Empowering Game Developers in the MENA and SWANA Regions: Rafif Kalantan's Vision

The London Games Festival's Ensemble initiative, curated by Sharna Jackson, showcases the work of underrepresented games professionals in the UK. This year's cohort includes Rafif Kalantan, a narrative and game designer from Saudi Arabia, who spoke with GamesIndustry.biz about her journey. Kalantan's path into the industry began with studying computer science at Effat University, where she took a game development course that sparked her interest. However, she faced challenges finding a suitable career path in Saudi Arabia after graduating. "It's harder for people from the Middle East and North Africa to get bigger studios to take them seriously," she explains. Kalantan decided to pursue her master's in games design and development at the National Film and Television School in the UK. Her final year project, Eros Xavier's Love Solutions, won the 2023 Yugo BAFTA Student Award for Games, marking several firsts for the category. Kalantan is now part of the Ensemble cohort and is working on a project to provide support and resources to developers in the MENA and SWANA regions. She co-founded the Gamedev Initiative for the Global South (GIGS) with Ashraf Abi-Said, which aims to provide mentorship, education, and support to budding developers in the region. Kalantan believes that the industry can better support underrepresented talent by providing more opportunities for freelancers from abroad and by hiring developers from diverse backgrounds. She hopes that her own story and experiences can inspire others and provide a platform for voices from the MENA and SWANA regions to be heard. Kalantan draws inspiration from games like Spiritfarer, which tells emotional narratives in a gentle way, and hopes to create similar stories infused with the mythology and culture of her homeland. She believes that developers can use the rich culture and mythology of the MENA and SWANA regions to create enriching narratives, citing Ubisoft's approach with Assassin's Creed: Mirage as a positive example.