IOver Easter weekend, Catholics like me spend hours in church listening to editors’ expanded versions of stories whose endings we already know. As I sat there recently for my millionth Passion performance, I started thinking about how few religious video game characters I’ve ever come across. In a world where so many people’s lives are dictated by their religious beliefs, it’s interesting to see such a lack of religion in games. That is, you could also argue that all The game is a homage to Jesus with respawns and extra lives, but even I admit that’s a stretch.

The Peggys in Far Cry 5 are a violent mind-controlling cult. The founders of BioShock Infinite use religion to heighten and justify hatred of foreigners. In Fallout, there are some eccentric people who worship the atomic bomb. Religion is used almost exclusively as a tool for leaders to get their minions to do bad things. (Sure, they might be on to something here.) With so many video games structured to place players as lone protagonists facing off against immense forces, I think it’s clear that religion is the go-to villain.

For me, the scariest religious happening in a video game has always been in Altered Beast. A Roman centurion who has lived a life of horrific violence, pain, suffering, and marching down a straight path is rudely awakened from the dead and forced to further his efforts by Zeus (the game has a mix of that mythology) It has been). The poor guy probably wants to sleep forever. Instead, he is forced to punch and kick all sorts of beasts and shiny orbs. He has no choice. He can’t go back now. This is possible with horizontal scrolling.

My eldest daughter, a Zeldamaniac, tells me that religion in these games is “nothing but a problem, except for nature-worshipping religions.” Again, she’s a vegan who works at a veterinary hospital. There’s a heated debate on the internet about how John Marsten, a Catholic, acted in Red Dead Redemption, and that Doomguy was similarly persuasive, and that’s a fact. I found “evidence” as to why he took pleasure in hunting demons in The Exorcist of Upper Space.

My own relationship with religion is complicated. When the world is beyond a shadow of a doubt in the toilet, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God. The excuse that “all bad things happen because of the free will God gave us” seems like the religious equivalent of the infinite life cheat in video games. It’s a bit of a hack. To be honest, tomorrow I would give up my free will. As it stands, I have had to make too many decisions in my life. When I was young, I much preferred being told what to do and being cared for. To be honest, if I could get eight hours of sleep a night, I’d be a happy automaton.

What if, as some people believe, we were characters in a giant computer simulation? I feel that there is meaning in that. This is one of his theories that is accurate and at the same time supported by facts. please think about it. If this world were part of a video game, played by really shitty players, wouldn’t it all make sense? As someone in charge of a video game, how often do we make poor decisions? How many cities have you completely ruined and abandoned in SimCity? Have you ever seen world leadership this cruel and unethical outside of your Civilization playthrough?

The answer is obvious. God is not a very capable player. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence that the end credits of Altered Beast reveal that it was all just a simulation.

There is one positive point to the simulation argument. It means criticism becomes less painful. There’s always this selfish fear that I’ll write something that people won’t like. In the days before online comments, when I spent a decade as the Daily Star’s only Liberal columnist, none of this mattered, but the toe-curling handwritten letter I could show them, but if I didn’t bathe them, I would then bury them in lime with holy water.

The great thing about simulation theory is that you can write anything you want and if people don’t like it, that’s okay. I’m not even the one writing that. In The Adventures of a Newspaper Columnist 5 there is a supreme being controlling me. Poor supreme being. This will be the most boring game they’ve played since Euro Truck Simulator.