Super Mario, Commander Shepard and God.

So, I may have just realized what I want to do with my life. The fact that there is an entire field of academia devoted to the interplay of video games with religious studies and philosophy made me super excited. Like, really really excited... The type of excited that only little kids in class can experience, wriggling in their chair and holding their arm up to answer a question because they've spent so much time studying something and finally can demonstrate that they didn’t waste their time and want something to show for it. 

I knew that my time playing Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo and Sonic on the Sega Genesis was going to pay off.

Pictured: Research. (forbes.com)

Anyway, Jason Anthony’s article in Playing with Religion in Digital Games, focuses on the different historical and religious contexts in which games have interacted with religions throughout the ages. These are interesting, but I really wanted to explore what he calls the “digital corollaries,” and, more specifically, I want to talk about what Anthony terms the “Allomythic” game. Afterwards, I’d like to touch upon the possible future of this type of video games and religion. 

Anthony broadly defines “allomythic” games as “Games that explore nonexistent traditions… Allomythic games postulate new religious landscapes, and go a step further by providing a first-person way to step into those traditions and practice them” (65). Some examples he gives of this type of interaction are the Mass Effect series and The Elder Scrolls series. To me, this type of interaction is fascinating, because it digests and comments upon religion in a unique way due to its involvement of the gamer. Having played both series he mentions, the inclusion of the player into these philosophies early on is an interesting way that many gamers have had a chance to interact with a "religion" and, for lack of a better term, all its associated “baggage,” especially if they don’t officially identify as following a particular faith. This is type of digital game also allows some exploration in how these traditions influence player and non-player actions throughout the game, such as one entire side quest of The Elder Scrolls Series that focuses on supernatural deities inflicting their will on the population.  Also, the amount of creativity and believability of these allomythic games bring up an interesting aspect of the human experience when it comes to stories: These traditions are sometimes just as believable as the “real” thing. Going a step further, I’d say that novels like Game of Thrones and other Sci-Fi books have created religious traditions that people feel invested in, influenced by and understand within their contexts. I’d go a step further and say that fictional TV shows in which people get visceral reactions to play upon the same part of the human experience. Perhaps allomythic games are more than just a video game; they allow us to explore a unique part of humanity and our relation to our creations, be it a religion or even a god.

World of Elder Scrolls and its related game areas. (Reddit.com)

Ultimately, we are allowed, as players in such a game, to follow or at least be aware of a particular philosophy and see it interact with others and perhaps change over the course of a game. Often, these ideas are syncretic with a few “real-world” religions, and an allomythic game can serve as a laboratory to observe how people “play” with these new ideas. In an increasingly connected world, I often wonder if religions will become more open to change and begin a process of morphing into larger and more inclusive faiths. If so, allomythic games may give us an interesting perspective on how such a thing may look, and how people may react to it. 

Also, in my experience, allomythic games seem to take themselves pretty seriously, so it makes for wonderful videos such as this one from Mass Effect: