Abubakar Salim has a lot of beef with Hollywood—and he’s getting it off his chest in his latest video game. The actor, known for his roles as Alyn of Hull on House of the Dragon and Father in Raised By Wolves, has been balancing his time between the big screen and gaming, two industries that have been affected by a slew of similar issues: long hours, shrinking jobs, abuse of power, and, more recently, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence use and generative AI.
Salim’s sophomore game, Dead Take, is a story of Hollywood, ambition, and exploitation, dressed up as a horror game that takes aim at his industry’s problems, from corruption to AI use. “Hollywood is pure horror,” Salim says.
Dead Take is a firm departure from his debut game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Where Zau told a vibrant, heartfelt story about grief, Dead Take is a psychological thriller set in the dark rooms of a Hollywood mansion. After his friend Vinny goes missing, struggling actor Chase breaks into the home of the industry’s hottest director, Duke Cain, in search of clues. The game is an escape room by way of home invasion; room-by-room puzzles unlock more areas of the house, whether that means digging through bedrooms and closets, or navigating a poolhouse. Duke’s domain is littered with clues about a lost child and a failed marriage, along with hints about how far he’s willing to push actors in his films.
Salim likens writing the game to an exorcism. “You hear these stories,” he says of whispers about headline-making abuse and bad behavior. “It is horrific. To then make a game that explores that felt like ‘oh fuck you’ to the industry and the machine. It really is mad what people get away with, the amount of toxicity that exists on an industry level.” Dead Take lets players piece together these sorts of stories, much as you would in real life, through emails, notes, and context. An actress caught in a MeToo-like scandal. A director pitting his actors against each other, or pushing them beyond their limits.
Throughout their search, players find flash drives containing video clips of the game’s actors. Salim made the unusual choice to let these scenes play out as real-life footage instead of as animation. Although the use of full-motion-video in games has enjoyed newfound popularity, thanks to titles like Immortality, it’s still uncommon. Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) and Neil Newbon (Baldur’s Gate 3, Date Everything) act as the game’s leads, Chase and Vinny. Both actors have worked for years, but it’s only recently that they’ve had the spotlight, thanks to more prominent roles in popular games. “They’re fucking good and I wanna show that, rather than putting them behind a character,” Salim says.
As a creative professional, there’s a lot for Salim to dislike about AI use—and he certainly does dislike a lot—but one fear stands out to him: images or videos being “bastardized” in ways actors and artists have no control over. “I think that’s disturbing and disgusting,” he says. “The last thing I want is someone to generate a horrific image of myself and then my daughter to stumble upon it as we’re older. That would be horrible.”