[GameSpot] - EA Partners With Silver Rain Games For A Still Unannounced Project

[343iBot]

Electronic Arts has announced that it has partnered with Silver Rain Games, welcoming the studio's upcoming debut title into the expanding library of EA Originals. Silver Rain Games is an indie studio founded and now led by Abubakar Salim (who voiced Assassin's Creed Origins' Bayek and currently portrays Raised By Wolves' Father) and Melissa Phillips (who previously worked as the BAFTA games program manager). Prior to EA's announcement about the partnership, I had the chance to sit down with both co-founders.

"It speaks volumes--the fact that you can't actually define the genre of what [EA Originals] has built," Salim told me when I asked as to Silver Rain Games' reasoning for wanting to partner with EA. "That's the beauty of the art form of what they support and build. There's a freedom that the EA and the Originals team bring that allows you as the developer to truly find the strengths and weaknesses of what you bring to the table. At the end of the day, it's the developer's game."

Phillips said that "for now" Silver Rain Games and EA's partnership is only in regards to this first game that the studio is working on, which is still unannounced. During the interview, both Salim and Phillips remained tight-lipped about the game. "We want to tell you; we totally want to tell you," Phillips laughed after I jokingly admitted that, though I was trying my best, it was proving difficult to talk around a game that I knew nothing about.

Even if neither one could tell me about Silver Rain Games' upcoming debut title, the two did share their thoughts on what they hope will be the lasting impact of the game. "It goes back to what we as a studio are just trying to do," Salim said. "We're trying to bring thought-provoking content. We're trying to bring enjoyable content. We're trying to bring things that people want to escape from, but also just can't get enough of."

Phillips added that the idea of "curiosity" is also informing what their game is. "I think we've all had that experience early on in our game life, where we find something as children and we're like, 'Oh my God, it's amazing. We want to just enjoy the whole thing,'" she said. "I think that's the sort of feeling that we want to instill in the next generation of whoever's playing our game. We're very keen on welcoming new players, perhaps people that haven't ever picked up games before as well."

As our conversation came to a close, I asked both Salim and Phillips as to what their favorite types of games and stories are. Salim quickly jumped in first, praising stories that move the player and "reflects something of you as an audience, as a participant," perhaps evening revealing a side of you that you didn't even know existed. Phillips followed up by talking about her love for strategy simulation. "I like stats," she said. "I don't need to see any action. Just give me the numbers. It needs to feel like work, and then I'm happy."

"Take what you can from that, Jordan, and imagine the game we are building," Salim followed up, which got a good laugh out of all three of us. But in all honesty, I'm intrigued to see what kind of ideas sprout from the combined creativity of two people with such differing tastes. For now, we'll just have to wait and see. The next EA Original game scheduled to release is It Takes Two, a co-op action-adventure platformer that will launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC on March 26.

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