Abubakar Salim is CEO of Surgent Studios.
Abubakar Salim is CEO of Surgent Studios.
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How Abubakar Salim enlisted the Palworld folks to back the horror ‘escape room’ game Dead Take | interview

Abubakar Salim, founder of Surgent Studios, is proving to be an agile maker of games.

Salim, a famous actor who is one of the stars of HBO’s House of the Dragon, started Surgent Studios in 2019 to make the side-scrolling Metroidvania game Tales of Kenzara: Zau.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.