Silver Rain Games, the new developer co-founded with BAFTA-nominated Assassin’s Creed star Abubakar Salim, becomes the next team to work under the EA Originals label.
This means that the studios’ debut project will be funded by EA and shown on the same stage as the publisher’s biggest games, as well as co-EA Originals such as A Way Out, Fe and Sea of Solitude.
The announcement is a successful first year for Silver Rain Games, a remote studio run by former BAFTA Games program manager Melissa Phillips and Salim herself – who you may know better than Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins of Father in the Ridley Scott HBO series Raised by Wolves.
“It was last year this time that we announced that we have a studio and that of course it’s been quite a year,” Phillips told me via video call this week. “We launched the studio three days after the first closing, we knew we would be remote, so we were covered – it was pure luck – but we have now grown the team of just me and Abu who are in each other a coffee scream buys 30 people worldwide. ‘
Salim was also on call in Cape Town to film Raised at Wolves’ season two. I ask if the studio’s choice to work remotely was because Phillips knew that her co – founder of the studio would always wander to movie sets.
“The remote choice was an active choice,” Salim laughed. “Partly inspired by [Ori and the Blind Forest developer] Moon Studios’ way of working, but also through the idea of being able to actively work with different talent and people from around the world who can give us different perspectives and different stories and share it in this small studio that exists online. ‘
But it was a game they make, right? EA’s press release states that Silver Rain Games will develop a challenging and innovative game and content on various mediums of entertainment. Has EA funding been raised by Wolves season two?
“Abu is an incredibly talented world builder and we will never want to limit ourselves to one form of media,” says Phillips. “But for now, we’re working on a game – and it’s my job to tell Abu to do the one thing first.”
For fans of video games, Salim’s work on Assassin’s Creed Origins remains probably his most memorable work to date. Mentioning an insistence on different perspectives and different stories, I asked him how his experience with the Ubisoft project – and the subsequent AC Sisterhood movement to celebrate women in game development and more inclusive storytelling – informed his decisions during the setting up the new studio.
“The one thing I took from my experience at Assassin’s Creed was that it was the first time I saw the work behind the scenes making games,” Salim said. “What inspired this drive for development was to be in a space where I saw so many hundreds of people building a world and creating this one game. The people – the ones I talked to the most – everyone was in love with this idea of building this world, in love with building whatever they do – the sound design, the art, the real coding elements, it was really inspiring to see.
“It really started with the idea of what it would be like to make a game, with exciting people in the industry who have the same mentality, who have the same mindset. And the inclusive stories come through the openness and the open doors to to be positions in which Mel and I are, and by passing on the same inspiration to other people, including other storytellers. ‘
“It comes from the strength of our team, the closeness and collaboration, to share experiences and cultures,” Phillips added. “We learn a lot – about what works and what doesn’t. We learn a lot about our voice as a studio. Abu and I have been friends for a long time, but it’s a different relationship.”
“We started this studio with the feeling that we wanted to do something impressive and amazing – and here we are talking about this incredible agreement we have just signed with one of the largest gaming companies in the world,” said Salim.
“We did not know how we would get there,” Phillips concluded. “We just always believed in what we made, and slowly as the team grew, we realized we had something special.”
The initial project of Silver Rain Games remains under scrutiny for the time being, but with EA signed, the hope is that we will see the game relatively soon during one of the publisher’s most important press conferences. Or will Salim show up at The Game Awards, like his co-EA Originals developer Josef Fares?
“Fuck the Oscars!” Salim laughs, while Phillips feels face. “We’ll just have to see what happens.”