Written in 2002, amd originally published in ComputerGames Magazine (RIP), this is one of GamerDad’s most popular articles. With the help of Sid Meier, Phil Steinmeyer, Peter Molyneaux, Jane Jensen and Richard Garriott (Lord British) we take a look at how religion and spirituality are addressed in computer games..

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“Religion is the substance of culture”, theologian Paul Tillich once noted. Not a controversial statement when you consider the impact religion and spirituality has had upon the faithful in all cultures. Reverberating, as they do, through the secular world, reflected in art, music, architecture, entertainment, even computer games, often with great benefits.

 “Games that treat religion realistically, weaving it into the game as it is woven into people’s lives, can provide a richer and more realistic simulation,” says Destination Games founder and Ultima creator Richard Garriott. “Spirituality lends the game world credibility and completeness. The search for meaning in life is universal, and a shallower life of conflict and treasure collecting will never match the strength of a game that includes ethical or spiritual underpinnings.”

While religion and spirituality add a lot to a game world, they often aren’t used effectively. “I don’t think there are any games that treat religion at anything more than a superficial level,” says Firaxis founder, and Civilization creator Sid Meier. While PopTop Software’s Phil Steinmeyer agrees, noting that “Religion is ignored in gaming, or if it is portrayed, it’s wildly caricatured.”

If religion and spiritual concepts can potentially add so much to a game world, why are they only used superficially? Why are they caricatured? And what will the future bring? To answer these questions we looked at games from the recent past, and considered how religion is used sometimes cleverly, sometimes clumsily, in gaming. We invited a few top game designers to come along and show us the sights, to in effect, play Virgil to our Dante.

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit” Luke 12:25

Role-playing games (RPGs) traditionally avoid using established religions in favor of using mythological gods and goddesses. A typical computer RPG features Priest characters, but they often function merely as medics and healers. They don’t preach, or further any religious end, they instead act as a medieval triage team. One exception to the ‘godlessness’ of a typical fantasy RPG is Diablo and Diablo II, which feature gameworlds where Hell is an actual destination and defeating a ‘devilish’ character is the ultimate goal. The Diablo universe also features Old Testament angels, like Tyreal, who provide a stark counterpoint to the evil you’re fighting. Few secular games feature both a satanic underworld and also imply that its heavenly opposite exists. Implying a Christian paradise in Diablo’s world helps put the evil of its villain into sharper perspective.

But there’s an absence of spirituality and morality in Diablo. “The good guys often kill and loot indiscriminately on their path to the evil bad guy,” notes Garriott.

Richard Garriott received a lot of fan mail from his early Ultima games; a lot of them were from, in his words, “religious extremists protesting the very idea of role-playing games.” This was during the early 80’s, back when Dungeons & Dragons was being blamed for all sorts of societal ills, like Devil worship and teen suicide. Garriott didn’t dismiss these letters; instead they made him think about the content of his games, and more importantly, the context of his game world.

The result was Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar, a game that used a series of ethical questions to determine your character class, and then thrust you into a world that offered a great deal of freedom. There were monsters to slay, treasures to take, and quests to perform, but behind the scenes the game tracked you based on eight virtues. If you ran from a battle you would lose Valor, for example. Lie to characters and your Honesty would suffer. The result was a game that had no traditional villain. It had monsters and quests, but behind the scenes it had a code of ethics to live up to. The goal was perfection, to become the Avatar for Garriott’s imaginary world. This internal and highly moral quest for virtue and redemption became the theme of all the Ultima games that followed.

Adventure games typically use religion as the historical and supernatural backdrop needed for such a story driven genre. Arguably, no one has used early Christian history, myth and iconography better than Jane Jensen in her Gabriel Knight series. Jensen claims this wasn’t intentional, “I chose a paranormal detective theme for my Gabriel Knight series. The religious element has just developed naturally as part of that theme.” Sometimes adventure games use it as a story device, like the Cult of the Hammerites in Thief: The Dark Project. The cult and their churches make the supernatural element easier to swallow, and the zealotry of the faithful increase the tension in the game. While the full extent of Vampire: The Masquerade-Redemption’s spiritual thrust was that it cast a nun as your vampire character’s main love interest. The game uses the Adam and Eve ‘corruption of innocence’ motif, as a simple, melodramatic story device yet never exploits it fully.

Action games tend to treat religious or spiritual concepts quite casually. They’re used as a backdrop, or setting, in games like Doom, and Quake, or they’re used in a light-hearted manner in games like Requiem: Avenging Angelùwhich featured an angelic protagonist complete with a Mohawk and a biker attitude. Sometimes they’re used in an offensive manner like Messiah’s wisecracking cherub and its morally bankrupt population of nuns and priests. However, a few Christian shooters have recently materialized on store shelves to compete with the secular shooters. The War in Heaven (Valuesoft), Catechumen, and Ominous Horizons: A Paladin’s Calling (from N’Lightning), all feature fairly primitive graphics by current standards and haven’t enjoyed a very positive critical reception as of yet. But they feature less violence (enemies dissipate into light, rather than explode into bloody chunks), offer much better motives for you to fight the forces of Hell, and they even reward players with Biblical lessons and scripture. N’Lightning’s games have reportedly sold well, but only within the Christian market. They haven’t yet captured the imagination and attention of the secular audience. Also, a company called Astrolab has made a few Islamic action/adventure games (they appear to be heavily based on trivia and religious lessons).

“Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war?” Isaiah 36:5

It’s easiest to find religious references in the strategy genre. Here religion is presented as historical context, or it’s incorporated into the gameworld to function as Karl Marx put it, as “an opiate for the masses.” Take, for example, Sid Meier’s Civilization series. According to Meier: “Civilization treats the development of religion as a cultural advance, which brings benefits primarily in the area of the happiness of your population and their loyalty to your culture.” A Cathedral, in Civilization III, has the dual effect of fulfilling your people’s needs and impressing your neighbors. These ideas simplify religion’s effect on real-world culture into a game play mechanism, but one that’s meaningful throughout the game because it plays into your decision-making. Do you build more weapons? Or do you placate your populace with entertainment or religious achievements?

Real-time strategy games like Empire Earth or Age of Empires have to take a more superficial approach. Priests can perform miracles and function as healers, and they can even convert enemy units to your side. Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings also uses religion as a historical backdrop for the campaigns featuring Frederick Barbarossa and the Muslim Emperor Saladin.

Peter Molyneux’s ground breaking Populous games, and his most recent effort, Black & White, are filled with religious and spiritual concepts. In both games you take the role of a god and have direct control over certain powers or miracles. The people, however, have a mind of their own. They can be swayed by your miracles, and you could guide them, but only to a point and only at the expense of your own powers. In Populous your power is derived from masses of worshipers. Neglect them and they would abandon you. In Black & White you could choose the kind of god you’d be, and even how kind or cruel your massive Creature (an animistic avatar) would be. You could be evil or good. Shades of gray are available as well, making Black & White the most successful game at capturing a sense of moral free will. The similarities to existing organized religions are intentionally shallow, however. “We had to avoid any reference to any existing religions but if you examine the many religions of the world you find that many of them have similar concepts and beliefs,” explains Molyneux.

SimCity and Tropico also feature religious structures that affect how people feel. But the two games, while similar, take completely different approaches. In Tropico the player chooses where to place churches and whether or not to hire priests. “In SimCity churches are built by the sims (not the player) near their residential areas,” notes creator Will Wright. While in Tropico, religion is a faction you must appease with churches, cathedrals, and the hiring of priests. Both games offer different consequences for ignoring religion. “You have the option of going the opposite way and ignoring or suppressing religion,” says Steinmeyer. “This can be a successful strategy in Tropico, as it has been in real life for [Fidel] Castro, who has been in power for 40 years, suppressing religion for most of that time.” Tropico is about pleasing segments of your population, and the religious faction is a crucial segment, while SimCity asks you to leave your citizens to fulfill their own spiritual needs.

Then there’s The Sims, a game billed as a “life-simulator”, but the lives it simulates are bereft of both religion and spirituality. As Computer Games Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Steve Bauman noted in his review of the game “The sims of the game are essentially a Godless race that worships capitalism and capitalism alone.” The sim-people derive joy, comfort, and entertainment from objects. Could they not meditate or pray instead, and derive the same benefits? Wright explains: “The Sims is lacking religion for the same reasons that SimCity lacks any references to race. How do we represent this subject without offending too many people? Who are we offending by leaving it out?” He goes on to say: “For The Sims we knew that players would be creating custom content for the game so we left this part of the game empty for them to fill.” We were unable to find any custom content addressing this, which could imply a lack of demand on the part of consumers.

“Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off” Proverbs 23:18

It appears that using religion and spiritual concepts in games makes for better games, as most of those mentioned previously are classics. But there’s a lot of risk to consider first. “Obviously it’s a sensitive area for a lot of folks and as a developer, you have to realize that there are a wide range of beliefs and practices. There’s a lot of potential to offend if done improperly.” Steinmeyer observes. Will Wright believes the main danger lies in “[M]is-representing or offending an entire belief system.” Adding, “Most religions contain many fractured internal groups￠[Protestant and Catholic Christians, Sunni and Suffi Muslims]” which, in Wright’s view, makes the risks of misrepresentation even greater.

But for some, the risks are worthwhile. When asked, the developers we spoke to offered their own ideas of how they might tackle the subject in the future. “With Ultima, I created a simple ethical structure (the eight virtues). Over the last few years I’ve given a lot of thought to structuring one not just for gaming convenience, but rather one that I truly believe in,” says Richard Garriott. “I think that will not only please me on a personal level, but will (also) make even more compelling storylines. Right now with my new game Tabula Rasa, we’re debating how to manifest that within the game itself.”

Peter Molyneux said, “We have a very ambitious plan for the Black & White series to take it right up to the modern day when in a lot of cultures, gods are not so significant.” Adding that “￠[T]he idea of playing an all powerful being is something that I find totally amazing and is certainly a theme we’ll continue with in future games.”

Jane Jensen has retired from making games recently, instead concentrating on her career as a novelist. This retirement may not be permanent: “I hope to make another game at some point. I’m very interested in the Victorian era Spiritualist craze — rapping tables, ‘ectoplasm’, etc.”

Phil Steinmeyer remarked that PopTop doesn’t have any projects like this in mind but he can imagine a strategy game involving “[H]ow missionaries spread, or attempted to spread Christianity to the non-European world￠ [Or how] other religions have also spread themselves (like Islam) with methods quite different from Christianity.”

Perhaps similarly inspired, Sid Meier teased, “I’ve been thinking that a game based on the travels, letters, adventures, and influence of Paul in the 1st century could be really interesting, but I haven’t gotten around to making that game yet.” Meier is referring to Saul, converted on the road to Damascus when struck by what he called a great light. Saul became Paul and went on to spread Christianity.

Perhaps such a game would mirror Paul’s efforts (or The Prophet Muhammad’s, or Gautama Buddha’s), traveling from hard drive to hard drive, influencing gamers and developers alike, and changing the way they incorporate religious concepts in their games. Or maybe some of these Christian themed developers, like N’Lightning, could break into other genres. Creating the evangelical games that their faithful want, but with gameplay quality even secular gamers could enjoy. Or perhaps other churches, other religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, or even other facets of Christianity will enter the market. So long as their gameplay trumps any evangelical goals, such games would no doubt be welcome.

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So, what games have come out since this article was written?  What games would you add and what designers/companies would you ask?

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