, who is also an actor in the TV show House of the Dragon, went from the set of the Game of Thrones spin-off to the Bafta Games Awards where his idea won the Game Beyond Entertainment category."[The award] is literally a weapon. So, I'm like, 'Right, let me just be super careful with this'," he said. "My daughter will literally look at it and be like, 'Oh, that's really cool to play with'." The Bafta winner was emotional as he accepted the prize at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. His father Ali Salim, 66, died of cancer in 2013, and after Mr Salim founded Surgent Studios in 2019 he began working on a game to explore his feelings of grief."We could have made just a fun game that we kind of throw out there... But I think because it is so personal, it really feels like we put our all in it," he said."We do hear it from people all the time, people who have lost either a parent or a friend or even a pet, how much this game has had an effect on them."I look at this Bafta and it's so surreal and weird to think like, 'Oh, the reason we won that was because our game meant something to people'." After releasing Tales of Kenzera: Zau in June 2024, Mr Salim said he felt racially targeted when he received hateful comments online, which suggested the game's narrative was about an "agenda to force diversity" rather than the emotion of grief.A few months after the game's launch Surgent Studios cut more than a dozen jobs because of funding issues, and in October 2024, it placed all game development work on following a partnership with Japanese firm Pocketpair it is now working on an as-yet untitled horror Salim said: "It has been gruelling and brutal and there was a real moment where I was just like, 'Why do we do this? Why do we put ourselves, as artists, through such pain?'"What was really nice about the Bafta is it just reaffirms and gives the confidence boost of being like, 'Hey, you're doing the right thing'. That in itself is so great." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
