Spoilers: Exo One (Exbleative), Submachine: Legacy (Mateusz Skutnik), The Talos Principle (Croteam), The Talos Principle 2 (Croteam), Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios), Treasure Adventure Game (Robit Games), Nubs' Adventure (MaxBytes), LIMBO (Playdead)
Yep. You read that title right. And I don't just mean The Bible on Steam. Or The Zoo Race.
From my perspective, it's blindingly obvious that all good art is made with God to show His beauty. But what I find really interesting is how particular aspects of God and Christianity are portrayed in my favorite video games, without overtly mentioning either of these words, or any specific Biblical terms for that matter. (With one exception.) It's that specific quality of a good story that atheists call "good storytelling", "interesting ideas", or "that cool fuzzy feeling in my tummy".
CASE ONE: The Beauty
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1)
Let's start off with where my journey of discovering God started: wonder at the complexity of the world, and at how we humans are able to enjoy it. Exo One takes you across a multitude of planets all across the universe in your unidentified flying object. So unidentified, in fact, that it doesn't resemble anything we would call a spacecraft. “There's nothing in the design for a cockpit, no internal space for a pilot,” according to a reporter in the game. Very strange. Much alien.
There is almost no goal: just get to the glowing blue monolith on each planet. There's no way to die or lose, you're pretty much just flying around peacefully, enjoying the world. Sometimes it's a bit of a riddle on how to proceed forward, and it can sometimes get frustrating (especially if you're going for collectibles or achievements), but there's never really any stress. The game is designed around a relaxed vibe and just pure enjoyment of the alien landscapes.
And this is exactly what catalyzed my own discovery of God: wonder at the existing, peaceful, stable beauty of the world. By specifically putting the setting on completely uninhabited lands, without any drastic, sudden events, Exbleative made Exo One a perfect recreation of this aspect of theism. And everything is linked together by the reverby, drawn-out, dreamy guitar soundtrack. Interspersed with long moments of silence, akin to Ballance, with just the whoosh of the wind and the scraping of the ground to keep you company.
Then there's another aspect: being in touch with the unexplainable. One thing I've learned over my spiritual journey is that intuition and instinct are much more reliable than most people think. Especially when it comes to things like the most abstract and wonderful aspects of physics − something that's explored a bit in the wishy-washy story of Exo One, but a lot more in my second case.
CASE TWO: The Strangeness
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
The Submachine series is almost defined by how difficult the lore is to understand – but in a positive way. It's not like the FNAF lore, full of contradictions, unclear storytelling, new content invented on the spot, and bits of lore being sprinkled around like it's some kind of puzzle box.
Rather, the concept is difficult to translate into words, similarly to Exo One, although the writer, Mateusz Skutnik, actually did a really good job of translating it into words. You're left with less of a concrete idea of what the Submachine is, how it operates, and so on − it's more of an emotional, intuitive understanding. You can, of course, re-read the notes scattered throughout the game and try to get some concrete evidence, answer specific questions, but most players won't; and I feel that that's the intended experience. To be left with a sense of wonder and a mental image of the Submachine that doesn't quite know where its power ends.
This is all very similar to the Christian experience: some aspects of God you can deduce and work out from the available evidence − be it the Bible, scientific evidence, historic evidence, or basic logic − but what really matters the most to you is your intuitive understanding of God based on your own personal experience.
And more importantly, there's the ever-expanding understanding of God's power, exemplified in the seemingly random addition of new metaphysical concepts in the Submachine universe. Right in the first chapter, Murtaugh writes about “his third arm. The invisible one.” Then in the second chapter, we're informed about “cross-dimension portals”. Over the next couple chapters, we see portals, endless loops, strange locations, and huge security complexes. We're told about “anti-structural architecture freed from boundaries of material durability”, about the machine “healing itself, as any normal organism would”, the “seven main layers of reality” and a “countless number of sub-layers” and then the existence of time travel is just casually added into the mix when Mur sees his own tomb.
All this is done to make the Submachine seem constantly more and more powerful − and foreign. A living creature that is our world, that thinks completely differently to us, that has powers we don't even know exist, a creature which we can only start understanding in our lives − ain't that simply God?
One more interesting quote: “The spoon has no purpose... Why hasn't it shifted away?...” It reminds me of how God's choices often seem bizarre to us humans. (After all, the spoon in this section is used to obtain a secret later on − it only seems not to have a purpose.)
CASE THREE: The Journey
“This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.” (Exodus 12:11)
A constantly repeating theme in the Bible is the journey. The Israelites were always on the run, and Jesus in his adult life was also walking around all the time. Once he finished doing a certain miracle or teaching, he immediately made his way to the next place. And this journey is just as spiritual as it is physical. The moment you've reached a new spiritual discovery, it's time to move on to the next... or a rediscovery of a truth you've forgotten.
The journey from Old Testamentalism to New Testamentalism is pretty evidently apparent in the journey from The Talos Principle 1 to 2. TTP1 has a patriarchical, voice-in-the-sky, authoritarian image of God. The Human Interface Module, "EL-0-HIM", tells you not to climb the dangerous-looking Tower, and you can choose to listen to him, or not. But, EL0HIM does also tell you repeatedly that you're his beloved child, and that extends to the second game as well, where, despite not anymore being stuck in a simulation, EL0HIM's voice is contained within every new human.
What's interesting, however, is that this primitive understanding of God was not meant to last − over the course of the game, you see graphical glitches, and there's a secret room where you can hear the earthly worries of EL0HIM (who, in actuality, was built specifically to maintain the existence of the simulation and keep the robots from climbing the Tower). Because, after all, the Old Testament is just part of what God revealed to the world about Himself.
Now, the most obvious change of thinking − mental journey, if you will − between the Old and New Testaments is the progress from Law to Love. (Yes, yes, they complement each other and you can't just reject the Old Testament as outdated, yada yada.) And this is... literally what happens in these two games. One of TTP2's main themes is, well, love. The romantic love between Yaqut and Miranda; the familial love between her and her parents, Athena and Cornelius; the leaderly love between Athena and Byron; the friendship love between him and Alcatraz.
But that's not where the "mental journey" ends. There's the advance from primitive interpretations of sustainability ("the Goal" of making 1000 new humans and no more) to mature, sustainable, rational yet dream-fueled growth (“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” − Genesis 1:28). There's the move from authoritarianism to democracy, with a single leader who still listens to his citizens.
CASE FOUR: The Love
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:16)
How can you talk about Christianity without mentioning Love, which is literally a definition of God?
Now, obviously, Love is one of the most popular themes in all art, but not all "love" is made equal. There is erotic love, with no deeper intentions behind it than raw animalistic impulses; there is toxic love, always trying to give the other person something that you think they need, without asking them; there is hypnotised, slavely love, never questioning, always giving whatever the other person asks. The Love that God is, is, well, Godly love. What is Godly love? Go study the Bible, that's where the answers lie.
Although, some ideas of this holy kind of love are present in other media, too. Like in Unravel 2, where the protagonist Yarnys help each other pass the obstacles in each level in tandem with the protagonist human characters helping each other fight against the unnamed evil drunk men.
Addendum: I finally realized that Unravel 2 is a perfect metaphor for a Christian's life journey: the Yarnys are the souls of the protagonists, the evil drunk men are the literal demons (what atheists call "bad thoughts"), and the spark guiding you through every level is Jesus. As long as you're following Him, you will progress in your spiritual journey. And even if the demons in your life shatter Him, if you work together with someone you love, you can bring Him back into your life. (For those who haven't played Unravel 2, there are sections where the spark literally pushes the evil men away, the evil men swat at it and break it, it splits into two glowing areas, and once you solve the puzzle and get both Yarnys to the glowing areas, the spark is recreated and successfully drives the evil men away. It's literally a one-to-one metaphor.)
But something that more closely resembles Godly love in all its paradoxical logic is the ending to Ori and the Blind Forest. The iconic scene shows Kuro, the main and only real villain, change sides and sacrifice herself to save Ori after seeing her own motherly love reflected in Naru's. And it's hard not to draw parallels to Jesus on the cross − or at least what it inspires. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.” (Luke 6:35)
How many of us would give life to save our life-long enemies?
CASE FIVE: The Child
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
What better example to give of Christianity than a childlike game about an adventure for treasure? Treasure Adventure Game, maybe?
There are so many factors at play here. There's the innocence of the main character, with all "side-quests" focusing on helping others. There's the childlike main quest to just explore the world and look for treasure. There's the completely unrealistic image of a child infiltrating a huge corporation and destroying it from the inside, a total David-and-Goliath situation. And the simple, pixel-art aesthetic, chiptune soundtrack and even the primitive, buggy implementation of game mechanics perfectly suit that aforementioned innocence.
But what really sells the Christianity of this game is the ending. After a long and difficult fight with Youlang, who is essentially and functionally Satan, the situation seems hopeless, Youlang gathers his powers for a final attack, when suddenly he is unceremoniously squashed, like a bug, by Otus, a giant god. “But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant, the Lord Almighty will come” (Isaiah 29:5,6)
And there's another thing I really like about this ending: Otus says, “Sorry I'm late. I've been looking everywhere for you guys. Did I miss anything?” This reminds me of a thought I heard from a preacher once: “God is 15 minutes late, but always on time” − the idea is the same as the Tolkien quote “A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.” My point is that despite Otus being seemingly late, he came in just the right moment for the player to face a satisfying, and not unfair, amount of challenge. And there are many other good reasons why God doesn't immediately save you when you face an obstacle.
And that's just one of the reasons why I so strongly dislike the remake of this game, Treasure Adventure World... Otus does smash Youlang's magic energy device during the fight, but it's far from the end of it, and his role in the fight is very much reduced − but that's an essay for another day.
CASE SIX: The Simplicity
“This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29)
I have come to really love the simple, primitive indie game stories. Nubs' Adventure, which touched me particularly deeply, has an extraordinarily simple story: you're living in peace, then red guys come over, beat you up and burn your house. Then you come across a fairy who can create a new house for you, but you need to find magical gems for her. You travel the land, occassionally fighting the reds again, until at last the house is rebuilt. Finally, the reds come back to kidnap the fairy so you beat them one last time to free her. And that's it. (Honestly, the ending cutscene is absolutely one of my top top favorite endings of all time, it brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. So I won't spoil it. It's also not relevant to my argument here.)
Similarly to TAG, the protagonist is mute and leads a simple, innocent life. It says a lot when the only ability you unlock in the whole game is finding a boomerang to whack stuff with; it's the reds who constantly come up with new contraptions to get revenge and satisfy their pride: “they have gone in search of many schemes”, or, as in the King James Bible, “inventions”. The Christians' goal is simple: learning to love Christ. It's the humans who came up with all sorts of complications to distract themselves from this goal and justify wasting time.
(One other aspect of Nubs' Adventure that I really enjoy is how you occassionally gain control of a giant, terrifying worm, or a tiny floating wisp: it reminds me of the Biblical contrasts between Jesus the benign lamb and Jesus the blood-soaked warrior.)
The story of LIMBO, one of my favorite rediscovered classics, is even simpler. In fact, it's all summarised in the Steam blurb: “Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO.” And that's pretty much all that happens from a plot standpoint. The boy gets up and walks right, completes some puzzles, defeats a giant spider, gets brain-worms removed by critters in the ceiling, completes some more puzzles, and reaches his sister. And then the game suddenly ends. The boy's absurdly simple quest is reflected in the absurdly simple macro-gameplay (i.e. just walking right, going forward.) Despite everything, you're still going forward. No complicated lore deciphering, no plot twists upon plot twists, just going forward. And no soundtrack could be more fitting than the sparse, ambient chords of Martin Stig Andersen.
(And no, I'm not contradicting myself with Case Two; that one was about God's foreign nature. I believe that at the core, the way God works is based on a very simple "theory of everything", which is Love. And Case Six is about people following this one Law without coming up with their own side quests.)
CONCLUSION
The more good art I watch, the more I realize that almost all of its quality has to do with its links with the Bible. And to be honest, making art myself has become a tad boring, as all final morals become simply: "love Christ". Although, I must acknowledge that most, if not all, of the developers of the games I mentioned are probably not Christian. So, I'd explain these links in a slightly different way:
The Bible is a book which describes humans, God, and their relationship. Atheists are aware of many of these aspects, but don't link them with the Bible; they rather call it "wisdom" or "knowledge about life". Then they pour this wisdom into the art they create, not knowing that these ideas are already present in the Bible.
This essay was an attempt to bring to light how the Bible is always present in your life and the art you enjoy. And the best part is, as a work of art itself, the Bible has even more strange and paradoxical wisdom to reveal to us. It's a gold mine of good ideas. So maybe reach for it, and give it a chance.
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