BERLIN: Is it still theft when you're stealing something that was looted? In Relooted, a game where you are tasked with recovering African artefacts from museum storerooms and private collections in Europe, it feels like restitution, not robbery.
This is a rare game that taps into a major debate raging between activists and African governments on one side and European museums and officials on the other.
Many African artefacts that have been held in museums since the colonial era are now subject to growing provenance research and political pressure: some governments and museums have formally agreed returns (notably around the Benin Bronzes), while others still move slowly, handling claims individually and leaving many objects in storage pending research, negotiations or legal changes.
The game brings this issue into a time of direct action in the near future. Its world has an Afrofuturist aesthetic: holograms and force fields sit alongside traditional patterns and materials.
You play as Nomali, a parkour artist recruited by her grandmother to retrieve historical pieces from museums and private collections – those that have not been part of official looted-art repatriation efforts – and bring them back to the African continent.
The South African development team at Nyamakop modelled the artefacts in the game on real works of art held in European museums. There are 70 of them in total. Players can also call up more information about each one: where and when it originated, and what its historical background is.
This information is provided in the first phase of each mission, the team briefing. The game then moves into the planning phase, which unfolds as a 2D side-scroller.
Players must first map out routes through buildings – first to the artefact, then the escape route out. In this phase the game plays like a puzzle: switches must be activated and doors propped open with tables to ensure a successful retreat.
The moment the artefact is collected, an alarm sounds and the escape begins. This is the action section of the game: Nomali sprints over obstacles, swings from chandeliers and smashes through windows in a race against the clock to reach the extraction point.
Over time, the planning becomes more complex and the escape routes more elaborate. New characters who support Nomali are also introduced.
The different phases bring welcome variety to Relooted, even if the story itself and the characters are the stronger argument for picking the game up. It is out on PC and Xbox and costs around €15 (RM70) or US$15 (RM62) on Steam. – dpa
