About

Relooted is a puzzle platformer video game created by Johannesburg-based studio Nyamakop. The game follows a group of African vigilante-thieves as they attempt to retrieve several museum artifacts of African origin before the items are sent into private collections and hidden from the public. The game was announced on June 6th in a Day of the Devs livestream during the 2025 Summer Game Fest. Following its reveal, several internet users criticized the game for what they perceived as propagating negative stereotypes about Black people stealing, while others commended the game's unique premise. The game also drew some comparisons to similarly contentious titles like Dustborn.

History

South African studio Nyamakop announced the release of the Afro-futurist puzzle platformer stealth game Relooted on June 6th, 2025, as part of the Day of the Devs livestream, which took place at the 2025 Summer Game Fest.^[1]

A YouTube^[2] upload of the trailer posted by Nyamakorp gathered over 50,000 views in three days.

The game is set in a near future where a new international treaty orders that all African artifacts be returned to their country of origin. However, several museums have used the loophole of relegating the artifacts into private collections in order to maintain possession. Relooted follows a team of vigilante-thieves operating out of a base in Johannesburg, South Africa, as they plan and orchestrate a series of heists to return the artifacts to their respective countries.

Epic Games posted a trailer for the game to its official X^[3] / Twitter account on June 6th, 2025, describing the game as an "Africanfuturist heist game where you reclaim real African looted artifacts from Western museums," gathering over 9 million views, 19,000 likes and 6,100 replies in three days. The tweet rapidly sparked negative reactions from many on the platform.

Announcing Relooted: an Africanfuturist heist game where you reclaim real African looted artifacts from Western museums.
Wishlist it now! https://t.co/MTsU5m6c9i pic.twitter.com/moCfTPy3pK

— Epic Games Store (@EpicGames) June 7, 2025

Online Reactions

As the reveal trailer spread online, numerous internet users criticized the game makers for making a video game focused on Black people with the central theme being art theft.

For example, on June 7th, 2025, X^[4] user @FuckKoroks tweeted, "Make Black people game, it's about stealing," gathering over 60,000 likes in two days.

>make black people game
>it’s about stealing

oh my god lmao https://t.co/MIzpU2mYLY

— Gigachad Brick – KOROKS TOOK MY TREN (@FuckKoroks) June 7, 2025

Also on June 7th, X^[5] user @PlatoonPod posted a picture of Ben Stiller from the film Night at the Museum to joke about a security guard character stopping the group of vigilante-thieves in Relooted from stealing historical African artifacts. The post read, "And it falls to one man to stop them," gathering over 22,000 likes in two days.

On June 8th, 2025, an anonymous 4chan user started a thread reacting to Relooted on the forum's dedicated video game board /v/,^[6] writing, "We have to take back the ancient artifacts the white demons have stolen from our motherland, brothers." The thread was reposted to Reddit's /r/4chan^[7] subreddit on June 8th, where it gathered over 1,500 upvotes in a day.

On June 7th, X^[8] user @iloveairbagged criticized the backlash against Relooted, writing, "White gamers: 'Make your own games! Stop forcing politics into everything!' They then make their own game and the little hitlers on this website still aren’t satisfied." The post gathered over 60,000 likes in two days.

Also on June 7th, 2025, X^[9] user @panthersgod posted a tweet that read, "Anti-blackness really makes me so sad and angry sometimes, because I know FOR SURE that if they made these protagonists Japanese absolutely no one would be complaining about this," gathering over 40,000 likes in two days.

Search Interest

External References