While the Middle East is gradually witnessing a resurgence in the gaming industry, with investors across the globe channelling their time and capital in hopes of nurturing their stakes into something more prosperous, there remains a conspicuous scarcity of knowledge surrounding the history of Middle Eastern-made games from the 1980s through the early 2010s. You might be surprised to learn that the region has been attempting, for many years, to infiltrate and establish itself within the industry, albeit with limited success. For today’s occasion, we will be looking into Phantom, the first Game Boy Advance title purportedly developed in the Middle East.
It began in 2003, when a cohort of developers from Jordan, fresh out of university, coalesced to form Element Team. Their early attempt would see them stepping into the then-fresh-to-the-market Game Boy Advance market with a project known as Phantom — a 2D action title that played similarly to the likes of Castlevania: Dracula X.
Operating within the severely constrained toolset available at the time, the team managed to assemble only a short Pre-alpha demo. Unfortunately, Phantom never progressed beyond this stage, as no publisher was willing to finance or shepherd the project into full production. The idea of a Middle Eastern studio attempting to carve out space in an already ravenous, hyper-competitive market felt, to many at the time, like a science fiction film.
Ultimately, Element Team was unable to sustain itself, and the project was quietly shelved before it could properly materialise. The game was cancelled, leaving only a demo build behind. 