The Best Heists Are Also History Lessons
In Relooted, before you steal artifacts you must learn why they matter
Relooted is a video game about reconsidering what is possible.
The story of this audacious indie heist game is set in a distant future, in which Johannesburg has further flourished, and America has devolved into a gaudy sprawl of Vegas-style excess. And yet, even decades from now, the white colonial nations have held tightly onto the antiquities, relics, and human remains they stole from the African continent.
Were it a film, Relooted would be filed amongst the heist classics, like Ocean’s Eleven and Rififi.
You play as a gymnast, and your collaborators range from a perpetually annoyed IT expert to a retired history professor. True to the genre, the missions demand you assemble your motley crew of talents to outwit the security systems of billionaire private collectors and state-funded museums.
You might ask yourself: Can a handful of people really rob the most powerful and heavily protected museums on the planet?
In October 2025, real-life thieves performed one of the most audacious art heists in history, robbing the Louvre by dressing as workmen, raising a crane to a first-floor window, and smashing and grabbing eight pieces of jewellery valued at a combined $102 million.
So yes, a crack team of thieves could rob museums. But as you listen to this episode, I’d like you to consider other things that we assume to be true because of laws, policies, and security systems in the literal and the abstract sense.
What will it take for the relics, artifacts, and human remains stolen from African nations, and now locked largely within the vaults of museums in North America and Europe, to be returned?
Relooted allows players to experience one scenario: a series of international heists that would make the Louvre thieves blush. The targets are something more valuable than wealth. They’re a people’s history made tangible.
Is it really theft if it’s already been stolen?
My guests, on Post Games Ben Myres and Mohale Mashigo, talk about making the repatriation of artifacts fun, the differences between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism, and art’s power to help us imagine a better future so that we can build toward it. They also explain how the heist formula is inherently educational, each mission requiring its thieves to know the history and context that gives their target value.
Listen for free on your podcast app of choice!
This week on Post Games:
Act 1: Stealing What’s Yours
Act 2: The Need for Africanfuturism
Patreon Bonus: What It’s Actually Like Making Games in South Africa
Act 3: The News of the Week
Guests:
Ben Myres, CEO, Co-Founder, and Creative Director of Nyamakop
Mohale Mashigo, Narrative Director of Relooted
Nathan Grayson, Co-Founder of Aftermath
On the Patreon for $5
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Weekly bonus segments
New monthly bonus episode: The History of Animal Crossing
Extended show notes, including the free game of the week
An archive of Patreon-exclusive bonus episodes, segments, and posts
Act 1: Stealing What’s Yours
Nereid Monument (British Museum)
Léopold Sédar Senghor (Presidency of Senegal)
The Game Relooted - Interview with Devs - Ep 26 (Archaeology Podcast Network)
Africa’s Most Ambitious Indie Game? | Ben Myres on Building Relooted (Scott Peter Smith)
How Relooted, A Game About Reclaiming African Artifacts From Western Museums, Ended Up Being Shown By A White Guy At Summer Game Fest (Aftermath)
NYAMAKOP CEO BEN MYRES ON AFRICANFUTURIST HEIST GAME ‘RELOOTED (Inside Gaming)
Senegal’s Museum of Black Civilisations: Celebrating Blackness (CGTN Africa)
Nyamakop: “There’s demand for African-created content outside of the continent” (GamesIndustry.biz)
Developing a strategy to grow and transform the South African Game Development Ecosystem 2021 (Tshimologong)
Patrice Lumumba: DR Congo buries tooth of independence hero (BBC)
Patrice Lumumba: Why Belgium is returning a Congolese hero’s golden tooth (BBC)
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Kanopy)
The significance of Sarah Baartman (BBC)
The Tanzanians searching for their grandfathers’ skulls in Germany (BBC)
Cameroon’s Ngonnso: ‘My fight to bring our sacred stolen statue home (BBC)
Rekindled Hope: 85 Sacred Vigango Return Home (Unesco)
Act 2: The Need for Africanfuturism
‘Afrofuturism is not for Africans living in Africa’—an essay by Mohale Mashigo, excerpted from her new collection of short stories, Intruder (The Johannesburg Review of Books)
What is Africanjujuism? (Brittle Paper)
THIS AFROFUTURISTIC VIDEO GAME FEATURES HEISTS FOR STOLEN ARTIFACTS (Ebony)
Why Civil Rights Activists Protested the Moon Landing (History)
NASA Helped Kick-start Diversity in Employment Opportunities (NASA)
Lara Croft the Tomb Raider vs. Sophiline Cheam-Shapiro the Cambodian Dancer (UCPress)
MotoRace USA (aka Zippy Race) (Wiki)
Patreon Bonus: What It’s Actually Like Making Games in South Africa
Segments and links available at Patreon.com/postgames
Act 3: The News of the Week
The Epstein Files Reveal What Powerful People See In Video Games: Profit, Coercion, And Control (Aftermath)
Ex-GTA Veteran Leslie Benzies Refutes Epstein Files Allegation: ‘I Have Never Met Jeffrey Epstein’ (Kotaku)
Ex-Activision Boss Bobby Kotick Allegedly Emailed With Jeffrey Epstein A Bunch (Kotaku)