A new video game called Relooted lets you play as robbers. You sneak into big museums in the UK and the West. You take real African treasures and bring them back home to Africa. The game makes people talk about giving stolen items back. Right now, many African countries are asking Europe and America to return old artifacts taken long ago. This game came out at a perfect time for that fight.
https://x.com/BBCAfrica/status/2021177401061871696
The makers are from South Africa. Their studio is Nyamakop. The game launched just last week. You can play on PCs or home consoles like PlayStation or Xbox. In the game, you control a cool team of four Africans. There is a parkour guy who jumps over walls and runs on roofs. A security expert who turns off alarms and opens doors. A hacker who breaks into computers. And a fast driver for quick getaways. They work together like in movies such as Ocean’s Eleven, but with African heroes.
The story is set far ahead, in the late 2100s. By then, Western museums signed papers to give the artifacts back. But they keep waiting and making excuses. So your team steps in. You do 70 missions to steal back true items. For example, shiny gold weights from the Asante people in Ghana. They sit in London’s Wallace Collection today. Or the Kabwe 1 skull, found in Zambia. It’s now in London’s Natural History Museum. These are real things players grab in the game.
Playing feels exciting. You run fast, jump high, climb pipes, and solve tricky puzzles. Like finding codes or moving boxes. But the museums are not copies of real ones. That keeps it easy to build levels. Europe looks like a plain “Old World”—gray buildings, no fun details, all mixed up. America is the “Shiny Place”—full of bright lights, big screens, like Times Square in New York, plus Las Vegas casinos. This is on purpose. It makes fun of how Western movies show Africa as one sad place with mud huts, poor kids, and no differences between countries.
Boss Ben Myres got the idea from a family visit to London. They went to the British Museum. His mom saw the Nereid Monument. It’s a fancy old tomb from Turkey, in the southwest part. British men took it apart stone by stone in the 1800s. Turkey’s leaders back then said it was fine. But Mom was mad. “How can they steal a whole building?” she said. She laughed and told Ben, “You should make a game about this!” Ben liked it but changed to African treasures. He learned how colonizers took gold, masks, and bones from Africa during bad times.
Making the game took a long time, 6 to 8 years. It cost millions of pounds, like a big movie budget. Myres wanted the best graphics and sounds from workers in southern Africa. No big Hollywood help.
Myres says the game teaches without bossing you. “It’s like an invite,” he told The Telegraph newspaper. “Learn about African history and ways of life. Most people don’t know enough.” For every item, you read quick facts on its story and home. Then you decide yourself: Should it stay in a cold museum or go back to Africa? The game flips jokes, too. It shows West as boring and fake, the same as the bad views of Africa.
Public reactions on (X) Twitter show strong criticism and controversy around the game.
One user openly celebrated its failure, expressing satisfaction that it did not succeed.
Another user made a sarcastic comment about the game’s theme. They questioned the idea behind it and suggested that many people may not have bought it, showing doubts about how popular or successful it would be.
A third user criticized the reporting itself, arguing that the article failed to address claims that the game may be distorting or misrepresenting history.
This game is mostly for young Africans living in Europe or America. They want to feel close to their roots. When Myres shared the pitch “A future heist where Africans take back real stolen treasures,” everyone chuckled but got excited. It fits now because Ghana’s king begged UK Labour party for Asante gold. Zambia is talking to get the Kabwe skull. Relooted joins the real debate. Not yelling on one side, but letting you play and think.
Some people might say, “This makes stealing look good!” But for gamers who love action like Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed, it’s fresh. It mixes fun heists with true history. Players learn while jumping and winning.
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