It's 2099, and you and your heist team are about to case an unnamed high-security museum in Europe. One of the targets: the Kabwe skull, a roughly 300,000-year-old early human skull found in present-day Zambia in 1921. This is Relooted, a new video game from South African game studio Nyamakop, where your job is to steal back looted artifacts by mapping entrances and exits, positioning your crew, and making it past robot security using your parkour skills. Several things about this are unrealistic. For one, the actual Kabwe skull, currently on display in the Natural History Museum in London, might not need such an elaborate plan.

But there is a damningly realistic fact at the heart of the game: every single one of the roughly 70 objects you steal was taken from the African continent and currently sits in a Western museum or private collection. And the way museums in the game wiggle out of a fictional treaty to return stolen artifacts doesn't sound fictional at all. It mirrors the real-world tactics that have kept the Kabwe skull in London for over a century, despite Zambia's repeated requests for its return.

In this episode, Ben Myers, CEO and creative director at Nyamakop, and Mohale Mashigo, the studio's narrative director, talk about why heists are the perfect genre for a game about repatriation, what they found when they visited the real artifacts in person, and why their video game often does a much better job telling the story of these objects than the museums that hold them.

Image: The Kabwe skull as it appears in a Relooted heist briefing.

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Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 112. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.

It's the year 2099 and you and your heist team are about to case an unnamed high security museum to steal the Kabwe skull. This moment occurs halfway through Relooted, a new video game from South African game studio Nyamakop.

Your job is to map all the entrances and exits, position your crew members strategically, use cybersecurity techniques to break open the door, steal this artifact, and make it out of the museum past the robot security force using parkour, which fortunately, you're quite skilled at.

“Video game excerpt: " Please look out for the Kabwe skull. For many years, the Zambian government tried to have the skull repatriated back from the United Kingdom. What's the security situation? Nothing you haven't experienced before. Robot guards, lasers, security shutters, pressure plates, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Several things about this moment in the game are unrealistic.

For one, the actual skull, which is currently on display in the Natural History Museum in London, might actually be easier to steal.

Ben Myres:  I've seen a couple of the ones in our game, in person now, and the first thing I noticed, is the Kabwe skull or broken Hillman in the Natural History Museum. That'd be very easy to steal. We've very overstated the security capabilities on museums. I have a video of, it's only 20 seconds long of the distance from the skull to the exit. I'm like, wow. Okay. That wouldn’t be very fun.

This is Ben Myers, the CEO and creative director at Nyamakop, and one of the developers of Relooted.

Ben Myres: Hello, I'm Ben Myers, CEO, and creative director at Nyamakop. I like to be known for making cool video games.

But there is a very realistic -- damningly realistic -- fact at the heart of the game. The Kabwe skull is just one of about 70 real-world objects you heist during the game. And every single one of them was taken from the African continent and currently sits in a Western Museum or private collection.

Ben Myres:  I think there was a French government report that came out in maybe 2018 and that estimated that 90 to 95% of all African cultural heritage is kept in museums off the continent.

So the scale of it is like really absurd. I mean, it's hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of pieces. In like Western museums. So the, the major problem was like not, you know, finding artifacts, but which ones?

Mohale Mashingo:  There were so many artifacts, really. So many, but we couldn't put them all in the game. Otherwise, this would be the world's longest game.

This is Mohale Mashigo, narrative director at Nyamakop and one of the developers of Relooted.

Mohale Mashigo:  Hi, my name is Mohale Mashigo. I'm the narrative director at Nyamakop, and I like to be known for telling great stories, living in a fishing village and having a cute dog.

The Kabwe skull was discovered in 1921 by miners in the Kabwe mine in Zambia, then the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. The skull is roughly 300,000 years old, predating modern humans, and was promptly shipped to the Natural History Museum in London, which at the time was a department of the British Museum.

About ten years after Zambia became independent from colonial rule, in the early 1970s, the National Monuments Commission formally requested the skull from the museum. That hasn’t happened, and the museum's own display undermines its case for keeping the original.

Ben Myres:  So the Kabwe skull is interesting because Zambia has been asking back that back for quite a long time. And what was interesting about the Kabwe skull is it's surrounded by replicas. Like it's this sort of history of, you know, humanity from all these fossils and like skulls. But most of the skulls they have in that exhibition aren't. Real. So it just speaks to how like it's completely unnecessary for them to have that exact skull. When all the other ones surrounding them aren't real either. And most of the people going to the museum aren't gonna notice that anyway.

This Treaty is also fictional, no such agreement has been signed, but the way Professor Grace describes museums wiggling their way out of actually returning artifacts sounds very real.

“Video game excerpt:  There's an old clause in the treaty that uses the words public display.

“Basically saying all artifacts that are currently on display to the public need to be returned.”

“Museums are now using that old clause to basically remove artifacts from public display under the auspices of changing exhibits, maintenance, et cetera.They don't intend to put these artifacts back on display and are also not disclosing what they have in storage. They intend to have this on display for private viewings instead.”

Can't give back what you don't have.

Exactly.

But that also means they cannot report the artifacts missing or stolen. Stolen?

Who’s stealing them?

Us!

In the real world, these types of slow-rolling shenanigans are exactly what museums do. The British Government agreed to “negotiate” on the Kabwe skull in 2019, but no progress has been made.

Ben Myers: It's so difficult to get these objects back. It's so complicated. And I think that's what it speaks to, but it also speaks to the dodgy ways they were acquired as well. Like the Kabwe skull — at the time it was taken, there was literally a British colonial law saying, do not remove human remains, do not remove cultural relics from the country. And they did that and then donated it. So even acquiring the objects sometimes broke the law that they themselves had.

And the current UK defense for keeping the skull is that it's technically not human remains — it's too old to qualify — so the repatriation framework doesn't apply. So it doesn’t seem inconceivable that these museums will manage to hold on until 2099.

Mohale Mashigo: There's been so much red tape, just constantly. And I thought, what if even a hundred years from now they're still doing it and they're still finding ways. Because right now it's, "you don't have enough museums" or whatever. Or "we couldn't possibly hand it over because then we'd have to hand over everything." And even if they're trying to do something, there'll always be fishy business going on.

The setting of 2099 also allowed the game designers to do something that Mohale says is rare: imagine a prosperous African future.

One of the reasons the game works so well is because heists are fun, and we already have a shared cultural understanding of what goes into a heist: a crew, a briefing, a plan that goes wrong.

Mohale Mashigo: What I love about heist is the fact that the best heist works when it's like the little guy stealing from the big guy. You really want to see them succeed. They don't ever steal from people who deserve that money. They don't steal from hospitals. They steal from the guy who's got too many casinos. You know, he's not gonna miss it.

As a player, we certainly feel it. We’re not only breaking into museums, but also fancy private collections. The game does such a good job laying out the case for bringing the artifacts back that you can focus on the fun of stealing.

So using the way video games employ patterns helps the gameplay: each heist is a little harder, but fortunately you're a little better at it.

But patterns also help the story: each time you learn of yet another stolen artifact from all parts of the continent, you start to realize the bigger pattern.

The museums in Relooted are mostly unnamed, relying on subtle or not-so-subtle references to real world institutions. Some, like Hans Sloane and the British Museum, come up by name, along with narratives about looted artifacts, enslavers, or investment in human trafficking companies. You can learn more about Hans Slone and the British Museum on episode 39 of Museum Archipelago, or by playing Relooted.

But there is one real-world museum important to the narrative. As you and your crew start amassing the objects, you return them to the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal. From here, they are redistributed to their home countries.

The Museum of Black Civilizations was the dream of Léopold Senghor, Senegal's first democratically elected president.

Ben Myers:  the game for a long time was called Senghor’s Rebels because Senghor was the first democratically elected president of Senegal. He was a poet before he went into politics.

In Relooted, the game design team recreated the facade of the Museum of Black Civilizations, which at the start of the game is a vast, mostly dark hall. As you advance through the game and bring the objects back to the continent, a plinth lights up containing the artifact that's been returned. This cleverly serves the in-game progress bar.

Relooted is a triumph. It's genuinely fun while also being one of the most effective pieces of advocacy for repatriation I've ever encountered. If you spend any time thinking about museums, go play this game.