Bafta winner keeps award hidden from young daughter

Abubakar Salim's Bafta-winning game is his first project in the industry

A Bafta-winning game developer has had to hide his award in a desk drawer so his young daughter does not use the weighty award as a toy.

Abubakar Salim, from Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, made Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a game about the grief he suffered after his father died.

Mr Salim, who is also an actor in the TV show House of the Dragon, went from the set of the Game of Thrones spin-off to the Bafta Games Awards where his idea won the Game Beyond Entertainment category.

"[The award] is literally a weapon. So, I'm like, 'Right, let me just be super careful with this'," he said.

"My daughter will literally look at it and be like, 'Oh, that's really cool to play with'."

Tales of Kenzera: Zau was the first game made by Surgent Studios which has staff working remotely around the globe

The Bafta winner was emotional as he accepted the prize at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

His father Ali Salim, 66, died of cancer in 2013, and after Mr Salim founded Surgent Studios in 2019 he began working on a game to explore his feelings of grief.

"We could have made just a fun game that we kind of throw out there... But I think because it is so personal, it really feels like we put our all in it," he said.

"We do hear it from people all the time, people who have lost either a parent or a friend or even a pet, how much this game has had an effect on them.

"I look at this Bafta and it's so surreal and weird to think like, 'Oh, the reason we won that was because our game meant something to people'."

The game's win at the Baftas has been a positive assurance to Mr Salim and his studio following some challenging times

After releasing Tales of Kenzera: Zau in June 2024, Mr Salim said he felt racially targeted when he received hateful comments online, which suggested the game's narrative was about an "agenda to force diversity" rather than the emotion of grief.

A few months after the game's launch Surgent Studios cut more than a dozen jobs because of funding issues, and in October 2024, it placed all game development work on hiatus.

However, following a partnership with Japanese firm Pocketpair it is now working on an as-yet untitled horror game.

Mr Salim said: "It has been gruelling and brutal and there was a real moment where I was just like, 'Why do we do this? Why do we put ourselves, as artists, through such pain?'

"What was really nice about the Bafta is it just reaffirms and gives the confidence boost of being like, 'Hey, you're doing the right thing'. That in itself is so great."