Summary
- Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary developer Saber Interactive was working on a Donald Trump game circa 2018.
- Called Trump Fu, the game was envisioned as a Trump-themed take on the Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn concept.
- While Shaq Fu flopped and Trump Fu was eventually abandoned, the former eventually led to Saber landing an NBA Playgrounds contract, which made it “a lot of money,” not least because of its impeccably timed release on the Switch.
Halo developer Saber Interactive was once working on a Donald Trump game. The idea for the project—which Saber ultimately 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 the critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a remaster of Microsoft’s iconic 2001 Xbox FPS. The company later played a supporting role in the making of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and has most recently found success with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a hit third-person shooter that debuted in September 2024.
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In between Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Space 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 with Game 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 after Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was 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 to EA’s 1994 game Shaq Fu.
Saber Interactive’s Fighting Games Featuring Celebrities
- Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn (2018)
- Barack Fu : The Adventures of Dirty Barry (2018)
- Trump Fu (canceled sometime after summer 2018)
‘Absolutely Nobody Played’ Shaq Fu’s Barack Obama DLC
One Indiegogo campaign and $458,884 in crowdfunding later, Saber Interactive made Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn, which ended up being one of the worst-reviewed games of 2018. The fighting game even got a Barack Obama-themed DLC in the form of Barack 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 titled Trump Fu. The project was being developed sometime during 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.
Although Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn didn’t exactly set the world on fire, it paved the way for Saber to land a contract for NBA 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 Playgrounds faced 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.
Saber Interactive
- Date Founded
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2001
- Headquarters
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Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S
- Parent Company
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Embracer Group
- Known For
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World War Z, Halo