Polish video game company PlayWay S.A. has announced a launch date for the first instalment of what it says is the world’s first game allowing players to simulate the life of Jesus, including performing miracles and battling Satan.
The prologue – which is a stand-alone game and serves as an introduction to the full version of the game, I Am Jesus Christ – will be available from 1 December.
The full version – which is due to be published in the second quarter of next year – will allow players to walk in the footsteps of Jesus “from birth to resurrection”, recreating key events from his life, such as The Last Supper.
Players will be able to perform miracles and carry out quests, including a fight with Satan in the desert. Along the way, players discover Jesus’s story from his perspective and will be able to cure the sick, help the needy and interact with over 60 characters, including Christ’s disciples.
“I Am Jesus Christ is inspired by the New Testament and hopes to spread the Gospel uniquely and engagingly,” the game’s creators wrote in an announcement on the Steam games platform. Work on the game lasted roughly three years and involved about 15 people.
A screenshot from the game
The game’s lead creator, Maksym Vysochanskiy – founder of SimulaMaker, one of the game studios in PlayWay’s network – told Notes from Poland that he has wanted to see the life of Jesus Christ animated since he was young.
“This idea came to me when I was a teenager and saw the first cartoon computer movies like Shrek and Toy Story,” he says. “At that moment, I thought, ‘Hey! it would be cool to make such a cartoon movie about Jesus Christ’.”
Over the years, that idea developed into a pitch for I Am Jesus Christ, which he presented to PlayWay. “In the beginning, many thought that we are trying to make a joke game, not a serious one,” says Vysochanskiy. “[But] we treat this game as a piece of art.”
“We have seen many movies about Jesus Christ in the last 100 years,” he adds. “Now, we believe that this game can be the next step in the evolution of learning about Jesus Christ, and about visiting those historical places.”
In the process of preparing the game, Vysochanskiy read the Bible five times and went to historical sites in Israel that are important to Christianity. He says that religious practices such as prayers and meditation are a big part of his everyday life.
“I was born in [the] USSR [period], in Ukraine, when religion was prohibited and you [could] go to jail for going to church or celebrating Easter,” he said, adding that he moved to Poland close to eight years ago when Russia annexed Crimea and began supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Maksym Vysochanskiy in Israel.
All images were made available by Maksym Vysochanskiy, SimulaMaker’s founder.
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
