A South African Studio Made a Game About Stealing Back Africa's Stolen Artifacts. Then the Developers Were Denied Visas to Show It.

On February 10, 2026, a studio of roughly 30 people in Braamfontein, Johannesburg released Relooted on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. The game is an Africanfuturist heist adventure in which players break into museums around the world to recover stolen African artifacts and return them to their countries of origin. Each of the 70 artifacts in the game is real. Every one of them is currently held in a Western institution, according to Game Developer.

Four months later, members of the Nyamakop team applied for visas to attend Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, where Relooted had been selected for exhibition. Their applications were denied. Ben Myres, the studio's co-founder, told GamesRadar: "It's kind of messed up to be making a game about reclaiming African artifacts that are in Western countries, and Africans can't even visit those artifacts." The game shipped on Xbox Game Pass on day one. It won Best in Community Empowerment at the Games for Change Awards. And the people who made it could not enter the country where the ceremony took place, according to GamesRadar.

What is Relooted actually about?

The premise is straightforward. Players assemble a crew of thieves, each with distinct abilities, and execute heists on museums across Europe and North America. The targets are real objects: Benin Bronzes, Maqdala treasures from Ethiopia, Kuba textiles from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Akan goldweights from Ghana. The game identifies each artifact by name, explains its cultural significance, and names the institution currently holding it, according to Eurogamer.

Narrative director Mohale Mashigo, a South African novelist, described the game's genre as "Africanfuturist" rather than "Afrofuturist," a deliberate distinction. "Afrofuturism was coined by a white man in the 1990s to describe Black American art," Mashigo told Kotaku. "Africanfuturism centers African people imagining African futures from an African perspective. That's what this game does. These are our things. We're imagining a world where we take them back." Mashigo's 2018 essay collection Intruders introduced the Africanfuturist framework to South African literary discourse, and she carried that lens directly into Relooted's script, according to Kotaku.

How much of Africa's cultural heritage is outside the continent?

In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned art historian Benedicte Savoy and Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr to produce a report on African cultural objects in French museums. The Sarr-Savoy Report, published in November 2018, found that approximately 90% of Africa's material cultural heritage is held outside the continent, according to the report itself. The Quai Branly Museum in Paris alone holds more than 70,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa. The British Museum holds approximately 73,000 African objects. Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa holds 180,000, many acquired during the colonial administration of the Congo, according to the Smithsonian.

The report recommended that France return objects taken without consent, particularly those acquired through military expeditions, scientific missions conducted under colonial authority, and objects obtained through "conditions of duress." Macron committed to beginning restitutions. In November 2021, France returned 26 royal treasures to the Republic of Benin, objects looted by French troops from the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1892, according to NPR.

Where do the Benin Bronzes stand now?

The Benin Bronzes are the most prominent case in the global repatriation debate. British forces looted an estimated 3,000 to 10,000 metal plaques, sculptures, and ivory carvings from the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Benin during a punitive expedition in 1897. The objects were dispersed across museums worldwide, according to The Guardian.

Germany returned approximately 1,100 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria beginning in 2022, the largest single repatriation in the debate's history, according to Reuters. The Netherlands returned 119 objects. The Smithsonian Institution returned 29 Benin Bronzes in October 2023, making it one of the first major American museums to do so, according to the Smithsonian. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to return two bronze plaques. France returned 26 objects to the Republic of Benin as part of the broader Sarr-Savoy commitments, according to Al Jazeera.

The British Museum, which holds the world's largest single collection of approximately 900 Benin Bronzes, has not returned any. The museum maintains it is legally prohibited from deaccessioning objects under the British Museum Act of 1963. Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments and the Oba of Benin have repeatedly requested their return, according to The Guardian. The British Museum has offered long-term loans but no permanent transfers.

Who is Nyamakop and why does the studio matter?

Nyamakop was founded in 2015 in Johannesburg by Ben Myres and Cukia Kimani, according to Game Developer. The studio's first commercial release, Semblance, launched in 2018 and became the first game by an African studio to appear on a Nintendo platform, according to Game Developer. The game was a critical success, earning positive coverage from IGN, Polygon, and Kotaku and selling well enough to fund the studio's next project.

Relooted is substantially more ambitious. The team grew from a handful of people to roughly 30 over the course of development. The game features full voice acting in multiple African languages, a hand-painted art style drawing from historical African visual traditions, and a research process that involved consulting with historians, museum curators, and cultural heritage specialists across five countries, according to Eurogamer. Steam user reviews sit at "Very Positive" with an 87% approval rating, according to Steam.

The Games for Change Award is notable because the organization specifically recognizes games that address social issues. Previous winners include Celeste, Never Alone, and Papers, Please. Relooted won Best in Community Empowerment at the 2026 ceremony, according to Games for Change.

What does the visa denial say about the broader problem?

The visa denial is not an isolated incident. African game developers have documented repeated difficulties attending international industry events. A 2024 survey by the Africa Games Development Association found that 43% of African developers who applied for visas to attend GDC, Gamescom, or other major events in the previous two years had been denied at least once, according to AGDA. The denial rate for South African applicants to the United States was approximately 30% in 2025, according to the U.S. State Department's visa statistics.

The African game development industry has grown substantially. The continent's gaming market was valued at $2.29 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $3.14 billion by 2028, according to Newzoo. At least 66 active game studios operate across the continent, with the largest concentrations in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt, according to the Africa Games Development Association. Studios like Kiro'o Games in Cameroon, Leti Arts in Ghana, and Celestial Games in South Africa have released titles that received international distribution.

Relooted sits at an intersection that makes the visa denial particularly visible. The game is about the physical movement of African objects to Western institutions. The developers were prevented from physically moving to a Western venue. The artifacts in the British Museum can be visited by anyone with a London tourist visa. The people whose ancestors created those artifacts face a materially different process. Myres told GamesRadar that the team eventually presented Relooted at Gamescom in Cologne after securing German visas, but the Summer Game Fest denial remained a point of frustration. "The game is about barriers," he said. "We didn't expect to run into this particular one."