Relooted has been an enormous shock for me. Trailers for the sport appeared to promote the sidescroller as a parkour-driven platformer recreation, however after taking part in it, I realized that it is at the start a heist recreation. Whereas nabbing your prize and assuredly maneuvering by way of obstacles to achieve the objective as quick as attainable is a core a part of the gameplay loop, the way more vital part is the precise planning and setup stage that happens beforehand, the place you tackle the position of a crew’s mastermind and plan out each step of the heist.
Set on the finish of the twenty first century, Relooted sees you play as Nomali, who places her intelligence and acrobatic prowess to good use when she will get roped into heading up a crew of on a regular basis residents turned thieves. The crew plans on breaking into museums and mansions throughout the West to steal again the African artifacts locked away in vaults. Not for private achieve, after all, however to return them to the place they rightfully belong.
Every mission begins with you mapping out the goal, figuring out which doorways will lock when the alarms sound, which home windows you possibly can break by way of, the place a zipline may be positioned, and different points of the heist. Throughout this starting stage, you possibly can transfer sure objects too, like tables that may be positioned to maintain a door from absolutely closing, or put right into a spot to behave as a vault to achieve in any other case unreachable ledges. As soon as you are taking the artifact, the alarms will sound and you will have only some seconds to make your getaway. Your job is to organize sufficient in order that the parkour problem in entrance of you is fast and doable, and most missions haven’t got a singular resolution.
From what I’ve performed, it makes for a satisfying, puzzle-driven expertise that rewards you for experimenting and making an attempt to unravel a heist in your personal manner. I actually loved the half-hour of the sport I’ve performed, falling in love with Relooted’s setting, characters, and gameplay loop. It is presently one among my most anticipated video games of 2025, largely for the way good it felt to see my well-laid plans culminate in good escapes or adaptation within the second leading to nail-biting shut calls.
Forward of Relooted’s launch, I spoke with a couple of members of South African studio Nyamakop to debate the sport’s futuristic African setting, improvement, and heist-driven gameplay. The sport is ready to launch for Xbox Sequence X|S and PC–it does not but have a agency launch date.
GameSpot: Whereas the Afrofuturism setting has an honest foothold in popular culture, a futuristic Africa does not. The place does the crew begin from when crafting this world and these characters, and the way do you keep away from simply utilizing Afrofuturism themes and tropes?
Inventive Director Ben Myres: So on the visible design aspect of the stuff, [narrative director Mohale Mashigo], me, and Bongane [Mahlangu], our artwork director and our idea artist, used to have some very intense battles and fights over how the character ought to look. As a result of there are some references, however there aren’t loads. It’s important to principally know idea artists on the continent which might be imagining future Africa and simply be capable of discover them on Pinterest and stuff. However there’s this rigidity between how ritualistic you need the characters to look.
You additionally want to think about the performance of the outfits. They’re working and doing a heist on the finish of the day. So it must be purposeful however perhaps not too functional–it nonetheless must be cool. And you then additionally have to [consider] how far sooner or later [the game is]. How futurist can we make it as nicely? Is it utterly alien? However if you happen to do this, then a few of the African and native place references grow to be tougher to identify for the individuals who know them and see them.
Mohale Mashigo: Some inspiration additionally got here from modern African designers.
When it comes to the make-up of the crew, are y’all all on this similar location?
Producer Sithe Ncube: Lots of people are primarily based in Johannesburg. Some persons are primarily based in Cape City, however we even have folks [elsewhere], like a 3D artist in Ethiopia. However even among the many people who find themselves engaged on the sport, there are folks [of] completely different backgrounds. I’m initially from Zambia. When I began on this, I was residing in Port Elizabeth and now I’m in Johannesburg. We additionally had folks work on the sport from Ghana [and] Nigeria. And the voice actors are additionally from [all over]. They’ve completely different backgrounds as nicely, all of that are fairly near the backgrounds of the particular characters.
For me personally, even earlier than I began engaged on this mission, I’ve been very occupied with what persons are doing in different components of Africa when it comes to recreation improvement.
I’m at all times very curious to find out about them [and] how [their heritage and background] truly lends itself to the sport. As a result of there are some situations the place it is like, perhaps we want a pronunciation for such a factor. And you’ll ask somebody who’s very shut with somebody within the crew and even simply somebody throughout the crew.
Even the surroundings artwork [is affected]. Somebody instructed me that they actually just like the rooftops in our recreation and I was like, “What?” I’ve actually by no means heard anybody touch upon rooftops, however they mentioned, “Yeah, you possibly can see that it is purposely African. It is good.”
I love that although! I love that there is simply somebody on the market that is like, “You realize Relooted? You realize that recreation? Superior African rooftops. Peak authenticity in terms of rooftops.” Talking of the rooftops–you spend a whole lot of time working alongside them as you propose stuff out. Does the sport ever put limits on that starting stage, just like the period of time you possibly can take?
Myres: I assume we thought of doing it sooner or later. I assume we would’ve even had variations the place we tried it out, however what we’re taking a look at is making an attempt to primarily adapt the heist filmic construction to a recreation. And to try this you nearly should deal with only one a part of the construction due to simply the way in which video games work. And the half we actually wished to deal with recreating was being in a heist montage from a heist movie and normally in movies you because the viewer do not know the plan till the top and also you watch them undergo the plan, however in video games you possibly can’t essentially do this. You’ll be able to’t have all this hidden data from the participant.
So we needed to deal with permitting the participant to determine the plan in order that after they’re executing it, they perceive what they have been doing. So because of this, we realized that placing that point stress there may weaken that side of it since you will not perceive the plan as nicely. And there are sometimes some fairly exhausting ranges the place if you happen to’ve missed a sure step in at the least the core path, there aren’t a whole lot of methods out. So we examined that concept [of a time limit], however it simply ended up ruining the type of rewarding feeling that you just get once you’re executing and flowing by way of a plan that you have made up your self. You’re feeling like a genius, like, “Rattling, that is my plan.”
With regards to heist video games, I assume there’s this nearly innate draw so as to add new methods and instruments so missions can develop more and more advanced. With regards to Relooted, when do you cease gaining new instruments? And does the sport hit a type of steady degree of complexity when that occurs?
Mashigo: So every crew member is actually the instrument that you just want and it’s important to [recruit them]. Within the story, you will see that, “Okay, I most likely cannot use the locksmith Trevor solely by himself,” after which narratively, it’s going to be like, “Nicely, you want to go discover anyone else,” and also you purchase [each member] slowly, however finally you learn to use the crew higher. As the degrees get greater, [you begin to realize that] they can not be in all places. They’re solely human. They are not magical. After which it’s important to determine, “I should put him right here as a result of I assume I can undergo there and perhaps she’ll be there.” And so your instruments are your crew truly, so you are feeling such as you’re working with folks.
Myres: I’m making an attempt to assume when does that finish precisely? When does Lusa be a part of the crew?
Mashigo: It ends at first of Chapter 6. That is when she joins.
Myres: Yeah, so it is like the start of Chapter 6 of the eight chapters [when] you get the final crew member after which there are some absurd or at the least one very absurd degree that it’s important to play [after that]. It is fairly sophisticated. So it does get extra sophisticated, however I assume it nearly asks you to be extra tactical and there is one degree in direction of that [point], someplace in these chapters that could be very elaborate and complicated.
Mashigo: It is a monster.
Myres: The demo you performed could be very compressed as a result of we wished folks to have the ability to see the most effective a part of the sport in a shorter time period, however it takes fairly some time to construct as much as that within the precise recreation as a result of there’s so many small, tiny mechanics that it’s important to perceive to be able to execute a heist absolutely. However the recreation is definitely fairly a sluggish burn of accelerating complexity–at least till chapter six. After which sooner or later between Chapter 6 and Chapter 8, we simply throw [in a monster level].
This interview was edited for each brevity and readability.