Have you ever heard of Benin ivory masks? They are stunning works of craftsmanship typically carved from ivory with inlaid iron and copper, traditionally worn at the hip or around the neck. They depict the face of Idia, the first Iyoba (Queen Mother) of the Benin Empire that existed in what is now Nigeria. The masks are believed to have been carved to celebrate Idia’s numerous political and military victories, including her role in elevating her son Oba Esigie to the throne of Benin ahead of his half-brother in the 16th century. When the British ransacked the Benin Empire in February 1897, several of these masks were looted and dispersed across the world thereafter. Two nearly identical masks are held separately at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum in London.
History lessons like this abound in Relooted, from the Johannesburg-based studio Nyamakop. The Afrofuturist heist game offers engaging puzzles, a memorable cast, and a sharp answer for how to start fixing colonizers’ centuries of wrongdoing. Nomali, an All-African freerunning champion whose speed has earned her the nickname Lightning, gets roped into her grandmother Professor Grace’s plan to reclaim stolen African artifacts from private collections and auction houses across the world, returning them to the people they were taken from.
What heist can be pulled off without a team? Alongside Nomali and Professor Grace are Nomali’s brother and locksmith Trevor, the inventor Fred, Professor Grace’s mentee Etienne, and later additions like the acrobat Ndedi, former MMA fighter Luso, and teen hacker Cryptic. While the full crew isn’t immediately available from the beginning, this is the team players will use for their series of heists.
These heists essentially have three phases. After an initial briefing that shares artifact and location details, players will case an area using Fred’s robot Nunu to identify where artifacts and security traps are laid out. This is also where players assign locations for each teammate to use their abilities, like Trevor’s skill for cracking open safe vaults or Cryptic’s knack for hacking robots and security cameras. Next, as Nomali, players will prop open doors and shutters, bust windows, activate pressure plates, and move a lot of tables, all to craft the best escape route—one that ensures every artifact can be picked up on the way out without Nomali getting nabbed. Finally, once it’s time to dash, players will use Nomali’s exceptional speed and parkour skills to follow the escape route and use real-time, button-prompted speed boosts to beat a countdown that promises jail if Nomali doesn’t get out in time.
The heists aren’t just puzzles to be cracked; they’re also informative, including virtual exhibits of some of the most ancient and fascinating real-world relics across the African diaspora. In addition to the artifacts that are mission targets, there are other relics the team can learn about spread across the high-rises, mansions, and museums they’re breaking into. These bonus relics are explained via short crash courses, the equivalent of the info one might find etched into plaques when visiting physical museums. These detours don’t feel out of place given how they’re woven into pre-escape exploration, leveraging these slower-paced moments as opportunities to share even more history that you’d rarely find outside of an elective class setting.
In addition to its history lessons, what makes Relooted special is its uncompromising framing of how African artifacts left their homes. Before each heist, Professor Grace and Etienne will give background on an artifact’s history that reveals not only its cultural importance, but also its often violent theft. Story after story features the triumphs and tragedies of African communities and civilizations that were so beautiful, so rich, and so layered in their various modes of life, that Western civilizations couldn’t stop themselves from stealing everything in sight during bloody invasions, colonizations, and wars. The sheer volume of tales from all parts of the continent is a true testament to Africa’s diversity, a refusal to let any player view the continent or its people as a monolith.
Not once is the violence of these artifacts’ displacement shied away from, nor is the illegal nature of Nomali and her family’s nighttime activities. It’s a clever choice that makes their mission a clear matter of justice—a challenge to anyone who believes all laws, the very ones that allowed these stolen cultural works to be on indefinite “loan” and hidden away when repatriation parties come knocking, are moral and must be obeyed despite their authors’ intent and actions. The mission of the Afrika Appropriations Association (the best of several names Trevor gives the team) asks players to consider what constitutes a crime, as well as who are the real criminals.
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