TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
The creator of Tales of Kenzera: Zau discusses playing No Rest for the Wicked, Dave the Diver, and his lifelong love of Solitaire.
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Welcome to Disk Cleanup, our regular weekend column delving into the PCs of PC gaming luminaries. Come back every weekend to read a new interview, digging into the important questions, like "how tidy is your desktop?" and "what game will you never uninstall?"
Abubakar Salim, actor and founder of Surgent Studios, first got into PC gaming through the classic Windows pack-in games. "Pinball, Minesweeper, and bloody Solitaire," he says. "My mum and dad taught me how to play Solitaire on the PC, and then we got some actual physical cards."
Growing up, Salim was educated in PC gaming through an army of classic strategy game like Age of Empires, Civilization, Warcraft and Command & Conquer. "A lot of these were led by my dad buying the games," he says. "The first ever game I saw to play on PC where I was like 'I need to play this' would probably have to be World of Warcraft."
Salim initially became involved in the games industry as an actor, landing a leading role as Bayek in Assassin's Creed: Origins. Since then, he's starred in the Ridley Scott-produced drama Raised by Wolves, and founded Surgent Studios, developer of Tales of Kenzera Zau and Dead Take.
Surgent's latest project is FixForce, a cooperative physics puzzler recently released into Steam early access, where robots embark on post-apocalyptic maintenance jobs by building platforms out of in-game objects. FixForce was inspired by a video of a Baldur's Gate 3 player building a massive staircase out of crates. "It reminded me of Garry's Mod, building crazy, weird shit and just laughing at the ridiculousness of it," he says.
Together, we donned our hard-hats and dived into the guts of Salim's PC. We inspected the foundations of PC gaming, kicked the tyres of some of its latest releases, and scheduled Salim's desktop screen for destruction.
Abubakar Salim is the founder of Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios, as well as being an accomplished voice and screen actor. His portrayal of Bayek in Assassin's Creed: Origins netted him a BAFTA nomination, and he's starred in various games, TV shows and films, most recently HBO's House of the Dragon.
I am flicking between No Rest for the Wicked and Dave the Diver. I've got a weird, very eclectic [taste]. Ben S...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
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GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Welcome to Disk Cleanup, our regular weekend column delving into the PCs of PC gaming luminaries. Come back every weekend to read a new interview, digging into the important questions, like "how tidy is your desktop?" and "what game will you never uninstall?"
Abubakar Salim, actor and founder of Surgent Studios, first got into PC gaming through the classic Windows pack-in games. "Pinball, Minesweeper, and bloody Solitaire," he says. "My mum and dad taught me how to play Solitaire on the PC, and then we got some actual physical cards."
Growing up, Salim was educated in PC gaming through an army of classic strategy game like Age of Empires, Civilization, Warcraft and Command & Conquer. "A lot of these were led by my dad buying the games," he says. "The first ever game I saw to play on PC where I was like 'I need to play this' would probably have to be World of Warcraft."
Salim initially became involved in the games industry as an actor, landing a leading role as Bayek in Assassin's Creed: Origins. Since then, he's starred in the Ridley Scott-produced drama Raised by Wolves, and founded Surgent Studios, developer of Tales of Kenzera Zau and Dead Take.
Surgent's latest project is FixForce, a cooperative physics puzzler recently released into Steam early access, where robots embark on post-apocalyptic maintenance jobs by building platforms out of in-game objects. FixForce was inspired by a video of a Baldur's Gate 3 player building a massive staircase out of crates. "It reminded me of Garry's Mod, building crazy, weird shit and just laughing at the ridiculousness of it," he says.
Together, we donned our hard-hats and dived into the guts of Salim's PC. We inspected the foundations of PC gaming, kicked the tyres of some of its latest releases, and scheduled Salim's desktop screen for destruction.
Abubakar Salim is the founder of Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios, as well as being an accomplished voice and screen actor. His portrayal of Bayek in Assassin's Creed: Origins netted him a BAFTA nomination, and he's starred in various games, TV shows and films, most recently HBO's House of the Dragon.
I am flicking between No Rest for the Wicked and Dave the Diver. I've got a weird, very eclectic [taste]. Ben S...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?