How games combine religions from all over the world

What is it about?

Videogames combine gods from all over the world and history. This is weird because, traditionally in the West, we believe that you pick one god or a few gods that exist to the exclusion of others. Additionally, videogames put fictional creatures on the same level as these gods. What this means is that these games present a world in which all traditions are equally true and equally fictional – meaning what some people hold sacred is 'flattened' into just another monster or creature to play with.

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Why is it important?

This flattening of religious traditions means we are engaging with religion now, in the 21st century, in a different way than we have thought (and often still think) of religion in Europe and the United States. It is a more playful, non-hierarchical way of re-thinking how we handle religion now. This means that religion is still important (or at least entertaining) to us, because these games are played by a lot of people. But we treat it differently, in a way that outside of Europe (such as in large parts of Asia) is normal, and has always been normal: what people call multi-religious belonging.