Peripheral Religions and Games

The special issue of Gamevironments (Issue 22, 2025) examines how peripheral religions are represented in grand strategy and history-based games, with a particular focus on Crusader Kings III and Europa Universalis IV. Its central thesis is that game mechanics do more than simulate historical belief systems: they actively shape how players understand and enact those faiths. Drawing on autoethnography, min-maxing analysis, and cognitive mapping, the work argues that peripheral religions such as the Ásatrú faith in Crusader Kings III and the Hussite faith in Europa Universalis IV are framed through mechanical incentives that tend to position them as oppositional to dominant Christian and Islamic traditions.

The analysis finds that these design choices steer players toward conquest-oriented and patriarchal play. In Crusader Kings III, the Ásatrú Warmonger tenet and Blót mechanics reward executions, conquest, martial traits, and male-only succession, while in Europa Universalis IV the Hussite faith begins with destruction-related debuffs that must be resolved through a mission tree. The author's playthrough of the Hussite faith found that the mechanics strongly encourage war and forced conversion, producing an alternate history centered on conflict. A recurring conclusion is that player optimization behavior, shaped by entrepreneurial and speculative subjectivities, significantly influences how these faiths are perceived.

The scope of the issue is focused on strategy and grand strategy titles, with supporting references to Frostpunk, Civilization VI, and God of War, and it draws on game studies and religious studies scholarship. Its methodological contribution lies in combining autoethnography with procedural literacy and defamiliarisation to examine how games can both illuminate and constrain historical speculation. The authors conclude that videogames have genuine potential to defamiliarise history and reimagine peripheral religions, yet that algorithmic limits and players' own motivations, whether min-maxing, roleplay, or achievement hunting, ultimately determine which alternative histories emerge.