Abubakar Salim, the founder of Surgent Studios and Creative Director of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, issued a strong statement today addressing the harassment he and his studio have faced since the release of Tales of Kenzera in April.
In a five-minute video posted on X/Twitter (which you can watch below), Salim begins by saying that he didn’t want to deal with the bullying and that he dealt with claims that he didn’t “deserve the opportunity[ies]” he said early in his career, “No, it was just because I’m black and I turned the other cheek and just kept doing my job,” he says.
Required message. pic.twitter.com/oJaJEeZd61
— Abubakar Salim (@Abzybabzy) May 31, 2024
Salim is also an actor known for roles in Assassin’s Creed Origins, Max’s Raised by Wolves and an upcoming role in Season 2 of HBO’s House of the Dragon. He goes on to say that he can brush off some of the comments, but “when there’s a steady stream of them, it’s exhausting.” And when it came to Tales of Kenzera in particular, the situation came to a “tipping point,” especially after the game was tied to ongoing harassment campaigns targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts on social media.
“Don’t get me wrong, there has been so much amazing and beautiful support for this game. The fact that she’s inspired so many people and touched, you know, so many lives, that’s been one of our goals from the beginning — to have that positive impact, right?” Salim says. “But at the same time, we’re facing constant targeted harassment by people who see diversity as a threat. By people who look across the vast landscape of modern media and decide that anything that doesn’t speak to them or center around them is unnecessary and inauthentic.”
“And look,” he continues, “there’s always a reason why diverse stories can’t exist. You know, we’re always either doing it the wrong way or it’s just there to tick the boxes and it just starts to feel like there’s no right way. You know, these rules of exclusion keep piling up and the rafters keep changing until, you know, me, my studio, the people who look like us, just sit back, shut up, and just accept the fact that you I’m an outsider, But I will not do it.”
“If there are people who aren’t like you in a game, I want you to know that this game is still for you,” Salim continues. “You know, if the characters are of a different race or a different gender or you know, a different ideology or a different point of view, that doesn’t mean the game isn’t for you. It could still be for you.”
It’s that philosophy, Salim says, that inspired him to make Tales of Kenzera more affordable than many other games, costing $20 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. But the harassment, he continues, has prompted him to make the game’s price even lower to try to make it more accessible to a larger audience.
He announces that starting today, Tales of Kenzera will be priced below $15 on Switch, praising Nintendo for “moving quickly on this.”
“I’m working with the team to bring this discount to all platforms and it’s going to run from now until the end of June because, you know, it just means so much to me, man,” he says.
“I believe this is just one way of showing you how serious I am about this,” he says. “Games are for everyone. Diverse games, they’re not about taking anything away from you. They are about adding something new because there is room for all of us.”
Salim’s statement comes as the games industry has seen a spike in social media harassment, prompting the International Game Developers Association (IDGA) to issue a statement on the issue in March. At the time, the organization said it was “deeply concerned about the increased harassment of historically marginalized developers and those who promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.”
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a side-scrolling action game that follows a young shaman named Zau who sets out to capture the spirits of three monsters as sacrifices to Kalunga, the God of Death, so that he can revive his father. Salim has been open about the fact that the game was inspired by his own father’s death, and in our review, IGN called it “a poignant love letter from a grieving son to their deceased father, told in clever and poignant allegories about sending restless spirits to the afterlife that he helps it stand out from the pack.”
In today’s video, Salim concludes by sending a message to other developers who have told personal stories that “uplift the marginalized and underrepresented.”
“Your work is so important, so important today,” he says. “Whether you realize it or not, you’re actually setting an example for the next generation of developers, creators, artists, just take that.” Keep doing what you’re doing. Thank you.”
Alex Steadman is IGN’s senior news editor, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
