A Game about Religion

[Windcaler]

When gamers talk about religion there tends to only be one focus to it, that being the political manifestations of a religion on a person(s) or culture(s). What I think many people that don't belong to a religon (for whatever reason) often don't understand about the contemporary shapes its taken in organizations like the Roman catholic church. Today religion often, but not always, takes the form of inborn philosophy. A way of life that a community can embrace and an ideal to strive for. However these internal philosophies are almost never spoken about and instead people often focus on history, mythology, and/or politics to either praise or demonize the religion in question (or just religion itself).

There are many games where fictional religions were the cornerstone of plots and these turned out to be good games. The main one that comes to my mind was Final fantasy 10, a game where the ideas of corruption and loss of faith in religion (but regaining faith in ones self) by one of the protagonists was a cornerstone of the game. It said something meaningful about humanity and our faith in the unknown and was therefore a piece of art. However there are games that handle religion very poorly as well, like Fallout 3. Now I love fallout 3 but its various religions really only showed how odd a religion can seem to outsiders. Not one religion in that game (that I can recall) had a real tangible philosophy behind it. Even worse the very context needed to explain religious rites of groups like the church of atom was poorly done with no real thought put into them. It would be like if someone went to a catholic church and witnessed the ritual of communion. Without proper context into the symbolism it would be very easy to mistake the ritual as one embracing cannibalism. As is seeing the church of atom, and listening to their rituals, just made you think you were listening to a bunch of crazy people. That's a really bad way to handle religion (luckily the Lonely hearts DLC of fallout new vegas turned that on its head and the Kings is also a perfect atheist religion due to their inborn philosophy)

I guess what Im saying is to make a game about religion you have to do something meaningful with it. Also just to talk about another point that's tangentally connected that Im personally getting bored of is all the religious antagonists the games industries use as of late. We just don't get any truly admirable people to play positive roles and do something good with their faith. It would be nice to see a character like Sam Childers (a preacher who has spent much of his life saving war orphans and child soldiers in South Sudan) or Pope Francis (who has spent much of his career eschewing wealth for the sake of others while simultaneously building bridges with people of all faiths) in gaming. Just someone positive rather then the generic religious antagonist army #34 that we've gotten in game after game after game and probably will get again in the future (Im looking at you wasteland 2)

To close this, I just want to suggest a religion themed game that I think would be awesome to play. I want someone to make a detective style game based around Catholic demonology specialists that had to solve mysteries and ultimately banish a creature back to hell. If it was intellectually focused where the player had to find clues to the indentity of the creature, its victims, its powers, and more to help them excorcise it I think it would be amazing but hey maybe that's just me.

 

[Zeh Don]

... Bioshock Infinite, anyone?

Anyway, the only issue I have with games about religion is that they generally fall into one of two camps: "Religion is Evil: The Game" or "Convert or Burn: The Game". Neither are presented any better, and both simply preach to their respective choirs instead of actually promoting discussion.

The closest I've see to a fair representation of religion in games is Civilisation IV or Medieval II: Total War. All the benefits and disadvantageous are laid out, and it is ultimately up to the player to use it like a tool, respect it or entirely ignore it.

It, along with several other such topics, just don't make for good video games, in my opinion. But, in my opinion, not every issue needs to be expressed in video game form.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

Assassins Creed (the first one) had a very heavy religion aspect to it. What with it being in Crusades and all.

Medieval Total War 2 also has a big religious aspect (as does Shogun 2, which can have massive consequences)

Especially the first Assassin's creed, You start off as Altair thinking you understand what you've been taught about your faith but are made to fail as a result of your hubris and spend much of the game relearning only to end up with the same understanding you had but with a different perspective, the whole game is loaded with these clever and subtle nudges and religious themes, it is very much the story of Altair's faith.

 

[dyre]

I think it would be too overt to have a game strictly about Christianity or a major faith; the problem with that is we already have opinions on Christianity and its history, so it sort of restricts the ability of the game to tell a proper story. Players will have decided who the good guys and bad guys are before the game could even present them.

In terms of a religion based RPG (4X / Empire building games can do religion in a non-biased way, but RPGs are more personal), I'm have trouble imagining it. You could have a game centered around historical events, but a lot of famous historical events are pretty black and white (Inquisition = bad, Crusades = bad).

I only have one idea for a game that really offers moral choice in terms of accepting or rejecting the religious side of the story:

You could be a missionary in a European imperial colony, say, late 1800s/early 1900s China. You arrive with high ideals, wanting to spread the Good Word to the native Chinese as well as help educate / modernize them. Your fellow missionaries are for the most part legitimately interested in helping the locals. However, you also realize that you are somewhat a tool of European foreign policy, an instrument of "soft power" meant to bring the natives under the influence of the colonial powers and away from the authority of the Chinese government. Benefiting from the weakness of the Chinese throne, missionaries and their British / American political backers demand (and receive) special authority in China, giving them what many believe to be undeserved privilege and power above the law. Meanwhile, there is growing resentment in some circles against your missionary work, in part because it diminishes the autonomy of the Chinese government, in part because they are seen as an extension of unwelcome foreign powers pushing their unwelcome religion onto the people. You are aware that this resentment is in danger of boiling over into open violence against yourself and your fellow missionaries, and the colonial troops in the area will not be enough to contain the violence if it erupts. I guess the endings could be:
1. Your character abandons the mission, having become disenchanted by the nasty politics surrounding the missionary movement.
2. Your character sticks with the mission, but flees when the violent uprising begins, abandoning his fellow missionaries and their converts to the wrath of the rebels.
3. Your character sticks with the mission and faces whatever comes...

It'd sort of be a moral question of the right of missionaries to do their work in foreign nations when half the population welcomes them and the other half wants them gone, with a sort of "dirty means to a righteous end" question regarding using your nation's imperial influence to force the native government to accept the missionaries.

The only problem really is the gameplay...clearly the gameplay could not actually be related to the day to day life of being a missionary, because that's really boring. Maybe you could be some kind of missionary archaeologist going throw ancient Chinese tombs or something, I dunno.

 

[Bertylicious]

There's a point and click adventure game on Steam about a rabbi that has a crisis of faith whilst having to deal with Secrets. The Shivah, I think it is.

Is that the sort of thing you're on about?

 

[proctorninja2]

well I mean technically dante's inferno (all 3 parts together) focus on finding and loosing religion so I guess thats already been made but I think someone could prob do a better job, id personally not buy it but im sure there is some fraction of the gaming community that would love it

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I admit that it would take one hell of a game to make me not cringe to death at a "finding religion" main story in a game. I would have a very hard time relating to that as a positive character growth. Especially if the pre-religion status was intentionally displayed as "hollow" or "empty". Because I don't think there is any reason to feel that way due to a lack of faith. And I don't know if I would like the opposite any better. As I said it would have to be a fucking masterpiece of a game to pull that of.

 

[bfgmetalhead]

Crusader Kings 2.

This. One million times thissss! Crusader kings shows religion in it's brightest and far more commonly it's darkest.

 

[GafferGames]

It sounds like a good idea as a sort of sub-text to a game, but I don't know how much of a full game you could get out of that idea. Even if you could, it would have to contain pivotal choices you can make that determine who you side with, but overall there wouldn't be any way to have like a "bar" that tells you how religious you are at the end of the game or whatever, so I couldn't really see it from that perspective. I think a game about corruption in the modern church would be interesting though!

 

[Terrible Opinions]

If you want a good game about religion, try the Fallout: New Vegas DLC "Honest Hearts", which focuses on the conflicting goals of two Mormon missionaries and the tribal groups they guide/lead. The missionaries are interesting themselves, but there's a really touching sideplot that you can slowly uncover about the birth of a new religion that absolutely floored me at its conclusion.

Just a shame it was so damn short.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Ultima 4 lets you find your own religion, right?

 

[CannibalCorpses]

One good piece of fiction deserves another huh?

Why would anyone want to play a game based around finding religion? I find the cynic in me just see's it as another way to try and indoctrinate weak minded fools and children into an ideal that has no basis in fact.

Let's make games about the reality of religion. I want a game where i play a paedophile priest whose entire organisation hides my crimes from the world and actively allows me to continue on my world tour of destroying other peoples lives...all in the name of god. Or one where you persecute people for their sexual preferences until they kill themselves but then pretend that god is the answer, the forgiveness, the love.

I've got a good title for your hypothetical game...let's call it 'Hypocracy'

 

[Victim of Progress]

There is actually one good religious game I know. It's called Afterlife. It's a tycoon game made with the premise that you as a Demiurge must create a place for the souls to stay. You have a choice by building heaven, hell or both. Each with its own rewards and punishments.

You can also influence the planet and its inhabitants "EMBOs", or Ethically Mature Biological Organisms. My making them more good, evil or even atheist so there would be a lesser influx of souls to your afterlife. You can also influence their technology level and many other things.

That game had great humour, interesting gameplay and was overall very well done. I do recommend checking it out for the only few religious games done well.

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

They made one, it was called Bioshock Infinite, it was controversial but heartfelt and interesting.

 

[KazeAizen]

I admit that it would take one hell of a game to make me not cringe to death at a "finding religion" main story in a game. I would have a very hard time relating to that as a positive character growth. Especially if the pre-religion status was intentionally displayed as "hollow" or "empty". Because I don't think there is any reason to feel that way due to a lack of faith. And I don't know if I would like the opposite any better. As I said it would have to be a fucking masterpiece of a game to pull that of.

The pre religion status would not show the person's life as hollow or empty. I don't see why it would have to be either, and this is coming from a Catholic.

 

[Amaror]

Well i think crusader kings 2, as has been allready said, portrays religion pretty realistic. Although being anything other than christian is still pretty op, because as a pagan you can conquest single counties or subjugate whole realms of people of your same religion and can call huge invasions on people of other religions.
As a christian you can fabricate a claim, wait a few dozen years and then pay a bunch of money and prestige to conquer a single county. Or if your not part of the 99% of christianity that's not surrounded by christians you can call in holy wars, but as i said that only counts for a few.

 

[Raikas]

So here is a question I want to pose to you my fellow escapists. How do you think gamers would respond to a game about religion? I don't mean in the superficial angels vs. demons, god vs. devil, heaven vs. hell type. I mean that the main character's journey through the game is either finding religion, more specifically Christianity and even more specific Roman Catholicism, or growing away from religion. Of course should the player gravitate towards religion on their journey it would be casting the church in a very positive light. So how do you think we as a community and you yourself might respond to a game taking on that subject matter? This is of course assuming that the game is good etc etc. Would we as a community condemn such a game or welcome the change in pace of religion represented in games?

I'm not against a game that plays with religion or has religiously allegorical themes, but a plot based on conversion seems like it would be incredibly challenging to not be uncomfortably preachy (especially if it were, as you suggest) a set plot with an end point of one specific real world religion. I think a character going through a crisis of faith can be interesting, but for the point of the game itself to be resolving it with that conversion moment strikes me as creepy. As to it specifically being Christian/Catholic, I think the tone of that would vary a lot depending on your country/culture and what the majority religion/sect is and the position of religion in your culture - the political symbolism isn't neutral depending on where you are/who you are, y'know?

I don't think allowing a user to pick from multiple faith traditions would be any better though - someone might be able to do a good job of it, but it would be much to easy for that to be a gross oversimplification of all the religions involved.

All you really need to know is that most gamers consider him to be a monumental prick and an exceedingly pretentious writer.

Eh, I know a fair number of people who liked Heavy Rain - that doesn't mean they love Cage, of course, but I don't think that kind of interactive story-type game is as disliked as you're saying. Not a fan myself, but hey.

 

[RJ 17]

All you really need to know is that most gamers consider him to be a monumental prick and an exceedingly pretentious writer.

Eh, I know a fair number of people who liked Heavy Rain - that doesn't mean they love Cage, of course, but I don't think that kind of interactive story-type game is as disliked as you're saying. Not a fan myself, but hey.

I'm just going by what I've heard around these parts, really. I didn't say that those types of games didn't work, but rather that people hated David Cage...which is what you quoted me on.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.836890-Beyond-two-souls-Was-it-judged-too-harshly

Just a bit of evidence to support my claim, go there and read people's feelings about the guy.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

The only problem really is the gameplay...clearly the gameplay could not actually be related to the day to day life of being a missionary, because that's really boring. Maybe you could be some kind of missionary archaeologist going throw ancient Chinese tombs or something, I dunno.

I think that's the biggest problem with games trying to tackle meaningful stuff in general: unless your story's themes can centre on jumping/shooting as the protagonist's core activity, it just won't gel properly.