‘I Am Jesus Christ’ Invites Gamers to Play God

But doing battle with Satan in the Savior’s sandals prompts some to press pause.

Joe Morgan approached a man in a market in the video game and asked if he knew John the Baptist.

“Yeah, I punched him in the face last week,” the man said. “If I get the chance, I’m probably going to kill him.”

Morgan laughed. That wasn’t what he was expecting someone to say to Jesus. Playing as the Messiah in the new video game I Am Jesus Christ, which challenges players to walk in Jesus’ sandals from just before his baptism all the way to Calvary, the grave, and resurrection, was turning out to be kind of odd.

For example: “After 40 days fasting in the desert, you basically have a magic fireball fight with Satan,” Morgan said. “You have to destroy dark crystals and pray before you can perform a miracle. It’s very bizarre.”

Morgan is a founding member of evangelical pop culture group Geeks Under Grace, which among other things reviews new video games. He isn’t opposed to biblical games. But I Am Jesus Christ, a demo version of which came out on the gaming platform Steam in December 2022, didn’t seem great.

“I don’t want to naysay anyone who’s trying to spread the gospel,” Morgan said, “but people can tell the difference in quality in a thing that is good and a thing that is bad. And this does not scream quality.”

Maksym Vysochanskiy, the Polish game developer behind I Am Jesus Christ, is not surprised by reactions like this. But he’s not dissuaded either.

“Many players thought that this was a joke game at the beginning,” he said. “That doesn’t stop us, and we continue development.”

The idea for the game first came, Vysochanskiy said, when he was watching ...

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from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry