Video Games as a Tool of Developing and Teaching Christian Spiritulity

Abstract

This paper focuses around the relationship between spirituality and video games as a medium, with special attention to the possibility of developing and teaching Christian spirituality through the analysis of already existing games. The aim of the paper is to present conditions necessary to treat a given game as a useful tool in developing our understanding of Christian spirituality. The point is that the narrative structure of such games should be constructed in such a way that it allows the functioning of supernatural values, which are crucial to understand the spirituality of the supernatural, and that the protagonists of the games led by the player refer to these values within the plots. The methodology used here refers to the studies conducted by Anton Karl Kozlovic and relies on finding religious subtexts in video games that are not religious in themselves. Three examples of spirituality in video games are analyzed here: Final Fantasy XV, Night in the Woods and Journey. Doubts will also be raised as to whether a player’s spirituality is engaged directly or only through immersive mediation in the gaming process. From the analyzes carried out, conclusions will be drawn about the possibility of shaping Christian spirituality through video games and the processual nature of spirituality present in the games.