Happy Easter Weekend.
It’s one of the most holy days on the Christian/Chocoholic calendar, and to help celebrate we wanted to take a look at the broad-strokes of Christianity’s influence on games, and how games have interpreted and dealt with the good book in turn.
In doing research for this piece, I’ve come across then spent a little time reading about, dozens of games that were fashioned exclusively for Christian consumption. The one element they all held in common was that they were all unplayable dogshit.
We played it so you don’t have to
I don’t mean to say there can’t be compelling, fun and thoughtful unabashedly Christian-themed games, I just mean that there isn’t any right now. There’s certainly a market out there (Mel Gibson is richer than the Vatican thanks to his turn at torture porn) and a belief system that’s been so fundamental to our culture certainly deserves thoughtful consideration in our medium, but when Christianity does pop up in mainstream games it tends to fall under a few particular, and I think limiting, tropes. Here’s where the Christian tradition has made the biggest impact on games.
"A pie plate-sized impact in the back of your skull."
Since religion is about as popular on game forums as Electronic Arts, a quick mea culpa. I’m a Christian; a protestant more specifically, which my atheist friends are always quick to assure me is “religious-lite”, but nevertheless, I believe the Christ story, the miracles, the resurrection, etc. Have at it!
The Devil
As odd as it seems, I think it’s pretty clear the most popular figure gaming has scoured from the Christian tradition is that of the great deceiver. Diablo,Devil May Cry (sort of), Dante’s Inferno, the new Castlevania, it seems like Christianity’s chief villain has found himself quite at home in the gaming pantheon.
And why not? He’s sexy, dangerous, at once sympathetic and despicable, cartoonish and daunting, and in our Western consciousness he is the ultimate last stage boss. His advantage for game narrative is that he’s pliable, but doesn’t raise any of the ire plopping inserting a, say, John the Baptist into a story would. Still, he’s supposed to be the worst thing in the universe, it’s like putting Tom Sizemore in every Rom Com.
“I’m kind of a Dick, that’s my thing.”
Crazies
Every Catholic Mass according to Baptists.
Where games have certainly embraced Christianity is in visions (or historical repetitions) of its fanaticism. The tropes of the “manic priest” and his Christ-frenzied minions are more or less commonplace, though never so thoroughly as in Bioshock Infinite (or is that Mormonism… same difference). We’ve all had to shoot our way through a zombie-like hoard of true believers at one time or another, and to great effect; I slept with the lights on all the way through the Resident Evil 4 campaign.
Politics
“The Power of Christ, and this sweet alien tech, compel you!”
You don’t have to get up terribly early in the morning to think of an historical example of Church authority gone awry, and neither, it seems, do game developers. There is no better example than the Civilization series, where faith (Christian and otherwise) holds sway over the populous. Religion makes them either more or less pliant depending on which way you swing the crucifix, so to speak. But there’s also the crooked Pope pulling the templar strings that you half-murder in Assassin’s Creed. But then again, King From Tekken was a priest too, so I guess it all comes out in the wash.
“Three Hail Marys and Four Our Fathers”
You might notice that even though all the examples I’ve brought up are intriguing, smart and none of these are very I think games by and large have a tendency to villainize or infantilize Christianity, which to be fair, has time and time again made for some excellent games. But as the scope and breadth of games keeps expanding there’s an opportunity for Christianity and other faiths to be presented and considered in a more philosophical and analytical (dare I say respectful) context, without any proselytizing or patronizing.
“We’re all friends here, baby!”
There is as much room for Jesus in our gaming universe as there is for Kratos, just so long as I’m never tapping “X” to resist temptation on the mountain.
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