21st Century Soul Guides: Leveraging Myth and Ritual for Game Design

Doris Rusch's paper "21st Century Soul Guides" advances a theoretical argument that myth and ritual, traditionally used to help people confront existential givens such as death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness, can be revived through video games as modern vehicles for meaning-making. Drawing on existential, archetypal, and depth psychology, including the work of Yalom, Frankl, Campbell, Hillman, and Jung, the paper contends that prior game research has focused on myth's social and aesthetic dimensions while neglecting its psychological and spiritual function. It positions the work as a call to action rather than an empirical study, and it explicitly makes no measured claims about player outcomes.

Central to the argument is the concept of the "soul guiding" game. Titles such as Journey, Shadow of the Colossus, and Never Alone are distinguished from action-focused mythic games that use myth as mere backdrop, because they de-emphasize rigid structure in favor of contemplation and allow players to explore worlds that reflect existential questions and values. The paper draws parallels between games and ritual, arguing that both create a suspended state supportive of reflection and empowerment, and it supports this claim with references to psychotherapy and anthropology.

The author proposes concrete design directions by drawing on Rollo May's typology of power, particularly its nutrient and integrative forms, and on Parker and Horton's categories of liberation and transformation rituals. These frameworks are translated into non-violent, symbolically rich mechanics, with commemoration and celebration rituals also examined. Illustrative examples include Jocoi (2015), in which a shared controller shifts from caregiving to self-care after loss, and Ico (2001), whose save-point bench moment reinforces companionship. The paper concludes by framing the designer as a "21st century soul guide" who can use ritual structures to deepen players' reflection, offering design starting points rather than validated outcomes.