Dead Take is the latest gem from the creative minds at Surgent Studios. It’s a coming-together of some of the most stunning actors in the industry, forming a collective to tell some dark stories that are based on real-world experiences pulled from years in the wider gaming landscape.
In Dead Take, players explore a mansion belonging to a beastly Hollywood producer, laden with the trappings of wealth and power. It’s a psychological horror that pulls players through some uncomfortable sequences, but it’s also an innovative fusion between live-action segments and traditional animation.
I caught up with Abubakar Salim to learn why Dead Take evolved how it did.
‘So Many Horror Stories’
In the upcoming episode of the Insider Gaming Developer Spotlight, I speak with Abubakar Salim, creative director at Surgent Studios. We dive into Dead Take, the studio’s upcoming first-person horror title that has actors performing live-action roles as well as offering up vocal talents for the production.
The list of performers appearing in Dead Take is stunning, featuring the likes of Sam Lake, Ben Starr, Neil Newbon, Laura Bailey, Alanah Pearce, and more. I asked Abubakar what it took to pull them all together, and why he selected these actors in particular:
It was a bit of asking mates for favours!
The way I cast things, I always ask who’s going to deliver this role with authenticity and truth? What’s great about Neil is that he has been around the block, so he gets it, and he understands it. He has experienced it all.
Ben also, Ben is incredibly talented. He didn’t just appear yesterday; he has also got that experience and those chops, and they’re both incredibly different. We’ve shared so many horror stories about the industry. This just makes sense.
It’s not often that you see a game featuring live-action sequences, and in Dead Take, they’re immensely important to how the story unravels. This alternate perspective allows us to see our favourite voice actors like never before, and hitting that nail on the head was pivotal for Surgent, Abubakar said:
It’s my love, or need, to see these actors who are so known for voicing characters live. We’re so used to seeing Neil as Astarion or Ben as Clive, and I’m like, these guys are actors, they are proper actors.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a game that championed that? That kind of shared that as a whole and really pushed that?
That’s how Dead Take was born, what if we made a horror game about Hollywood, something that we all know, but a game, because the game industry is a different beast, and what if we pulled in some of the biggest names in the industry today?
It’s a flashback to the Pixel Pack, a group assembled by Newbon himself earlier this year. The Pixel Pack is a culmination of the industry’s top talent, fighting for representation and for the responsible management of AI in gaming, amongst other things. Many of the stars in Dead Take hold a spot within the Pixel Pack.
One of the missions of the Pixel Pack is to show the world that voice actors aren’t just people crammed into a booth reading lines; it goes way beyond that.
Dead Take will be released exclusively on PC on July 31. Let me know on the Insider Gaming forum if you plan to grab a copy.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Fortnite’s Blitz Royale is getting six-player teams
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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