Malacca: Shadow of the Straits

Concept Pitch · Confidential

Concept Art by Faizal Rahmat

“The golden age the world forgot.”

FOUNDATION

Vision

What Is This Game About?

To experience the golden age of the Malacca Sultanate — in all its light and all its darkness.

At its peak, Malacca was the beating heart of the known world. More languages spoken in one port than anywhere else on earth. Ships from China, Arabia, India, Java, Siam — all of them coming to you. Not passing through. Coming to you.

The player is an operative inside Malacca’s clandestine services — one trusted instrument in the hands of Hang Tuah and the Sahabat Lima, the legendary brotherhood at the heart of Malay literary tradition. You move through the gold and the shadow of that world. Both are real. Both are yours.

Light and Darkness

The light: a city alive with commerce, culture, faith and plurality at its absolute zenith
The darkness: the intrigue, the hard choices, the necessary work beneath the gold
Both are true. Both are what make it worth fighting for.
Bittersweet ending: the city is taken — the civilisation was not

The Sahabat Lima

Hang Tuah. Hang Jebat. Hang Kasturi. Hang Lekir. Hang Lekiu. The five companions of the Hikayat Hang Tuah — rendered here as living, breathing characters in a world where history and legend are allowed to bleed into each other.

Vision Statement

An operative serves the greatest city on earth — moving through its splendour and its shadows — and when the walls finally fall, carries what matters south.

Experience

The Player Experience

You are a Peranakan operative in Malacca’s clandestine services — one trusted instrument in the hands of Hang Tuah and the Sahabat Lima. Multilingual, culturally fluid, at home in every quarter of the city. Not the hero of this story. The hand the hero cannot show.

Your work takes you through the full texture of Malacca’s golden age. The palace at dawn. The port at noon. The back canals at midnight. You see this city the way no one else does — all of it, in all its registers. That is the game.

The World

Malacca at its height is the most alive city ever rendered in a game. Rooftops blend Malay, Islamic, Chinese and Indian architecture. The port is deafening with commerce. Every quarter has its own language, its own politics, its own beauty — and its own danger.

This is not a dying city. This is a city worth dying for.

The Sahabat Lima

The five companions of the Hikayat Hang Tuah are the command structure above the player — each a distinct personality, each a different relationship to loyalty, power and justice.

Name	Role
Hang Tuah	Laksamana of Malacca. The player’s direct superior. Absolute loyalty to the Sultan — the order that holds civilisation together.
Hang Jebat	The player’s closest ally. Justice above obedience. His conscience will eventually force the game’s central confrontation.
Hang Kasturi	The brotherhood’s enforcer. Pragmatic, lethal, deeply protective of the group.
Hang Lekir	The strategist. Sees the political field more clearly than anyone — sometimes too clearly.
Hang Lekiu	The heart of the brotherhood. The one who asks whether any of this is worth the cost.

Pillars

01 — Light and Darkness of a Golden Age

Malacca at its zenith was magnificent and complicated in equal measure. The player experiences both — the beauty of the court, the roar of the port, and the quiet, necessary work that keeps a great civilisation from being taken apart from the inside. This is the full picture. Not a postcard.

02 — The Depth of Malay Values

Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat. Loyalty and justice. Two men, both right, both beloved. The debate between them has animated Malay literature and culture for centuries — because it asks a question every civilisation must answer. That this question lives at the centre of our game is not a complication. It is the whole point.

03 — The World Is the Spectacle

No game has ever put Malacca at the centre of its world — because no game has tried. This one does. A city more cosmopolitan than London or Lisbon at the same moment in history. A port more profitable than Venice. A culture more plural than almost anything the medieval world produced. That is where you play.

04 — Strike Fast. Strike True. Disappear.

Combat rooted in silat — Southeast Asia’s living martial tradition. Keris, karambit, sumpitan. Folkloric upgrade paths drawn from real Malay belief: ilmu kebal, tenaga dalam, the legend of the Taming Sari. You do not hold the line. You end things and vanish before consequences arrive.

05 — The Culture Survives

They take the city. They do not take what matters. The knowledge, the people, the plurality, the living debate between loyalty and justice — all of it moves south and becomes the foundation of what comes next. This story does not end in defeat. It ends in continuation.

Genre, Platforms & Unique Selling Points

Game Type / Genre

Third-Person Stealth-Action RPG · Single-player · Hub-and-spoke city environment · Grounded historical fantasy

Platforms

Primary: PC (Steam) · PlayStation 5 · Xbox Series X|S Secondary: Nintendo Switch 2

USP 1 — The Setting No One Has Claimed

Malacca in 1500 was the most important city on earth. More trade, more languages, more ships than anywhere else. And no game has ever gone there. That is not an oversight — that is an opportunity. The player who sets foot in this city for the first time will feel it immediately.

USP 2 — The Night of the White Blood

The pivot point. Hang Tuah is extracted alive — but the city believes he is dead. The player’s intelligence network fractures. And you must choose who you are.

Path A — The Loyalist: Remain Mata-mata Istana. Hunt Jebat’s faction. Protect a Sultanate led by a flawed Sultan. Unlock: Daulat Aura.
Path B — The Rebel: Join the Mata-mata Gelap. Guerrilla justice. Watch Jebat slowly succumb to Amok. Unlock: Amok Surge.

Both paths end at the same duel. From different sides of the door.

USP 3 — Folklore as a Power System

The weapon mastery and combat arts are drawn from documented Malay belief: ilmu kebal, tenaga dalam, debus, the legend of the Taming Sari. This is not invented magic. It is living tradition — which makes it more resonant, more distinctive, and more defensible than anything a writers’ room could fabricate from scratch.

CONCEPT

Core Loop

The core loop is intelligence-driven and preparation-dependent. Players gather information before committing to action, execute with surgical precision, then manage the political fallout of each operation.

INTELLIGENCE GATHERING → MISSION PLANNING → EXECUTION → CONSEQUENCE MANAGEMENT → REWARD & PROGRESSION → (repeat)

Semangat — combat composure. Guard meter and ability fuel. Full when centred, depleted under pressure, recovered by perfect parries. The rhythm is silat: read, redirect, strike.
Amok — rage, built only by damage taken. When it fills, it triggers. The player did not choose this moment. Devastating and self-destructive in equal measure.

Meta Progression

Completed operations unlock deeper intelligence networks
Tuah/Jebat alignment shifts available mission types
Keris blade traits reward play style
Faction trust gates access to new districts and NPCs

Gameplay

“You strike fast, deadly, from the shadows — then you run.”

Combat Philosophy

Being seen ≠ fail. Only capture or attribution fails the mission.
Act I is played entirely on base capabilities — the karambit is always present as a stealth tool, not an equipped weapon choice.
The Keris arrives at the end of Act I. From that point, combat identity grows with the blade.

Traversal

Parkour through mixed Malay, Islamic, Chinese and Indian architecture — AC-style freerun, always fluid, never resource-gated
Kuku Harimau: wall-anchor to scout or assassinate from above
Galah Vault: plant the sumpitan staff to reach otherwise inaccessible ledges

Mission Design

Intelligence first — always gather before acting
Assassinations staged as accidents, trade disputes, legal actions
Social stealth through legitimate access — no disguise systems
Multiple approach vectors per objective
Extraction is part of every mission plan

Weapons & Ilmu

The Keris — The Unfinished Blade

Arrives end of Act I. Act I played on base capabilities only.

The empu forged it to a point and stopped. The blade resists outside completion. It functions because the wielder is finishing it — without knowing they are. Near the end, someone reveals the empu said the blade would show its bearer’s true nature.

Four Blade Traits — Finite Point Allocation

Players can never max all four traits. Builds feel distinct. Neither path is wrong. Both complete the blade — into different weapons.

Trait	Description
Shadow	Avoidance, misdirection, erasure. Enemies forget they were touched.
Poison	Patience, delayed damage, systemic lethality. Things that take effect after you’ve left.
Water	Flow combat, redirection, defensive adaptability. Reading and redirecting force.
Flame	Commitment, irreversible strikes, fear effects. What you leave behind is unmistakable.

Upgrades are earned through the Warangan Ritual — a ceremony performed at shrines across the city. Not a skill point notification. A process. The blade changes visibly each time.

Karambit — the protagonist’s base stealth tool. Always present. Never equipped.

Sumpitan — narrative-unlocked blowpipe. Darts serve as tools of misdirection, control and delay — cooldown abilities, not consumables.

Ilmu — Three Schools of Silat

The protagonist’s combat arts are drawn from the three branches of Malay martial tradition. Each school is unlocked through narrative progression and upgraded through play.

Ilmu Langkah — The Way of the Wind. Mobility, momentum, parkour mastery.
Ilmu Kebal — The Way of the Iron Body. Durability, shield-breaking, combat endurance.
Ilmu Pukau — The Way of the Shadow. Stealth, spirit vision, dart abilities, chain kills from invisibility.

Game References

Title	Reference Elements
Assassin’s Creed II	Authored historical city, single focused protagonist, 12–15 hour personal story inside political upheaval. AC2 specifically — not the later open-world series.
Ghost of Tsushima	Cultural grounding as commercial strength. Proof non-Western historical settings carry global premium audiences.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice	Precision-based lethal combat. Stealth as preferred mode. Mythic layer over historical grounding.
Hitman: World of Assassination	Social stealth through legitimate access. Environmental kills as accidents. Preparation-dependent mission design.
Disco Elysium	Institutional complexity as central theme. Moral architecture with no clean resolution. Information as primary gameplay resource.

Story Arc

Protagonist: A Peranakan operative in Malacca’s clandestine services — directed by Hang Tuah and the Sahabat Lima. Multilingual, culturally fluid. The hand that the brotherhood cannot show.

Act I — The Golden City (PRIDE)

The world comes to Malacca. The greatest trading port ever built — alive with commerce, languages, and possibility. First missions establish the Mata-mata network under Hang Tuah. The Sahabat Lima are your brothers. This city is magnificent. Your job is to keep it that way.

Act II — The Mata-mata at Work (VIGILANCE)

Foreign agents. Corrupt officials. Rival merchant cabals. The Mata-mata neutralises each threat before it surfaces. The city never knows how close it came. That is the job. But the orders are getting harder to square with what you see.

Act III — The Night of the White Blood (THE PIVOT)

Tuah is extracted alive — but Malacca believes he is dead. The network fractures. The player chooses:

Path A — The Loyalist: Mata-mata Istana — Palace Eyes. Hunt Jebat’s faction. Protect the Sultanate. Serve a flawed Sultan to save the system. Unlock: Daulat Aura.
Path B — The Rebel: Mata-mata Gelap — The Rogue Cell. Guerrilla justice. Watch Jebat succumb to Amok. Fight for justice as it burns everything. Unlock: Amok Surge.

Act IV — Both Roads Lead to the Duel (CONVERGENCE)

Loyalist: infiltrate the occupied palace. Open the gates for Tuah’s return. Rebel: stand as Jebat’s second when Tuah walks back in. The Portuguese are coming. Two brothers are about to destroy each other. The city they both love burns around them.

Act V — What Travels South (LEGACY)

The walls fall — not because Malacca was weak, but because the world’s largest empire had to cheat to take it. The player carries what matters south. A new city rises. The debate between loyalty and justice travels with it. Unresolved. Alive. More necessary than ever.

“Both roads end at the same duel. From different sides of the door.” The Night of the White Blood · Act III pivot · two paths, one convergence

Art Direction

Visual Philosophy

Malacca is depicted as what it was: one of the most architecturally and culturally sophisticated cities on earth. The visual language is plural by design — Malay, Islamic, Chinese, Indian and Javanese influences coexist in a single skyline.

Palette & Mood

Daytime: warm gold, teak, haze off the water
Night operations: deep indigo, amber lantern-light
Interiors: layered textiles, incense haze, lamplight catching detail
Colour signals register: gold for the court, shadow for the operative

Architecture

Stilted kampung water villages at street level
Multi-tiered Malay palace structures on the hill
Chinese merchant warehouses along the river front
Mosques, madrasas, Hindu temple remnants in the same quarter

All concept art by Faizal Rahmat.

BUSINESS MODEL

Audience & Cultural Significance

Stat	Value
Southeast Asia population	700M+
SEA gamers (Niko Partners, 2025)	~290M
SEA games market value (2025)	$6.6B
Fastest-growing gaming region globally	#1
Primary player age demographic	18–35
Major titles set in Malacca Sultanate	0

The Home Audience

Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand — this is their history. Their literature. Their heroes. Rendered in a game for the first time.

The Hikayat Hang Tuah is taught in Malaysian schools. Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat are household names. This is not a game asking SEA players to learn lore — it is handing them back something that was already theirs.

Ages 18–35, console and PC — a generation that grew up watching Ghost of Tsushima and wondering when it would be their turn. For them, this is not novelty. This is recognition.

The Global Audience

Players who have already proven — with Ghost of Tsushima, AC2, Sekiro — that they will follow a great game anywhere in the world, at full price.

History and culture audiences who have never encountered the Malacca Sultanate at this scale. The novelty alone is a marketing asset.

Western players who are actively tired of re-treading Europe. There are more of them every year. Malacca is the most credible answer to that appetite that anyone has built. For them, this is not a familiar world with a new skin. It is genuinely new ground.

A Cultural Home Base

The world we are building is not designed to be owned. It is designed to be inhabited.

The Malacca Sultanate already has centuries of source material — the Hikayat, the Sejarah Melayu, the trade records, the mythology, the oral tradition. We are not inventing a sandbox. We are building a richly imagined historical fantasy world rooted in a culture that actually existed — and actually mattered.

Southeast Asian writers, filmmakers and artists have always had stories to tell here. What they have not had is a fully realised, living version of this world — one that honours the history while giving imagination room to breathe.

This game builds that foundation. What grows from it — in other hands, in other media, in other voices — we open to the right people, not the loudest ones.

Not a franchise machine. A cultural home base.

The narrative is designed from the ground up for other stories to live inside it — historical, legendary, or somewhere in between — without requiring the game’s story to be told again.

Competitive Analysis & Market Positioning

Every game on this list is set somewhere else. Malacca sits in a category of one — a premium narrative action title in a historical setting no competitor has touched, at a price point the market has proven it will pay.

Title	Setting	Stealth	Narrative	SEA Fit
Assassin’s Creed II	Renaissance Italy	◑	●	○
Ghost of Tsushima	Feudal Japan	◑	◑	◑
Sekiro	Sengoku Japan	●	◑	◑
Dishonored	Fictional	●	●	○
A Plague Tale	Medieval France	◑	●	○
Malacca: Shadow of the Straits	15th-c. Malacca	●	●	●

● Strong · ◑ Partial · ○ Weak / None

Revenue Model

Premium Single-Purchase

A complete, standalone narrative experience delivered at launch. No live service, no battle pass, no content withheld behind subscriptions.

Pricing

Console: USD 39.99–49.99 (PS5, Xbox Series)
PC (Steam): USD 34.99
SEA regional pricing applied for first-party market penetration

DLC (Post-Launch, Performance-Dependent)

Story DLC — parallel perspectives or extended epilogue
Cosmetic packs — historically grounded, culturally accurate
No mechanical DLC that fragments the player base

Comparable AA Performance

Title	Genre	Units
Disco Elysium	AA narrative RPG	~1M+
Hellblade	AA cinematic action	~1M+
A Plague Tale: Innocence	AA historical stealth-action	~3M+
Pentiment	AA historical narrative	Critically acclaimed

The creative DNA of AC2 and Dishonored — both games that defined what premium AA design looks like — executed at the scope and budget A Plague Tale has proven the market will pay for. Ghost of Tsushima proved a non-Western historical setting with genuine cultural grounding can move tens of millions at premium price. Malacca has something none of them had: an audience of hundreds of millions of people for whom this history is personal.

PLANNING

Development Timeline

Phase	Duration	Focus
Phase 0	3 months	Pre-production · Core team · Engine selection · Cultural advisory setup
Phase 1	9 months	Vertical Slice · Playable Act I · Core stealth · Keris prototype · Publisher milestone
Phase 2	18 months	Full Production · Complete city build · All five acts · Full weapon systems · MoCap & audio
Phase 3	6 months	Alpha → Gold · QA & localisation · Platform certification · Marketing build
Phase 4	6 months+	Post-Launch · Live support · DLC scoping · Cultural programme

Budget & Scope

Scope Summary

Element	Detail
Hours of Gameplay	10–15 hrs main story · 18–22 hrs completionist
World Structure	Dense hub-and-spoke city · interconnected districts, not open world
Narrative Acts	5 acts · branching from Act III · two distinct mission sets
NPC Factions	6 major factions · ~40 unique archetypes
Weapons	Keris (4 blade traits) · Karambit (base) · Sumpitan (narrative unlock)
Voice Languages	English + Bahasa Malaysia at launch · additional languages post-launch
Target Platforms	PC, PS5, Xbox Series (primary) · Switch (secondary)

Indicative Budget

Phase	Amount	Notes
Pre-Production (Phase 0–1)	USD 1M – 1.5M	Core team, vertical slice, publisher milestone
Full Production (Phase 2)	USD 4M – 5M	AA single-player scope, full city build
Marketing & Release	USD 0.5M – 1M	SEA-first campaign with global digital reach
Total (Full Cycle)	USD 7M	Targeted AA budget — focused, culturally specific

Built on a Malaysian co-development model. Budget reflects regional cost structures, not Western equivalents. Scope is designed to flex without breaking the core experience.

Staffing

Phase 0 — Pre-Production · 8–12 people

Game Director · Lead Designer · Lead Engineer · Narrative Director · Art Director · Producer · Cultural Consultant (2–3) · Admin

Phase 1 — Vertical Slice · 20–30 people

All Phase 0 leads + Environment Artists (4–6) · Character Artists (2–3) · Gameplay Engineers (3–4) · Level Designers (2–3) · Animators (2–3) · QA (2–3)

Phase 2 — Full Production · 80–120 people

Full Art Department (25–35) · Engineering (20–25) · Design (12–16) · Narrative / VO (5–8) · Audio (5–8) · QA / Localisation (10–15) · Production / PM (5–8)

TEAM

James Chan

GM of Asia / VP of Technology · RocketRide Games · Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

A Malaysian game designer and operator with 20+ years of experience across the full development cycle, spanning console, PC and mobile titles at studios across North America and Malaysia.

Career

Period	Role
2023–present	GM of Asia / VP of Technology, RocketRide Games
2020–2023	COO, Brace Yourself Games
2017–2020	COO, Yacht Club Games
2015–2017	Studio Technology Manager, Telltale Games
2002–2015	Director of Technology, WayForward Technologies

Selected Credits (75 shipped games)

Cobalt Core · Phantom Brigade · Shovel Knight: Dig · Cyber Shadow · Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon · Batman: The Telltale Series · The Walking Dead · Minecraft: Story Mode · Shantae: ½ Genie Hero · BloodRayne

linkedin.com/in/jameswchan · mobygames.com/person/72380/james-chan/

Faizal Rahmat

Concept Artist · Environmental & World Design

All concept art in this pitch — the city panoramas, the palace at day and night, the aerial port views — was created by Faizal Rahmat. His work demonstrates that the world of Malacca is not a concept awaiting validation. It already exists visually. It is waiting to be built.

Jeremy Choo

Founder & CEO · Ammobox Studios · Subang Jaya GAME DEVELOPMENT

Founded Ammobox Studios in 2008 and built it into a 55-person Unreal Engine studio — one of Malaysia’s most technically capable independent developers. Known for Eximius: Seize the Frontline, a genre-breaking FPS/RTS hybrid, and the recent acquisition of the Depth IP. Former lecturer at Limkokwing University. Ammobox brings full-cycle Unreal development capability to the project.

Shahrizar Roslan

CEO & Co-founder · Kaigan Games · Kuala Lumpur NARRATIVE & IP

Co-founded Kaigan Games in 2016 and built it into the leading narrative indie studio in Southeast Asia. Sara is Missing achieved 5M+ downloads. The Simulacra series has won multiple international awards. Nullspace won Best in Play at GDC 2023. Shah brings deep expertise in narrative game design, world-building, and the SEA indie publishing landscape.

Jason Pua

Co-founder · Ten Ten Studios · Kuala Lumpur ART & VISUAL DEVELOPMENT

Co-founded Ten Ten Studios, a KL-based concept art and illustration studio specialising in video games, film and animation — and founded by working artists. Clients include 2K and Bandai Namco. Ten Ten brings the visual development capacity to realise the historical fantasy aesthetic of Malacca at the level of detail this world demands.

Production requires a publisher-backed team build. Key hires: Lead Engineer, Narrative Director, Cultural Advisory Board from Malaysian academic and heritage institutions.

CLOSING

The greatest city on earth. The brotherhood that protected it. The story that never got told. Until now.