Silver Rain Games, the new developer co-founded by BAFTA-nominated Assassin’s Creed star Abubakar Salim, will become the next team working 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 other EA Originals, such as A Way Out, Fe and Sea of Solitude.
The announcement closes a successful first year for Silver Rain Games, a remote studio headed by former BAFTA Games program manager Melissa Phillips and Salim himself – whom you can get to know better as Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins or Pai in the Ridley Scott series from HBO Raised by Wolves.
“It was at that time last year that we announced that we had a studio and – obviously, it was quite a year,” Phillips told me via video call this week. “We launched the studio three days after the first block, we knew we would be remote, so we were protected – it was pure luck – but now we have increased the team of just me and Abu screaming at each other in a cafe buy for 30 people worldwide . “
Salim was also on the call, at a location in Cape Town to film the second season of Raised by Wolves. I wonder if the studio choice for remote work was because Phillips knew that his studio co-founder would always be wandering through the film sets.
“The remote choice was an active choice,” Salim laughed. “Partly inspired by [Ori and the Blind Forest developer] The way Moon Studios works, but also because of the idea of being able to work actively with different talents and people from all over the world who can give us different perspectives and different stories and share them in this small studio that exists online. “
But it was a game they were playing, right? EA’s press release mentions that Silver Rain Games will develop “exciting and innovative games and content in different entertainment media”. Was EA funding raised by the Wolves in the second season?
“Abu is an incredibly talented world-builder and we would never want to restrict ourselves to a form of media,” says Phillips. “But for now, we’re working on a game – and that’s my job, telling Abu to do just one thing first.”
For video game fans, Salim’s work on Assassin’s Creed Origins probably remains his most memorable work to date. Mentioning an impulse for different perspectives and stories, I asked him how his experience on the Ubisoft project – and the subsequent AC Sisterhood movement to celebrate women in game development and more inclusive storytelling – had informed his decisions by helping to create the new studio.
“The only thing I learned from my experience of working on Assassin’s Creed was that it was the first time I saw how behind the scenes of game creation,” said Salim. “What inspired this impulse for development was to be in a space where I was seeing so many hundreds of people working on building a world, creating this game. People – most of whom I spoke to – were all in love with the idea of building this world, passionate about building everything they do – the audio design, the art, the real coding elements. It was really inspiring to see.
“It really kicked off the idea of what it would really be like to make a game, with exciting people in the industry who have the same mindset, who have the same line of thought about it. And inclusive stories will come through the open and the open doors of being in positions Mel and I are in, and passing that same inspiration on to other people as well, other storytellers. “
“It comes from the strength of our team, from this closeness and working together, from sharing experiences and cultures,” added Phillips. “We are learning a lot – about what works and what doesn’t. We are learning a lot about our voice as a studio. Abu and I have been friends for a long time, but this is a different relationship.”
“We started this studio with the feeling that we wanted to do something impactful and great – and here we are talking about this incredible deal that we just signed with one of the biggest game companies in the world,” said Salim.
“We didn’t know how we were going to get there,” concluded Phillips. “We always believed in what we were doing and, little by little, as the team grew, we realized that we had something special”
Silver Rain Games’ initial project remains a secret for the time being, although with the EA signed there is hope that we will be able to see the game relatively soon during one of the publisher’s major press conferences. Or maybe Salim will appear at The Game Awards, as fellow EA Originals developer Josef Fares?
“Fuck Oscar!” Salim laughs, while Phillips claps his hands. “We just have to see what happens.”