I continue to be fascinated with the concept of faith-based video games, so I was interested to read on Kotaku this morning about Tribulation Knights, a non-violent, stealth-based Christian video game set in the same post-rapture period as the violent and problematic Left Behind: Eternal Forces.
TK looks pretty average (at least, there's not much to evaluate yet), but it will be interesting to see how this game develops. The game's creator seems to be mindful of the controversy around the Left Behind game since he plays up the non-violence on nearly every page of the site. Since I have always thought that the most troublesome aspects of Left Behind are its depictions of women's roles in a Christian military and its (non)treatment of ethnic minorities. It's too early too tell if this game will have similar issues, but the character sketches seem pretty diverse.
There doesn't appear to be an in-game goal of converting cult members (the bad guys with facial tattoos who run the post-rapture world), but the creator does list "To evangalize to those who do not yet know Him" among its goals and does provide "a warning to those who are not yet saved, that life will be difficult after the rapture." So there may be less of an emphasis on characters as units (which is necessary to LB:EF's Real-Time Strategy gameplay and gives rise to the ethnic homogenization), but there's still an unapologetic preachiness that will come out somehow within the game world.
There's one more interesting claim to mention: "The largest environments ever seen in the Christian Gaming world." This probably means to invoke GTA-esque openness, but it also suggests that there is a Christian gaming world separate from the secular gaming world and that gamers will be evaluating this game not against secular games but against the frankly mediocre fair of other Christian games.
I don't mean to be too negative, of course. It will be interesting to watch this game together, and I wish its creators all the best as they look for a publisher.
What do you think about the separation of Christian gaming as a different market with its own criteria?
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