Summary
HalodeveloperSaber Interactivewas once working on a Donald Trump game. The idea for the project—whichSaberultimately abandoned—can be indirectly traced back to Shaquille O’Neal.
Founded in 2001, Saber Interactive developed a reputation as a versatile studio capable of both leading projects and co-development services. While the company had multiple successes over the years, its first big break came with thecritically acclaimedHalo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a remaster of Microsoft’s iconic 2001 Xbox FPS. The company later played a supporting role in the making ofHalo: The Master Chief Collection, and has most recently found success withWarhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a hit third-person shooter that debuted in September 2024.
In betweenHalo: The Master Chief CollectionandSpace Marine 2, the studio wanted to make a Donald Trump game. That’s according to Saber co-founder and CEO Matthew Karch, who said as much in a recent interview withGame File’s Stephen Totilo. This idea isn’t something that happened overnight, but can instead be tracked back to Karch’s fateful meeting with Shaquille O’Neal, which happened sometime afterHalo: Combat Evolved Anniversarywas released in 2011. During their initial get-together, Shaq pitched the idea for a game starring him as a detective. Karch wasn’t really sold on the concept, but eventually proposed something else, a sequel toEA’s 1994 gameShaq Fu.
‘Absolutely Nobody Played’ Shaq Fu’s Barack Obama DLC
One Indiegogo campaign and $458,884 in crowdfunding later, Saber Interactive madeShaq Fu: A Legend Reborn, which ended up beingone of the worst-reviewed games of 2018. The fighting game even got a Barack Obama-themed DLC in the form ofBarack Fu : The Adventures of Dirty Barry, which, in Karch’s own words, “absolutely nobody played.”
[Trump’s] cabinet sabotages him and his plane goes down and he gets stuck in the Mexican desert and needs to escape back over the wall. That was the story.
Saber later made plans for a spin-off titledTrump Fu. The project was being developed sometimeduring Trump’s first term as U.S. President. In terms of story, the company had a concept about how Trump’s “cabinet sabotages him and his plane goes down and he gets stuck in the Mexican desert and needs to escape back over the wall,” Karch recalled. The idea was eventually abandoned, with Karch floating an alternative concept for a Putin-themed fighting game, which also went nowhere.
AlthoughShaq Fu: A Legend Reborndidn’t exactly set the world on fire, it paved the way for Saber to land a contract forNBA Playgrounds. The sports game launched in May 2017 across a variety of platforms, including the Switch, which was just two months old at the time. Since Nintendo’s hybrid console was starved for games in its early days,NBA Playgroundsfaced little competition and swept the eShop. “We made a lot of money on that game,” Karch recalled from the comfort of his private jet, a Gulf Stream 280, which he bought in 2022 to the tune of $23 million.
