Abubakar Salim has quite a lot of beef with Hollywood—and he’s getting it off his chest in his newest online game. The actor, identified for his roles as Alyn of Hull on Home of the Dragon and Father in Raised By Wolves, has been balancing his time between the massive display screen and gaming, two industries which were affected by a slew of comparable points: lengthy hours, shrinking jobs, abuse of energy, and, extra lately, the fast rise of synthetic intelligence use and generative AI.
Salim’s sophomore recreation, Lifeless Take, is a narrative of Hollywood, ambition, and exploitation, dressed up as a horror recreation that takes intention at his business’s issues, from corruption to AI use. “Hollywood is pure horror,” Salim says.
Lifeless Take is a agency departure from his debut recreation, Tales of Kenzera: Zau. The place Zau advised a vibrant, heartfelt story about grief, Lifeless Take is a psychological thriller set at the hours of darkness rooms of a Hollywood mansion. After his good friend Vinny goes lacking, struggling actor Chase breaks into the house of the business’s hottest director, Duke Cain, seeking clues. The sport is an escape room by the use of residence invasion; room-by-room puzzles unlock extra areas of the home, whether or not which means digging by means of bedrooms and closets, or navigating a poolhouse. Duke’s area is affected by clues a few misplaced baby and a failed marriage, together with hints about how far he’s keen to push actors in his movies.
Salim likens writing the sport to an exorcism. “You hear these tales,” he says of whispers about headline-making abuse and unhealthy conduct. “It’s horrific. To then make a recreation that explores that felt like ‘oh fuck you’ to the business and the machine. It truly is mad what folks get away with, the quantity of toxicity that exists on an business stage.” Lifeless Take lets gamers piece collectively these kinds of tales, a lot as you’d in actual life, by means of emails, notes, and context. An actress caught in a MeToo-like scandal. A director pitting his actors towards one another, or pushing them past their limits.
All through their search, gamers discover flash drives containing video clips of the sport’s actors. Salim made the bizarre option to let these scenes play out as real-life footage as a substitute of as animation. Though using full-motion-video in video games has loved newfound reputation, because of titles like Immortality, it’s nonetheless unusual. Ben Starr (Ultimate Fantasy XVI, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) and Neil Newbon (Baldur’s Gate 3, Date The whole lot) act as the sport’s leads, Chase and Vinny. Each actors have labored for years, however it’s solely lately that they’ve had the highlight, because of extra distinguished roles in fashionable video games. “They’re fucking good and I wanna present that, quite than placing them behind a personality,” Salim says.
As a artistic skilled, there’s quite a bit for Salim to dislike about AI use—and he actually does dislike quite a bit—however one concern stands out to him: photos or movies being “bastardized” in methods actors and artists haven’t any management over. “I feel that is disturbing and disgusting,” he says. “The very last thing I need is somebody to generate a horrific picture of myself after which my daughter to bump into it as we’re older. That may be horrible.”
