A new South African video game lets players reclaim looted African artifacts from Western museums through digital heists. Relooted, unveiled at the Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles earlier in June by Johannesburg-based game studio Nyamakop, is set in the late 21st century, where Africans take action themselves instead of waiting for Western institutions to do the ideal thing.
In the game, protagonist Nomali brings together a crew of ordinary citizens-turned-thieves to reclaim 70 real-life African artifacts from Western institutions and return them to the continent after they were taken during the colonial era.
The museums are not real, but the artifacts are, with the Ethiopian Maqdala manuscripts and Zambia’s Broken Hill Skull all being part of a game whose concept is steeped in history and the discussion over the return of stolen cultural artifacts.
“A French government report estimated that 90 per cent of sub-Saharan African cultural heritage is in the possession of Western collections,” Nyamakop producer Sithe Ncube told PC Gamer.
“That is millions upon millions of deeply important cultural, spiritual, and personal artifacts – including human remains – that aren’t in their rightful place.”
A 30-person team from across Africa, including Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania, worked on the game, attaching representation and authenticity to the project.
“A lot of people are based in Johannesburg,” Ncube said in an interview with Gamespot, referring to the South African city where “Relooted’s” game studio is based. “Some people are based in Cape Town, but we also have people [elsewhere], like a 3D artist in Ethiopia.”
“I’m originally from Zambia,” she said. “When I started on this, I was living in Port Elizabeth, and now I’m in Johannesburg. We also had people work on the game from Ghana [and] Nigeria. And the voice actors are also from [all over]. They have different backgrounds as well, all of which are pretty close to the backgrounds of the actual characters.”
“Because there are some instances where it’s like, maybe we need a pronunciation for this type of thing,” she explained. “And you can ask someone who’s very close with someone in the team, or even just someone within the team.”
Besides helping to produce “Relooted,” Ncube created Prosearium, an initiative designed to “get 1000 African women of all backgrounds to create and upload their own games on a platform designed to convey the digital experiences of women across the continent.”
“Sometimes you can see the common thread among communities across the continent, which is usually related to the lack of accessibility of resources when compared to the Western games industry… It is difficult to find local game publishers and financing options almost throughout the continent,” Ncube told Forbes Africa.
She entered the gaming industry in 2013 in Lusaka, Zambia, following a meeting with a local game developer. In 2014, Ncube moved to South Africa to study computer science and get acquainted with the local game development scene. “In South Africa, there is an art focused and often experimental approach to game development that often mirrors what you see in other places outside Africa,” she said.
Her game, Relooted, was launched at the right time, as people increase calls on Western countries to return artifacts looted during colonization. This year, 119 Benin Bronzes, which were looted by British troops, were returned to Nigeria. The artifacts were stolen from the Kingdom of Benin in modern-day Nigeria by British soldiers in 1897.
The Netherlands returned the artifacts in June, and they included human and animal figures, plaques, royal regalia and a bell, the AP reported.
In 2022, about 72 objects were returned from a museum in London, and 31 were returned from Rhode Island in the U.S.
A California museum also returned seven royal artifacts to Ghana’s traditional Ashanti king in early 2024, marking his silver jubilee and representing the first planned handovers of Ashanti treasures looted during colonial times.
Ghanaian royal treasures, including a gold necklace, an ornamental chair, and an elephant tail whisk, were returned from the Fowler Museum and presented during a chiefs’ ceremony at Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, Ashanti region.
“Relooted” doesn’t yet have a launch date, but a demo has been released on Steam.
