In game development, iteration is everything. Developers learn to create games in fact making them. Surgent is no different. With their first game they formed a team and found their voice. Now, they want to make a follow-up worthy of zau.
“We want to emulate that feeling of building with a community of people, with gamers in mind,” says Salim. The team has already created a Metroidvania. RPGs are the next thing they want to shoot. “And if Planescape: Torment had a baby with Batman: Arkham and that type of combat, that kinetic,” he says of the game’s inspirations.
As for being Afrogothic, Salim says the idea is to mix African culture with Mary Shelley sensibilities. Like its predecessor, the game is based on elements of African folklore and spiritual beliefs. Salim also chose to establish use in the same universe as zauhe says, to reflect “the different nuances of life and the world as a whole.”
For zauSurgent Studios has partnered with EA Originals, Electronic Arts’ initiative to fund small, independent projects, a model that Salim says traditionally means everything is kept secret until the game is almost finished. This time, the studio wants to involve its potential players in the planning process by showing its hand while it’s still a prototype.
Game studios often use early access or participation to better shape their games; Supergiant is currently gathering player feedback for its long-awaited sequel to hell. Salim hopes that by engaging Surgent’s audience from the beginning, they can also help gamers better understand game development and how the industry works.
This is much-needed literacy in online gaming communities, where conspiracies about the impact of consulting firms, “wokeness,” and “forced DEI” have crept into conversations with and about game developers. game studios. Developers seek third-party guidance for a variety of reasons: confidential reads, additional writing resources, to ensure accuracy, and more. Firaxis, for example, worked with shawnee tribes about your next strategy game Civilization VII by Sid Meier to ensure they adequately represented the culture.
Surgent is no different. Salim sought help from many people when working on his first game. The content creators have focused their collaboration with the consulting firm Sweet Baby Inc., which has been the subject of an ongoing harassment campaign for advising studios on the representation of minority groups in their games. On forums and on YouTube, they claim that Surgent’s attempts to bring diversity to games are the reason for the studio’s financial problems.