The next game from Surgent Studio, following this year's Tales of Kenzera: Zau , is planned to be an Afrofuturist gothic-horror RPG, Eurogamer can reveal. Currently known as Project Uso (the Swahili word for 'face'), it will be a continuation of the Tales of Kenzera world but will explore issues of identity following the birth of creator Abubakar Salim's daughter. Ahead of founding Surgent Studio, Salim was best known as a voice actor for his portrayal of Bayek in Assassin's Creed: Origins.
The announcement of Project Uso follows a difficult time for the studio, with staff facing both redundancy and racist abuse online. "As soon as my daughter was born I knew what I wanted to cook," Salim tells Eurogamer of the new project. "This idea stems from this question of 'who am I?' Zau was a question of 'who am I without a parent?' This is essentially looking at 'who am I now as a parent?' I really wanted to make this very dark and visceral, a cross between an RPG and a beat 'em up power fantasy.
" The result (so far it's just a prototype) is an isometric Afrofuturist gothic-horror action-RPG, with shades of Disco Elysium , the Batman Arkham games, and Resident Evil. Players will take the role of a vampiric android known as The Solost, fashioned to cradle the spirits of the deceased. However, the android also bears the soul of Eshu, the god of chaos, continuing the Bantu Tales influence from the previous game.
As such, players will have the powers of both an android and a god, but the.