House of the Dragon star thinks publishers need to stop “trying to recreate the next Fortnite”

Tales of Kenzera: Zau Director and House of the Dragon star Abubakar Salim is an unapologetic gamer. We had the chance to sit down with him and get stuck into his thoughts on the development process and where he feels the industry is right now.

In between bumming around the floor of Australia’s biggest gaming convention, the team at Dexerto was able to steal some time with the multitalented Abubakar Salim during his packed PAX schedule.

Known best for his roles as Alyn of Hull in HBO’s House of the Dragon and Bayek of Siwa in Assassin’s Creed Origins, Salim also founded Surgent Studios in order to break into game development. The studio’s first release; Tales of Kenzera: Zau was a delight to play and our own review called it “impossible not to recommend”.

Abu is currently in Australia to speak at both PAX and SXSW and he was kind enough to make some time for the team at Dexerto. During our interview, we probed him about his perspective on video games as both a hobby and a profession.

A new perspective

Salim first introduced the world to Tales of Kenzera: Zau during The Game Awards 2023 and the game exists as a sort of meditation on grief informed by the loss of his own father. During a panel at PAX Australia, he reflected on the role his father played in nurturing his passion for video games and how they shared their experiences.

Being a self-professed Gamer with a capital ‘G’, we wanted to see how the experience of developing a video game from the ground up changed how Abu engaged with his favorite pastime.

“It’s made me have a much deeper appreciation for developers and the work that actually goes into it,” he explained. “I always have seen and known that games are an art form and an expression but seeing actually how the sausage is made is I think so important.”

This mindset of Abu’s extends into the realm of film and TV now that he’s worked a few projects in that space. He talked about having a “deeper appreciation and understanding” of the work that goes into these massive endeavors, especially where interactive media is concerned.

“I think like there is a, there is a real sort of magic to be learned about it and I think, having now developed a game, I just look at games so differently,” he elaborated.

Advocating for games as art

Suprisingly, when we asked Abu about whether or not he’d been able to share his love of games with co-stars on projects like House of the Dragon or Raised by Wolves, he revealed there weren’t a whole lot of die-hard gamers in the space, at least not that he’d worked closely with.

“The first thing they think of when it comes to games is FIFA,” he joked. While they may not have started out as interested in games as himself, Abu did let slip that he enjoyed bringing people in.

“Especially with House of The Dragon, what’s really exciting is you say ‘I’m playing games or I’m making games’ and they’re like, ‘What does that mean?’ And then you open them to this new world.”

His House of the Dragon co-star Steve Toussaint, known for his role as Corlys Velaryon, joined Abu on Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Toussaint brought the character of Bomani to life with his voicework but despite taking the role and appearing in Disney’s film adaptation of Prince of Persia, he wasn’t immersed in video games as a hobby.

“It’s really funny, he didn’t really know much about it, but when I told him about it and got him involved in it, he started really enjoying and appreciating the art form of it all,” Salim explained.

He elaborated on his own surprise that people involved in a narratively focused medium hadn’t been introduced to video games as a vehicle for storytelling.

For the love of the game

“It’s a fascinating one because it’s one of those things where I think the storytelling aspect of games still hasn’t hit home for more general audiences,” Abu pondered. According to him, it’s up to people inside the games industry to bridge that gap.

“The one thing that I’ve realized about the industry as a whole is that games are still very much treated as a business rather than necessarily as an art form,” he clarified. “I think it needs to be seen more as an artistic expression rather than as a business because then it allows more daring games to be celebrated for their boldness rather than being a niche.”

Like any entertainment industry, video games represent the potential for a lot of financial gain and it becomes natural for larger organizations to pursue that. According to Salim however, this is a detriment to the perception of gaming from those outside the industry and hobby.

“There’s a reason why like a lot of these big game publishers and companies are going for the games as a service model. They want to try and recreate the next Fortnite because it’s going to make them more money,” he posited.

“Games shouldn’t be about that. It shouldn’t be about money, it should be about expression, it should be about enjoyment, about storytelling, about connectivity, about interactivity because that’s the thing that film and TV have really hit the mark with. It’s about story, it’s about entertainment,” he continued.

“I think once that is embraced, games will be seen more as a medium for storytelling rather than a business or product.”