Demonic Games: Demonic Figures and Functions in Contemporary Digital Games

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
Frans Mäyrä's paper argues that theory on monsters in games is well developed but the specific category of the demonic remains underexplored, and it builds on his earlier theory of demonic polyphony and the "Textual Self", which holds that demonic figures signal internal tensions in subjectivity and agency.
02
The study traces gaming's demonic imagery to late 1970s dungeon-adventure games inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and to 1980s United States moral panics that linked role-playing games to occultism, noting that this demonological imagery persisted after those religious anxieties faded.
03
In first-person shooters such as DOOM, demons serve as endless, transformable adversaries, and the paper reads the underlying anxieties about military empowerment through technology in terms of historically male relationships to power and sexuality.
04
In the Diablo series, the first game's ending, in which the player character becomes possessed by Lord Diablo, is read as a step toward integrating the demonic with the Self, while the games retain an ambiguous struggle between armored bodies and instinctual, chthonic impulses.
05
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice blends Scandinavian mythology, combat, and psychological horror in a way that invites interpretations ranging from psychosis to religious myth, making it the paper's example of a more psychologically complex demonic game.
06
The paper's methodology is qualitative and interpretive rather than empirical, relying on close readings of popular game examples and dialogue with scholarship on monsters, horror, and gender.
07
The study's stated goal is to build a loose interpretive framework for classifying the nature, functions, and development directions of "ludic demons", advancing a theory of the demonic specific to digital games.

Summary

This paper by Frans Mäyrä examines the role of demonic figures and imagery in digital games, arguing that while theory on monsters in games is well developed, the specific category of the demonic remains underexplored. Its central thesis draws on Mäyrä's earlier theory of demonic polyphony and the "Textual Self," which holds that demonic figures signal internal tensions in subjectivity and agency. The study situates demons within gaming history, beginning with the late 1970s dungeon-adventure games inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and the 1980s moral panics in the United States that linked role-playing games to occultism, while noting that demonological imagery has persisted in gaming culture after those religious anxieties faded.

The analysis traces how demons function across game genres. In first-person shooters such as DOOM, demons serve as endless adversaries and grotesque, transformable monsters, with the underlying anxieties about military empowerment through technology read through historically male relationships to power and sexuality. Action role-playing games like the Diablo series shift the player's perspective and pacing while retaining an ambiguous dynamic of armored bodies struggling to control instinctual, chthonic impulses, and the first game's ending, in which the player character becomes possessed by Lord Diablo, marks a step toward integrating the demonic with the Self. The paper also examines the more psychologically complex Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, which blends Scandinavian mythology, combat, and psychological horror in a way that invites interpretations ranging from psychosis to religious myth.

The study's methodology is qualitative and interpretive rather than empirical, drawing on close readings of popular game examples and dialogue with scholarship on monsters, horror, and gender. Its stated goal is to build a loose interpretive framework for classifying the nature, functions, and development directions of "ludic demons," with the aim of advancing a theory of the demonic specific to digital games.