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Tales of Kenzera: ZAU turns Abubakar Salim’s experience of losing his father into a story about a grieving young shaman—and into a world that stays vivid, dangerous and worth exploring. Salim has described the game as a personal way to honor his father and make sense of grief, not as a universal map for how anyone else should grieve.
From a father-son bond to Zau’s fictional quest
Salim says his father introduced him to video games. That shared interest became part of the bond he wanted to honor through Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. In EA’s December 2023 reveal announcement, he described the project as a way to communicate his journey with grief through Zau’s story of loss, growth and healing. EA’s reveal announcement frames the game as an ode to a lost father.
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Horror Tales: The Wine (PS5) | $28.37 | Buy on Amazon |
Zau is not Salim. The protagonist is a young shaman whose father has died; guided by Kalunga, the God of Death, he journeys through mystical realms in an attempt to bring his father back. It is a fictional premise shaped by Salim’s personal experience, not a literal account of his biography. EA describes the game as a single-player, 2.5D Metroidvania-style action-adventure, with Sun and Moon masks that grant distinct powers for traversal and rhythmic combat. EA’s launch announcement outlines the premise and format.
Why Metroidvania exploration suited his grief metaphor
Salim’s clearest explanation of the game’s design comes from a PlayStation Blog interview with O’Dell Harmon Jr. He connects the genre’s unfamiliar maps with the disorientation he associates with grief: “The beauty of these Castlevania or Metroid-like games is you throw the player into a map that they have no idea about, that they’re lost.”
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As players explore, they learn how the map fits together and where they can go. But familiarity does not make it safe: danger remains, and some paths may only open as the player gains abilities. For Salim, that combination—gradually finding one’s bearings without making the world harmless—offered a way to express his own experience. He says of learning the space, “You learn to live with it, and it’s not a bad thing.” That is his creative metaphor, not a clinical account or a prescribed sequence for grief.
A vivid world that does not disappear when Zau grieves
Salim did not want grief represented by turning the game’s world dull or empty. He recalls that after his father died, everything felt vivid and loud. In the interview, he describes wanting a colorful, reactive environment that continues to demand a response from Zau. The world does not simply change to match the protagonist’s state of mind; Zau must keep moving through it.
That choice lets grief and vitality exist together. The surroundings can be beautiful and active while the character carries loss. The result is not a claim that everyone experiences bereavement the same way, but a design decision rooted in the particular contrast Salim remembers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Reflection and health are connected to fatherhood
Salim also says becoming a father changed how he thought about the game’s quieter moments and health pickups. Rather than treating recovery only as a conventional collectible, he considered moments in which Zau could pause and reflect or talk about feelings. In an EA-hosted AMA, he describes “Reflections” as spaces where a player shares how they feel to increase maximum health.
This mechanic brings the game’s emotional concerns into play without stopping it from being an action-adventure. Reflection is part of Zau’s journey, alongside exploration and combat; it is not offered as a real-world treatment or a substitute for support.
Bantu inspiration, framed as a personal homage
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU draws on Bantu tales and cultures. In the PlayStation interview, Salim discusses Bantu as encompassing different cultures within Africa and points to stories of creation and cosmology as inspiration. In the EA AMA, he says the team read and spoke with people while developing the game, and recommends Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa’s Indaba, My Children as a starting point for readers interested in Bantu tales.
Salim describes Kenzera as his take on where his family originated, Kenya. The game is a personal creative homage, not a comprehensive account of Bantu cultures or African cultures as a whole. Its mythology should be understood as one artistic interpretation, rather than a single definitive tradition.
Where the game fits in Salim’s creative work
Salim’s account links the game’s personal origins with choices a player can encounter: unfamiliar spaces that become more navigable, a world that remains lively through loss, and pauses that make room for reflection. He has described games as a medium capable of transporting players and evoking emotion through unfamiliar and familiar experiences in EA’s launch announcement. For Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, that ambition begins with a relationship between a father and son, then becomes an imaginative story other players can inhabit.
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