Greg Perrault, a Ph.D. candidate at MU’s School of Journalism, presented an analysis of five current-generation video games and how they depicted religion in January at the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture’s International Conference on Digital Religion at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Perrault’s paper, titled “RPG Religion: Depictions of Religion in Contemporary Role-Playing Games,” examines five games: Mass Effect 2, Assassin’s Creed, Final Fantasy XIII, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and how religion is presented in each. Perrault found that, in all five games, a violent side to religion is presented that the protagonist must overcome.
Perrault concludes that it is not an agenda on the part of game developers to present religion as a problematized institution plagued by violence, but rather that religion is used as a narrative device in the games to introduce conflict for the player to resolve.
“Religion appears to get tied in with violence because that makes for a compelling narrative,” Perrault told the MU News Bureau.