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Abubakar Salim on Metroidvanias as a vehicle for grief and storytelling

"The beautiful thing about what Black Panther did was it essentially showed there can be heroes that look like me," say…

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU - The Game Awards Watch on YouTube"[The success of Black Panther] connects to everyone on a deep level of just wanting to hear more cool stories," says Salim. Image credit: Surgent Studios Of course, there are plenty of examples of Metroidvanias out there - the pair cite the likes of Ori and the Blind Forest, Dead Cells, and Guacamelee as key inspirations - so it must be tricky to stand out. For players, there can be an overfamiliarity with genre conventions and its rigid structure too, so the pair decided to have lead character Zau equipped with certain obvious abilities from the start like a double jump and dash.

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