Christian video games grew fairly popular in the 2000s, with game-makers releasing everything from Left Behind, based on the book series, to Catechumen — imagine Call of Duty in ancient Rome — and Guitar Praise, a knock-off of Guitar Hero.
More recently, gamers have enjoyed an even greater variety of options, from Bible word puzzles to adventures in which you can play biblical figures such as Noah or Moses. Now, it looks like a first-person New Testament game is in the works, and it’s designed to stand out.
I Am Jesus Christ, a soon-to-be-released game, allows players to see through the eyes of a CGI Jesus, performing miracles and even battling Satan.
The description from game distributor Steam wants to know if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to play Jesus, “one of the most privileged and powerful people in the world.” The game spans from Jesus’s baptism to his resurrection, and if its trailer is any indication, it even includes his crucifixion.
Whose idea was it to make a first-person video game where you play as God? The game publisher, PlayWay, seems to think this schtick might be popular, and it’s certainly grabbed attention. The bizarre trailer has generated lots of buzz, with more than 400,000 views on YouTube just four days after its release, and some social media users are calling I Am Jesus Christ disrespectful and blasphemous for its content, not to mention its name. At least one commenter found humor in the game, writing, “The lag in this game is really bad though” because it “takes 3 days just to respawn.”
Despite the hype, though, I Am Jesus Christ might be fake. Game developer Justin McDaniel says the game looks like a publicity stunt since PlayWay lists dozens of other simulator games under “coming soon.” After looking through PlayWay’s games, McDaniel concluded, “I think PlayWay is a publisher who makes up a bunch of fake games in the hopes of drawing media attention to them in an extremely flooded Steam/PC marketplace.”
It’s impossible to say for sure, but I Am Jesus Christ may just be a publicity stunt so its publisher can get press for its name. People might grow outraged about the game and then forget to follow up when it was never released. Whether PlayWay is staging this stunt based on a fake game or a real one, it’s still a stunt. And despite the jokes about whether the game will feature “Easter eggs,” cheapening a faith just to develop name recognition is not all that funny.
Next time, the game’s publisher should just knock off Guitar Hero instead.
