Hey everyone,

First off, I owe you all an apology. It’s been a minute since the last longform Game & Word piece, and I truly appreciate your patience more than you know. But why has it taken so long? Well, the short version is that I’ve been heads-down getting Spawn Point Marketing (my fractional CMO consultancy for game studios) off the ground, and it’s been eating most of my writing bandwidth.

But the good news is that through this work, I’m still creating content you’ll find interesting… just in a slightly different venue.

Case in point: my latest article just went live on the Spawn Point Marketing Substack, and I wanted to share it here because it sits right at the intersection of both publications.

Crimson Desert Mogged the Gaming Press is a deep dive into what Crimson Desert’s launch (+4 million copies sold, 276K concurrent players on Steam, 82% positive rating) tells us about the widening gulf between the mainstream gaming press and the players they’re supposed to serve.

In the article, I break down the double standards in how critics scored Crimson Desert versus games with identical issues, lay out the case for and against the press as a meaningful driver of game sales in 2026, and close with actionable marketing lessons for indie and AA studios trying to figure out where to invest their limited resources.

If that kind of analysis sounds like your thing, consider subscribing to the Spawn Point Marketing Substack for more game marketing strategy, case studies, and industry breakdowns like this one. It’s a sister publication to Game & Word — the same voice and the same rigor you’ve come to love, just aimed at the business side of making games.

Read the full piece here:

Spawn Point Marketing

Crimson Desert Just Mogged the Video Game Press

I’ve been playing the absolute hell out of Crimson Desert since it launched on March 19, so I have some… thoughts on all the hullabaloo going on about it. Quite a lot of them, actually! So now, I’m going to regale you with them all. Don’t worry, it all ties into game marketing…

Read more

11 days ago · 1 like · Jay Rooney

As for Game & Word proper, my next piece will be on divinity and apotheosis in video games, and it’s in the final stretch. I’m applying some finishing touches as we speak. It’ll be worth the wait! (…I hope)

Thank you, sincerely, for sticking around. This newsletter’s readership means a lot to me, and I don’t take your patience for granted.

More soon!

GG,

~Jay

What’s in a name? That question’s been on my mind (and, I’m sure, the minds of many others) since October 2025, when the organizers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC), announced a rebrand. Going forward, they said, GDC would be known as the “GDC Festival of Gaming,” a bold new name that promised expansion, celebration, and a new chapter for an industry institution — the industry marquee event, considered so essential to developers that they’d often refer to it as “the pilgrimage” — as it approached its 40th year. A name is a message, a brand is a message, and the message here was nothing short of lofty and aspirational: broader perspectives, new interactive formats, more opportunities to learn and collaborate.

It also evoked in me images of E3’s final years, as it clumsily attempted to court consumers in a futile bid to retain relevance before COVID finally dealt the death blow we all knew was coming. Hold that thought for now.

Like I’ve done for quite a few years now, I just spent five days at GDC, making the daily pilgrimage from my home in the ‘burbs to San Francisco’s Moscone Center. And what I experienced was… decidedly not a festival.

I experienced a wake — albeit one where the grieving attendees haven’t entirely given up hope that the patient might still, against all odds, pull through.

I want to be honest with you about what I saw, because I think our industry deserves honesty more than it deserves cheerleading. Especially during challenging times like right now. But I also want to be honest about what gave me hope, because there was plenty of that too… perhaps just not where the organizers intended.

The Case of the Contracting Conference

Let’s start with the physical reality, because it tells the cautionary fable of GDC far more efficiently and effectively than any keynote could.

The expo floor, rebranded as the “Festival Hall,” has historically stretched across both the South and North Halls of the Moscone Center. This year, it occupied only the South Hall… and not even all of it. The space felt noticeably less crowded, both in terms of booths and the people milling about them. Major names that have been fixtures of the show floor for many years were nowhere to be seen. No Valve, for instance. No Epic, either (though they did sponsor the event, and I heard reports of Tim Sweeney ambling about, but no booth). Sony’s entire presence was reduced to a small PlayStation Indies section tucked into a corner. AWS moved offsite entirely, setting up shop in the Metreon across the street.

And that’s not even getting into what happened to the indie showcase. In past years, the indie arcade and demo stations occupied rows upon rows of floor space — a sprawling playground of experimental games and scrappy studios betting everything on a single pitch. In other words, absolute heaven for gamers and games writers like me. But this year? It was relegated to a corner of the hallway leading into the South Hall, like a literal kiddie corner. If you blinked, you missed it.

It was sad, and it was bleak. It may not be what you wanted to hear, but I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. It was quite grim.

I don’t have official attendance figures yet, but after walking the floor, my rough estimate is that this year’s conference was maybe a third the size of previous years. It’s kind of a GDC meme that the conference feels smaller each year, but this year, the difference was stark, and it was palpable. This didn’t feel at all like a festival. It felt more like a farewell tour.

The Times, They Are a-Changing

At this point, you’re probably wondering what happened, asking yourself how the mighty could have fallen so hard. And like with E3 before it, the reasons for GDC’s contraction are manyfold and multilayered, but they’re also not rocket science. In fact, you could even say they were staring us in the face all along. Hindsight, after all, is Insight +20.

Let’s start with the macro picture: the gaming industry is going through its worst stretch since the 2008 financial crisis. That’s not just my opinion, by the way — that was the consensus from multiple panelists throughout the week. And GDC’s own 2026 State of the Game Industry survey, based on responses from over 2,300 industry professionals, corroborates the metaphor. It paints a brutal picture. To start, 28% percent of respondents reported being laid off in the past two years. In the United States specifically, that number climbs to 33% — that’s one in three US gaming jobs, slashed. Half of all respondents said their current or most recent employer had conducted layoffs in the last 12 months, and among AAA studios, two-thirds had experienced layoffs. Among those who lost their jobs, nearly half still haven’t found new employment in the industry.

It’s one thing to gape at those numbers, but it’s quite another to see them manifested in the real world, in the form of all the people walking around GDC with a very particular look in their eyes — a mix of resilience and exhaustion that anyone who’s been through a layoff cycle will immediately recognize. The mood on the floor was correspondingly subdued. People were happy to see each other, sure, but the same undercurrent seeped through every conversation:

Is it getting better?

When does it get better?

I don’t want to be too much of a doomer here, as I did detect faint traces of optimism that perhaps the worst is finally over, and a slow recovery is either underway or about to begin. But “faint” is the key word there; the overwhelming mood was one of layoff-induced and -adjacent PTSD.

There was a noticeable drop in international attendance. In the months before the conference, a wave of developers from Europe, Canada, and elsewhere publicly announced they would be skipping GDC this year, for reasons both practical and political. San Francisco’s not the cheapest place to visit, after all (how the hell does a grilled cheese sandwich cost $15?! I’ll never understand that no matter how long I live in the area), and the conference’s own pricing doesn’t help (even with a restructured Festival Pass that was 45% cheaper than last year’s All-Access option). The homelessness crisis continues to be a blight on many visitors’ experience in the city. Many international developers also cited growing concerns about being able to enter (or leave) the United States, and we can argue all day long as to whether those concerns reflect reality, but the fact of the matter is that the perception is real, and in the realm of marketing and communications (which includes events like GDC), perception is reality.

But regardless of the reason(s), the fact remains that multiple well-known studios either reduced their headcounts or pulled out entirely. The international contingent, which has always been one of GDC’s defining strengths, was visibly thinner, though still more robust than one would’ve expected given everything I just mentioned. In its place, I noticed two demographic shifts: a substantially larger Chinese presence (Tencent alone ran over twenty sessions and had one of the biggest booths on the floor), and noticeably more students. Neither shift is inherently bad — Tencent is doing truly impressive work, and students are the industry’s future — but together, they signal a conference in transition, and not necessarily one of its own volition.

There were also some logistical hiccups that, while small, felt symptomatic. I couldn’t sign into the conference app until after I physically picked up my badge, which made pre-event networking nearly impossible. And my media/press per diem wasn’t accepted at first. Ultimately minor frustrations, but in a year where the organizers were selling a vision of expanded connection and community, every stumble landed that much harder.

It’s such a shocking shift that one prominent industry figure even told the press that GDC 2026 could be “the last GDC of its kind.” I’m inclined to agree, because that fully tracks with everything I saw.

AI, Robot

If there was one thematic thread running through GDC 2026, it was the industry’s deeply complicated relationship with AI.

The aforementioned State of the Industry survey not only captures this tension, it shines a floodlight on it: 36% of game industry professionals are already using generative AI tools at work, primarily for research, brainstorming, and administrative tasks. But 52% also say generative AI is having a negative effect on the industry, a figure that’s nearly tripled from 18% in just two years. Meanwhile, only 7% of responders view the technology positively. Artists, writers, and programmers are all increasingly hostile to it.

On the ground, the vibe was not quite as hostile, and instead more... ambivalent. Specifically, “survival-mode ambivalent.” And it makes sense! After all, when you’re worried about whether your studio will even exist in six months, questions like “what should we do about AI?” get filed under “problems I’d love to have the bandwidth to think about.” This precarity is, of course, upstream of the AI anxiety. But nevertheless, the anxiety is real, and people are feeling it more and more each day.

This actually made me appreciate one session I attended all the more: “GenAI at Studios: Leadership, Tools, and Trust,” featuring Mitu Khandaker, Phil Stuart, and Irena Pereira. They posited a refreshingly grounded approach for building AI workflows that teams can actually be comfortable with, don’t compromise the product’s quality, or atrophy the team’s creative muscles. Their framework was simple and smart: use AI for exploration, vision, and scaffolding, but never in the final product.

It’s a wonderfully nuanced, trust-first approach, of the kind that the industry desperately needs, and it stood in stark contrast to both the “AI will fix everything, print money, and reveal the secret of immortality” rhetoric that executives tend to default to, and the “AI is never acceptable and we will doxx you, run you out of the industry, and review-bomb your game into oblivion if you ever so much as generate an ideation image” invective from many gamers themselves.

I’ll be continuing the conversation with Phil next week. I have no doubt it will be as illuminating a chat as his presentation was.

Diamond Pickaxes in the Rough

For all of this year’s bleakness, GDC hasn’t completely lost its ability to surface a-ha moments and ideas worth paying attention to.

Sessions

The sessions, on the whole, were solid — and a few were truly excellent.

“The Global Multi-Platform Publishing Strategy of Delta Force” was a masterclass in what a deep-pocketed and well-organized publisher looks like in action. Say what you will about Tencent, and yes their scale confers many advantages denied to smaller teams, but studios and publishers of any size can learn from the operational discipline that Tencent brings to multi-platform launches, even if they’ll never replicate the Chinese behemoth’s budget and manpower.

“Publishing Realities: Funding, Discoverability, and What Success Really Looks Like” is the one I’ll be mulling over the most in the weeks to come. It was a candid, no BS discussion about what publishers actually look for, and what developers should look for in a publisher. The panel confirmed what I’ve long believed: marketing should start in pre-production, not after the trailer drops. Magic Potion Games’ Stephen MacDonald said it out loud during the session, and I even thanked him for it during Q&A. All three panelists agreed that wishlist velocity and conversion are a game’s most critical marketing metrics (because the algorithms will bury you if your wishlists don’t convert), but that revenue is ultimately the only metric that leads to sustainability. They also confirmed what everyone in the room (and the conference at large) suspected: this is the toughest funding environment since the Great Recession. VCs are still out there, and they’re still writing checks... but the bar to earn one has never been higher.

“Inside Indie (Self) Publishing” featured Finji’s Rebekah Saltsman, who clearly knows her stuff… and she endeared herself to the room by admitting she’s not even a gamer. Coming from someone with her track record in indie publishing (having brought indie darlings including Tunic and Chicory to market), that admission reinforced rather than undermined her credibility. The subtext was that you don’t necessarily have to be a player to understand players.1 But you DO have to be curious, disciplined, and willing to let the data — and your developers — guide you.

Games

The games themselves were a mixed bag, but I did get hands-on time with several indies that I’ll be watching closely: Arcane Eats, Beat, Heart, Beat, Nocternum, and Zero Parades: For Dead Spies all showed true creative ambition and craft. Each one felt like a statement — their teams saying “we believe this is worth building” in an environment that’s giving them every reason to stop.

alt.ctrl.GDC

Finally, the alt.ctrl.GDC showcase (always a personal highlight each year) delivered its usual dose of delightful absurdity: oversized scissors you had to operate with both hands, a toothbrush paired with a mouthful of fake teeth that served as the game controller, and my personal favorite, a literal human-sized hamster ball that you climbed inside to navigate the game world.

In a year defined by contraction and industry-wide belt-tightening, alt.ctrl remains proof that game developers will never, ever stop finding bizarre and wonderful new ways to play. It’s the purest expression of what makes this industry special: the stubborn insistence on finding fun in places nobody thought to look.

Is GDC Over?

A lot of people were thinking but only whispering this at the conference, and now that it’s wrapped up, I’m seeing it increasingly spoken aloud. So I’ll add my voice to the chorus, even if it ultimately costs me my press credentials for future years: I’m not convinced that GDC survives this trajectory.

An expo that consistently filled two halls to the brim, year after year, but now barely fills one.

Major platform holders that have reduced their presence to token gestures, or moved offsite entirely.

A significant portion of the community that has decided the trip isn’t worth the risk or the cost.

Considering all these indicators, the whole “Festival of Gaming” rebrand doesn’t quite feel like the “evolution” the organizers say it is. It feels more like a Hail Mary, a hope that new branding and cheaper passes can paper over the conference’s structural and possibly terminal decline.

I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s conference looks substantially different from years past. In fact, I wouldn’t even be entirely shocked if this year turns out to be the last one that resembles the GDC we’ve known. Discord, not GDC, may turn out to be the future of game industry networking… if it isn’t already. And Gamescom (held each summer in Cologne) is increasingly the event that international developers point to as the global industry’s new and actual hub for networking and dealmaking.

If I’d have made this prediction in 2022, when I first started covering GDC as Game & Word, I would’ve been laughed out of the gaming industry. What a difference just a few years makes.

Remember, E3 eventually died, as impossible as that might have seemed back in 2006 or even 2016. Is it really so impossible that GDC might follow in its wake? I sure hope that’s not the case, but if our worst fears come to pass, then the industry will need to figure out what replaces it — and not just for the networking, but mainly for the sense of shared purpose it provided. My first GDC, which I covered as part of Level Up Media, was nothing short of inspiring, and even motivated me to ship my own first game a few years later. I still talk to and work with the connections I made back then, who were indispensable for getting me started.

Even in its diminished state, GDC still puts thousands of game developers in the same building at the same time. That matters. Losing it would leave a huge hole that a thousand Discord servers and Zoom calls can’t quite fill.

GDC Is Dead, Long Live Gaming

But look, I don’t want to be too much of a doomer. And believe it or not, despite all of the doom and gloom — the contraction, layoffs, funding drought, and AI anxiety — I actually left GDC more committed to this industry than I was when I arrived.

Because over and over, in every corner of that downsized expo hall, I kept seeing the same thing: people who refuse to quit.

Indie developers with teams of two or three, pouring everything they have into a game they believe in, fully aware of the long odds they face and the many decks mercilessly stacked against them. Solo devs working evenings and weekends, showing up to GDC with a demo and a dream and absolutely no safety net. Studios staring down the worst funding environment in nearly two decades and still pitching publishers, still chasing wishlists, still iterating on builds.

In other words, passionate and hardworking people who are still doing the work.

Faced with crushing economics, a worsening discoverability crisis, and an imminent technological reckoning, these people still put everything on the line and dare to push their vision out into the world, purely for the love of the game — pun, as always, very much intended — and their players.

I spoke to a husband and wife team who were laid off last year, and still paid the airfare, hotel, and exhibitor fee to show off the beta they’ve been working on diligently since then. Just one game out of 20,000 that will release this year (if they’re lucky enough to release on schedule), with dwindling savings, no safety net or backup plan if they don’t beat the odds and end up like the 95% of new games that die in obscurity. And they’re still showing up, taking their shot, and (in their own little way), moving the industry ever so slightly forward.

You may think these people are crazy. You might say that about all the indie developers proudly exhibiting their games in their little neglected corner of the expo hallway, while so many of their colleagues exit the industry for bigger paychecks and greater job security.

But I beg to differ. These people are fucking heroes. If you’ve been reading this publication for any length of time, you know I don’t use either of those two words casually.

And these people give me hope, because these people are the games industry. If these are the people creating the future of gaming, then the industry’s long-term fundamentals are very strong indeed. Hell, you only have to look at this year’s release calendar to see it. Crimson Desert is shaping up to show the world that open-world action-adventure RPGs may not be so played out, after all. And GTA VI (provided it actually drops this year) is going to be nothing short of a zeitgeist-defining cultural event. The Future Games Show Spring Showcase — which, it turns out, had a live component at GDC this year (how did I miss that?) — just revealed over 40 titles spanning every genre imaginable, from co-op psychological horror to pixel-art metroidvanias set in Mexico to a musical Lovecraftian hotel renovation game (yes, really!).

While the AAA space struggles to find its footing amidst a brutal post-COVID correction, the indie pipeline (as always) is bursting with creativity, and promises to surprise and delight players with a much-needed marquee year after the fiascos that were Concord and Highguard. I’d even reckon 2026 will be as good for gamers as 2017 was. Mark my words.

No matter what growing (or shrinking) pains the industry goes through, people will always want to play a good game. The market for joy, wonder, escape, and connection will never go away.

The gaming industry is going through what might be its roughest stretch in recent history. But the people who make games — the stubborn, creative, and slightly unhinged people who keep building things despite every rational reason not to — are still here, still showing up, and still making things that matter.

My job now is to find the ones with the most promise and help them find their players. Because good games, made by good people, deserve to be played. To that end, I’m very excited to announce the founding of Spawn Point Marketing, my new marketing consultancy. Through SPM, I’ll provide affordable, fractional marketing leadership to indie and AA game studios, powered by my 15-year-long career in marketing and communications, experience building and shipping games, deep knowledge of the industry, product, and players, and deep love for the medium.

SPM will also offer easy, practical, and actionable marketing tips and data-driven case studies for FREE through its very own Substack, which you can subscribe to here (going forward, I will also publish all my industry analysis under Spawn Point Marketing, and keep Game & Word solely focused on my usual interdisciplinary academic analysis of the games themselves; so if you like the more industry-focused pieces, go ahead and subscribe to SPM while you’re here):

Spawn Point Marketing

Easy, practical, and actionable marketing tips, insights, and case studies for indie game developers.

By Jay Rooney

And if you’re an indie developer who’d like to book me for an extended engagement or half-day marketing strategy speedrun, you can do so at https://spawnpointmarketing.com

This is my contribution to the industry in these challenging times, and my way of giving back to the medium that’s given me so much throughout my entire life.

And so that concludes this year’s GDC. The conference itself may be shrinking, but the spirit of the people in it? That’s shining brighter than ever.

See you at the next one… wherever it is.

Were you at GDC this year? Did your experience match mine, or did you see something different? I want to hear from you — drop a comment below!

~Jay

This bonus content is available exclusively to paid subscribers of Game & Word. If you’re reading this, thanks for supporting independent games criticism… and for trusting me to take you into some genuinely weird territory.

If you don’t have a paid subscription, now’s a good time to upgrade! You’ll receive bonus pieces like this one, gain access to the full archive, and get to feel good for being the type of person who supports indie publishers. It’s a much better way to feel better about yourself than doomscrolling and yelling at bots on Reddit or X! Just click/tap the button below to upgrade your subscription:

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Oh, and if you haven’t read this supplement’s Main Piece, I’d highly encourage you to do so first, though it’s not strictly necessary if you’re already at least somewhat well-versed in Diablo lore:

Game & Word

Issue 5.10: Sympathy for the Diablo

Game & Word Volume 5, Issue 10: Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026…

Read more

3 months ago

BONUS QUEST: The Banned Bible Book That “They” Don’t Want You to Play

The Book of Enoch, Heaven’s System Failure, and the Video Games That Keep Repeating the Crime

I want to open with a moment, towards the end of Diablo III (2012), that really should have felt triumphant but is more likely to instead register as a personal affront.

By now, you’ve clawed your way through the Burning Hells, slaughtered entire legions of demons, and stormed the High Heavens themselves to confront Diablo—now a fully-formed Prime Evil, wearing your former ally’s skin, who deftly exploited a cosmic loophole to launch a full-on assault on the heavenly host, breaching the pearly gates with his infernal hordes who then proceeded to ransack Heaven’s tall marble spires and glistening golden streets like a cohort of demonic frat bros tearing through Bourbon Street on Spring Break.

You’ve just repelled the invasion, saving the celestial realm itself from almost certain annihilation. Imperius, the Archangel of Valor, then turns his big shiny spear toward you and snarls:

“You! Your kind does not belong here, Nephalem. If I see you again, you will die.”

You’ve just saved his entire plane of existence. And he’s pissed that you even bothered!

You’d expect the angels to be grateful. Not least because… well, they’re angels. Things like gratitude implicitly come with their job description. But nope! They’re irritated. And even worse, they’re scared. You stand before the Angiris Council (Heaven’s supreme governing body) as humanity’s greatest champion, but they don’t see you that way at all. Instead, they view you as a walking violation of cosmic protocol. You’re a variable their system was never designed to accommodate.

It’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it? You spend 60 hours clicking through demons to reach Paradise, and Paradise looks at you like you’re a bug it hasn’t yet decided to squash.

If you’ve played enough video games, you might recognize this moment as part of a pattern: Heaven, when it shows up in games, almost never feels heavenly. It feels more like a courthouse, or a boardroom staffed by a schoolmarmish HR department that only exists to say “no” to things. Divine order, in game after game, functions like a bureaucracy: brittle, procedural, and utterly hostile to exceptions. Not exactly the image of moral perfection you’ve come to expect from church/shul/Michaelangelo, is it?

Diablo is far from unique in this, by the way. From Shin Megami Tensei‘s tyrannical YHVH to Elden Ring‘s calcified Golden Order and Dark Souls‘ divine gerontocracy, video games across disparate cultures, decades, and genres espouse a surprisingly consistent theology:

1. Heaven is a system,

2. Systems eventually fail,

3. When divine systems fail, they fail catastrophically.

This raises an obvious question: where did games learn to think this way?

The answer, I’d argue, is buried in one of Western spirituality’s most controversial texts, a book removed from nearly every biblical canon because it was considered too dangerous for mass consumption, and yet is quoted directly in the New Testament. A book that locates the origin of evil not in demonic temptation or human weakness, but in Heaven’s own agents’ authorized actions.

I’m talking about the Book of Enoch.

And I think games have been playing it for decades.

Read more

Game & Word Volume 5, Issue 10: Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026

• Publisher: Jay Rooney

• Author, Graphics, Research: Jay Rooney

• Logo: Jarnest Media

Table of Contents

1. Summary & Housekeeping

2. Feature: “Sympathy for the Diablo” (~73 minute read)

3. Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts

4. Further Reading

5. Game & Word-of-Mouth

6. Footnotes

Summary:

There’s a moment in the original Diablo (the 1996 original, the one that ate so much of my middle school years) when you realize that the music’s changed.

You’ve clicked through skeletons and fallen demons for hours, the Tristram guitar theme forever burned into your auditory cortex, and somewhere around level 12 or 13 (I forget exactly where… it’s been a long time, forgive me), the ambient sounds shift, and it’s damned unsettling. Chanting and distant baby screams overlaid on dissonant drones. You get the feeling that you’ve gone somewhere you weren’t supposed to. And worse still, you sense that the game itself knows this, and it’s not going to help you return.

I was… 10 years old? Maybe 11? Either way, I was playing on a Pentium that wheezed like an asthmatic lung whenever more than three enemies appeared on screen. I didn’t know anything about Zoroastrianism, or Gnostic cosmology, or the infamous Ars Goetia. I just knew I was scared out of my mind, yet I couldn’t stop playing. Somewhere, deep in my lizard brain, a question started bubbling that’d take me decades to fully articulate:

Why does this feel like it means something?

This issue is my attempt at the answer. Or at least an answer.

As usual, we’re diving real deep here. We’ll pull on the threads that connect Blizzard’s demon-infested corridors to millennia of philosophical and metaphysical attempts to map the territories of good and evil, and to categorize, navigate, and even command the angels on our shoulders and the devils at our heels. We’ll look at ancient celestial taxonomies, how Greek daimones turned into Christian demons, why Satan is everyone’s favorite character in Paradise Lost, and what that says about us. We’ll also look at the Satanic Panic (that wacky time in the wacky 80s when America decided that devil worshippers were using D&D as to recruit kids), and how the gaming industry is still navigating that cultural scar tissue, over four decades later.

And yes, we’ll talk about what actual Satanists might make of all this. (TL;DR: it’s complicated, and not quite what you’d expect.)

But underneath all that theological interrogation, there’s a simpler question I’ll try to get at:

Why do we keep telling stories about the war between Heaven and Hell? And why does each culture seem to conjure up some version of angels and demons, higher selves and shadow selves, the light we aspire to and the darkness we fear we already are?

Diablo doesn’t (directly) answer that question, unfortunately. I doubt any game could. But it does give us a space to inhabit and ask the question, as we descend through the layers beneath a corrupted cathedral and discover what’s waiting at the bottom. Sometimes, it’s a Lord of Terror. But sometimes, it’s just our own reflection, holding a mouse and wondering why we can’t stop clicking.

Anyway, grab your health potions. It’s a long way down.

~Jay

PS—Oh, and paid subscribers: be on the lookout for a supplemental Bonus Quest segment, hitting your inbox sometime within the next week or two, where I’ll take you on a journey to the theologically spicy and contentuous Book of Enoch, and its influence on games like Diablo! If this sounds up your alley, be sure to upgrade your subscription today:

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Housekeeping

On New Year’s Eve, I posed a question to all you wonderful people: what theme should Game & Word tackle for Volume 6? I proposed no less than ten topics, and had my subscribers vote for their favorites:

Game & Word

Player Select: Volume 6 Topic Finalists (Pick One!)

Happy almost-New Year, everyone! As we count down to 2026, I’m looking ahead at what comes next for Game & Word. Volume 5 (Abra-CODE-abra!) has been an absolute trip. I hope you’ve enjoyed combing through all of gaming’s mystical, esoteric, and downright arcane aspects (and all the delightfully weird little academic tangents we’ve explored in the process) as much as I have…

Read more

4 months ago · 9 likes · 6 comments · Jay Rooney

It was a fairly close vote, but there was, indeed, a clear winner:

Pixel Perfect: Beauty, Aesthetics, Art, and Design in Video Games

In this upcoming Volume, we’ll be examining everything what, exactly, makes games beautiful. Graphics, yes. But also everything from art direction, architecture, fashion, and design. We’ll examine the shared and evolving visual language of video games (including visual trends and “movements” in gaming, such as pixel art and cel shading), the psychology of character creation, the fundamentals of environmental storytelling, and more! Oh, and you’d better believe we’ll be looking at kawaii culture as well.

We’ve still got quite a bit left on the docket for Volume 5, so all of this is still a ways away. But hopefully, it’ll give you something to look forward to as we start wrapping up our mystical journey through gaming’s arcane side. More details to come as everything congeals!

(Oh, and if your preferred topic didn’t win, don’t fret! Again, it was a close vote, and all these topics are ripe for exploration. There’s a good chance I’ll get to your preferred topic, in due time.)

Previous Issues

Game & Word’s most recent issues (currently, all of Volume 5) are available to all, free of charge.

Older issues are currently archived and only accessible to paid subscribers. To access the full archive, upgrade to a paid subscription:

• Volume 1 (The Name of the Game): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4

• Volume 2 (Yo Ho Ho, It’s a Gamer’s Life for Me): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3● Bonus 1 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Bonus 2 ● Issue 8 ● Bonus 3

• Volume 3 (Game Over Matter): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 4 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Bonus 1 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 2 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9 ● Podcast 3 ● Bonus 2

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• Volume 5 (AbraCODEabra!): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9

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Feature: Sympathy for the Diablo

🚨🚨🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨🚨🚨 

This post contains SPOILERS for the Diablo series, including the recently released Diablo IV. These games are incredibly dense and rich in lore and worldbuilding, so if you’re at all interested in experiencing them someday, it might be a good idea to play through them before diving in here.

🔥🔥🔥 STATEMENT OF NEUTRALITY 🔥🔥🔥

This series contains discussions of Spirituality, Philosophy, Religion (including “Fringe” Religious Movements, including literal Satanism) and the Occult. Game & Word makes zero claims on the veracity (or lack thereof) of any of the religious or spiritual beliefs, opinions, and practices discussed in this article.

Our coverage of these topics is purely academic, and our goal is to simply present the facts along with any important nuance, debate, or other relevant background info. What you do with or how you interpret this information is not our concern. As the Garo Tribe famously declared, belief or disbelief rests with you.

💡💡💡 POINT OF CLARIFICATION 💡💡💡

To more easily distinguish between “stage” magic and “for realsies” magic, some practitioners spell the latter with a “k” at the end, as “magick.” I prefer to spell it as just “magic.” So if you’re used to spelling it as “magick” or are unclear if I’m referring to the stage or supernatural variety, remember that I’m talking about the latter, unless otherwise noted.

⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING: INVOKE AT YOUR OWN RISK ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Please DO NOT try to summon demons, devils, or other infernal entities unless you really know what you’re doing. And even then, a sanity check and/or cost-benefit analysis might be in order beforehand. Game & Word assumes no responsibility for curses, attachments, demonic possession, or other nasty side-effects incurred from messing with spiritual forces beyond your comprehension.

Descensus

The dungeon is darker than you remember.

Not different dark—the same dark, exactly the same, which is why it’s darker. Your torch flickers against walls of cathedral stone gone wrong, and somewhere below you, something screams. Or laughs. The distinction has stopped mattering.

You’ve been here before: Tristram, where the music sounds like someone teaching a twelve-string guitar to weep. Deckard Cain mutters his warnings and Griswold hammers demon-twisted metal back into something resembling (at least somewhat) a sword. Where a cathedral that once held services now holds something else entirely—and the only direction is down.

And you, foolhardy brave adventurer that you are, decide the best course of action is to plunge headfirst into the dark, ominous hole in the ground. So you click on the staircase and begin your descent.

Click. Click. Click. Your character descends through catacombs, into caves, then finally into the architectural impossibilities of Hell itself, and with each level, the game asks a question it never fully voices aloud:

How far will you go?

For an entire generation of players, the answer was all the way. Through 16 levels of increasingly grotesque infernal real estate. Through butchers and skeleton kings and a guy named Lazarus who isn’t quite what you remembered from the Bible, through piles of loot that made the descent feel less like damnation and more like Christmas morning at a charnel house (certainly, the clink of gold alone was more than enough to entice you go keep going!), through a gruesome progression from desecrated Gothic cathedral to living corridors of flesh and bone, scored by a dissonant soundscape of unsettling drones, wails, and echoing baby cries that sounds less like a spooky dungeon and more like a Gregorian funeral for a god who died screaming. All the way to a throne room at the very bottom, where a big red guy with horns has been waiting to do to you what big red guys with horns have always done in games like this.

And then… you won. Well, sort of. You jammed a soulstone into your own forehead and walked off into the sunset, which—spoiler alert for a game released in 1996!—was maybe not the genius move it seemed like at the time.1

The game may be called Diablo (which, just in case you didn’t know, means “devil”), but it isn’t really about Satan. It’s not about Hell, either, at least not in any Sunday School sense. It’s about the architecture of moral cosmology. Put another way: it’s about how humanity has always imagined the forces that pull us toward light and toward shadow, and what it means that we get to choose in which direction we walk.

Or, to put it even more simply: it’s about the space between angels and demons.

Which is to say: it’s about us.

Fallen from Heaven (Into Your Steam Library)

Let’s get theological for a moment. Don’t worry, I’ll make it fun.

Virtually every human culture has developed some concept of spiritual beings arranged in a hierarchy above and below the mortal plane. Celestial messengers. Infernal tempters. Entities that embody the best and worst impulses we struggle to understand in ourselves.

In the Western tradition—which, lest we forget, is the tradition that video games have most heavily drawn from—these beings crystallize into angels and demons. And the interesting thing isn’t just that we imagined them. It’s how we imagined them.

The popular image of an angel is pretty standardized by now: luminous humanoid beings in white robes, feathery wings, harps, halos, the whole shebang. They're messengers of God (the word "angel" literally derives from the Greek angelos, meaning "messenger"), and they spend their time delivering divine proclamations, protecting the righteous, and generally looking extremely photogenic in Renaissance paintings.

But actual angels, in the Abrahamic traditions, aren’t the pudgy cherubs of Valentine’s Day cards or the gentle spirits of Hallmark card grief. They are terrifying. The first thing biblical angels say to people is almost always “Be not afraid”—which is precisely what you say when your appearance has just induced cardiac arrest in a Bronze Age shepherd. The Prophet Ezekiel describes creatures covered in eyes and wings and wheels, spinning with fire and defying every expectation of anthropomorphic constitution.

They are also, critically, not free. Traditional angelology holds that angels lack the full capacity for choice that defines human souls. They serve. They obey. Their prime directive, their purpose for even existing, is to execute the will of the divine with perfect fidelity… which sounds nice until you realize that includes things like destroying cities and unleashing plagues.

Demons, meanwhile, get the opposite treatment. They are the photonegative. Horned monstrosities with dragon wings, pointy tails, and pitchforks, lurking in sulfurous pits, tempting mortals toward sin and damnation. They're the bad guys, essentially. The Cosmic Opposition.

Where angels represent hierarchy and obedience, demons embody appetite and rebellion. They want. They tempt. They promise shortcuts to the things you desire most, extracting payment in currencies you didn’t realize you were spending.

Simple enough, right?

Except it isn’t.

For starters, “demons” didn’t even start off as evil! The English word comes from the Greek daimon, which originally meant something closer to “spirit” or “divine power”. They were morally neutral entities, and could be helpful or harmful depending on the context. Socrates famously claimed to have a personal daimonion that warned him away from bad decisions (not that it stopped him from drinking that hemlock, but that’s neither here nor there). Anyway, not exactly the stuff of exorcist films.

But these daimones gradually, over the course of several centuries, transformed into capital “D” Demons (ie, malevolent beings opposed to God and humanity) as Greek philosophy slowly fused with Abrahamic cosmologies, particularly Jewish apocalypticism and, eventually, Christian theology.

But you didn’t really think it’d be that simple, did you? Consider that in Judaism, for instance, demons aren’t inherently evil; they’re more like celestial quality assurance testers, subjecting humans to temptation and adversity to gauge their moral development.2 The Adversary (ha-Satan in Hebrew) started as a job title, not a proper name: the prosecuting attorney in God’s heavenly court. Christianity would later promote him to Big Bad status, but his original role was significantly more bureaucratic and quite a bit less “Prince of Darkness”-coded.

Meanwhile, in Islamic tradition, demons (and angels!) lack free will altogether. They simply do what they were created to do. Iblis, the Islamic devil, didn’t rebel because he thought he could do better than God; he was basically making a principled objection to prostrating before humans, whom he considered inferior.3

By contrast, in traditional Christian demonology, demons are fallen angels: beings who exercised the one choice they had (rebellion), and were transformed by it.4 This is what makes Lucifer such a fascinating figure in the Western imagination: he’s the angel who wanted more, who preferred “to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” and became the template for every anti-authoritarian villain and misunderstood anti-hero in the libraries of fiction that followed.

By the medieval period, all this mystical and religious intermixing had birthed highly complex demonological systems. These culminated in grimoires like the Ars Goetia, which catalogs 72 demons by name, rank, sigil, and specialty… and even by this era, when demons were unambiguously malevolent, the enterprising (or insane) summoner could still call on them for morally neutral or even benevolent purposes (like protection).

The point is: our modern conception of angels as unambiguously good and demons as unambiguously evil is actually a fairly recent simplification of traditions that used to be far messier. In the original source material, celestial and infernal beings alike came in all flavors of moral complexity.

Which brings is to the most interesting bit, and the part that matters most (at least for our purposes): in the Western spiritual tradition, humanity sits in between these cosmic poles.

Just like Earth sits in between Heaven and Hell, humans occupy a unique middle position on the celestial hierarchy. We have enough spiritual weight to command angels and demons (under the right circumstances), but not enough to boss around God. We possess what angels supposedly lack: the freedom to choose evil. And we possess what demons supposedly forfeited: the capacity to choose good.

This means our decisions carry extraordinary moral weight. An angel’s righteous act is what angels do. A demon’s corruption is what demons are. But when a human chooses virtue over vice (or vice over virtue), something genuinely new enters the cosmic ledger. That choice means something, precisely because it could have gone the other way.

This is why so many religious and mystical traditions place humanity at the very center of the spiritual drama. Not because we’re the most powerful (we’re definitely not) or the most beautiful (jury’s still out) or even the most interesting (like wtf are we even talking about? angels have, like, four faces), but because we’re the only ones for whom the outcome is truly, actually, genuinely uncertain.

We are contested terrain, in other words. This is THE central drama of most Western religious thought: the human soul, pulled between heaven and hell, torn between light and darkness, with free will as both our greatest gift and our most dangerous liability.

And that, dear reader, is exactly what video games discovered when they started building dungeons for us to crawl through. And video games, as it turns out, are exceptionally well-suited to exploring this tension. After all, what is a game but a series of choices? And what better setting for meaningful choices than a cosmos where your decisions literally determine whether you become an angel, a demon, or something else entirely?

😇🤷‍♂️😈 SIDE QUEST: The Spirits That Won’t Pick a Side

The Western angel/demon binary isn’t the only game in town. And, in fact, learning about how other traditions conceptualize spirits shows us just how specific (and recent!) that binary really is.

In Shinto, Japan’s homegrown spiritual tradition, there are no “demons” in the Christian sense. The kami are spirits that inhabit all things: mountains, rivers, trees, and even man-made objects that have been around long enough to develop personalities. Kami aren’t inherently good or evil; they can be friendly when respected, or destructive when offended or neglected. Traditional belief holds that kami possess two souls: the nigi-mitama (gentle) and ara-mitama (assertive). A single spirit might bless you one day and curse you the next, depending on how you’ve treated it.

So, you know… you better watch out, you better not pout.

Meanwhile, the oni of Japanese folklore—often translated as “demon”—are more accurately understood as ogres or malevolent spirits, but even they can be placated, befriended, or otherwise become protectors. The famous Setsubun ritual of throwing beans while chanting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (”Demons out! Good fortune in!”) is actually closer to spring cleaning, sweeping out bad luck to make room for good, than actual spiritual warfare.

Now, let’s head to the Indian Subcontinent, where Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies give us even more nuanced pictures. The devas (celestial beings) and asuras (anti-gods, titans) do wage an eternal conflict against each other, but with a twist: in early Vedic literature, asura wasn’t a negative term at all! Both Agni and Indra were called asuras, meaning “lords” of their domains. Only later did the term shift to designate beings opposed to the devas—and even then, asuras aren’t simply “evil.” You could more accurately say that they’re powerful, proud, and often victims of their own ambitions, trapped in cycles of conflict they can’t escape. Much like human lords, if you think about it!

The Buddhist six realms of existence include both a deva realm and an asura realm, but neither is permanent. Beings are born and reborn into these states based on their karma; even the mightiest deva will eventually die and be reborn elsewhere. The asura realm is marked by jealousy and constant warfare, but it’s also one of the “higher” realms where rebirth is possible, suggesting that these beings aren’t irredeemably evil so much as spiritually stuck.

Pre-Christian European traditions similarly resist the angel/demon dichotomy. The daimones of Ancient Greece, as we’ve noted, were morally neutral. The Norse, meanwhile, had their jötnar (giants), which to be fair were often enemies of the Asgardian gods, but still not uniformly malevolent—in fact, several gods have jötnar ancestry, jötnar lovers, or both! Finally, Celtic traditions featured the Sídhe (fairy folk), terrifying beings of otherworldly power who could either help or harm depending on how you treated them, as well as the Fomorians, primordial chaos beings who opposed the Tuatha Dé Danann (basically, the original Irishmen) but still weren’t simply “demons” in any recognizable sense.

All these traditions share a reluctance to sort all spirits into two neat boxes labeled “good” and “evil.” Spirits have personalities, foibles, histories, and agendas. Some can be bargained with; others must be avoided at all costs; still others might become allies under the right circumstances. The Christian angel/demon dichotomy (absolute good versus absolute evil, with nothing in between) is, from a historical perspective, actually quite unusual—a specific product of specific theological developments in Late Antiquity.

Games that draw on these alternative traditions often produce more interesting spirit worlds. The Shin Megami Tensei series famously treats its “demons” (which include gods, angels, and mythological creatures from just about every culture) as recruitable allies with distinct personalities and codes of ethics. Then there’s Okami, which gives us Shinto-inspired spirits who can be malevolent or benevolent depending on circumstance.

But it’s not just Japanese studios who engage in this; even Western games increasingly recognize that “angel good, demon bad” is a bit simplistic, and ultimately quite boring in comparison—hence the recent proliferation of fallen angels, redeemed demons, and morally grey celestial beings across the medium.

Diablo itself, as we’ll see, eventually complicates its own cosmic binary, suggesting that maybe the ancient traditions were onto something and the beings wearing “angel” and “demon” labels are more complex than those labels might suggest.

Rolling for Initiative: The Dungeon Masters Who Built Hell

Before Diablo could exist, someone had to invent the vocabulary it spoke. And that vocabulary came from many sources: some ancient, and some surprisingly recent.

The ancient sources include everything we’ve already discussed: millennia of religious and mythological speculation about the nature of good and evil, the structure of the afterlife, and the taxonomy of beings who populate the spiritual realms. This material saturates Western culture so thoroughly that most people absorb it without thinking; even hardcore Reddit atheists know what a demon is supposed to look like.

But I want to call attention to two crucial literary texts that took the biblical and canonical building blocks and shaped them into archetypal imagery that Western cultures and their media—including, eventually, video games—draw upon when imagining Heaven, Hell, and its legions.

John Milton’s highly influential Paradise Lost (1667) gave us the Satan we actually think about—not the serpent of Genesis or the adversary of Job, but the magnificent rebel, the tragic anti-hero who makes damnation look like a principled stand. Milton’s Satan has interiority, and motivations we can almost sympathize with. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” didn’t come from the Bible, but from Milton.

And it’s been living rent-free in the Western imagineation ever since—this Miltonic Satan echoes through every video game devil who’s more than a simple boss monster. When Devil May Cry‘s Sparda rebels against his demon brethren to protect humanity, he’s following Milton’s template. Likewise, when Diablo IV‘s Lilith articulates heartfelt grievances against the cosmic order, she’s speaking in Milton’s voice. The idea that a demon might have reasons, be tragic, and even (gasp!) be right about some things is Milton’s gift to popular culture. And games have used it extensively.5

The second text, Dante Alighieri’s seminal Divine Comedy (primarily Inferno, 1320), gave us Hell’s geography and organizational chart. Nine concentric circles descending towards the center of the Earth, each punishing specific sins with deliciously ironic torments: contrapasso, the punishment fitting the crime. Eternal winds blowing about the lustful, the wrathful fighting each other in a river of blood, Cerberus (Greek mythology’s three-headed infernal canine) gnawing on the gluttonous, the treacherous frozen in ice until the end of time... a bureaucracy of suffering so precisely structured that readers have been mapping it for 700 years yet still show no sign of slowing down. And at the very bottom of the wretched pit, lies Satan himself—not as a tempter or schemer, but as a mindless beast, frozen to the waist, weeping from his six eyes while his three mouths eternally chew on the archetypal traitors Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.

This architectural Hell became the template for virtually every depiction that followed. The Dante’s Inferno video game (2010) literally adapted it level by level, but even games that don’t explicitly reference Dante still use his structural innovations: the descent into ever-worse punishment, the categorization (and ironic punishment) of sin, the journey through perdition toward confrontation with ultimate evil… you’ve seen it a thousand times by now. So even if you can’t name it, you still intuitively understand how Diablo‘s sixteen-level descent into increasingly corrupted environs follows the Dantean model, even without invoking Dante’s name once.

Between them, Milton and Dante established the grammar for imagining Hell as a place: a location with rules, inhabitants, and explorable space. This matters enormously for video games, which are fundamentally spatial media. You can’t make a level out of “the absence of God’s grace.” But you can make a level out of burning pits and twisted architecture.

Add in a century of Gothic horror (Dracula, Frankenstein, Poe), the Satanic imagery of heavy metal album covers, the visual vocabulary of artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel, and by the time computers were powerful enough to render demons, the demons were more than ready to be rendered.

But before even that could happen, a crucial intermediary had to translate between the archetypal, visual, and literary imagery of hell and the ludo-methodology of video game design.

That intermediary, of course, was tabletop gaming.

In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released Dungeons & Dragons, and in doing so, they created a shared ludic language that would shape video games for decades to come. Now, D&D didn’t invent the idea of fighting monsters for treasure—that’s as old as Beowulf. But it systematized that idea and made it programmable.

Suddenly, there were hit points and armor classes, experience levels and character classes, explicit mechanics for resolving combat and clear progressions for becoming more powerful. D&D was a framework for collaborative storytelling that could accommodate almost any narrative genre, though it particularly and enthusiastically favored dark fantasy.

And D&D brought its own cosmology. The game’s “Outer Planes” organized afterlives by alignment—Lawful Good in one direction, Chaotic Evil in another, with gradients between. Devils (lawful evil) occupied the Nine Hells. Demons (chaotic evil) swarmed the Abyss. Meanwhile, angels and archons populated the Upper Planes.

This systematization was (and please pardon the tired and overworn cliché, but it really is literally and perfectly apt here) game-changing. It took the sprawling, contradictory mess that is Western demonology and gave it stat blocks. This is what let Diablo III turn Asmodeus Azmodan into a boss fight.

Indeed, Diablo's mechanical DNA is pure D&D. For starters, the original game’s class system (warrior, rogue, sorcerer) maps directly to the fighter/thief/mage trinity. Then there’s the randomized dungeons, the monster variety, the loot drops, the experience points, the gear progression, the whole system for turning demon slaying into gameplay… all of it descends from the tabletop traditions that Gygax helped establish. Diablo IS an RPG, after all!

But I want to call special attention to D&D’s alignment system, which (as we just touched on) famously categorized all beings on axes of Good/Evil and Law/Chaos.

This alignment system remains enormously influential to this day, even breaching nerd containment to achieve some (relatively small, but still noticeable) degree of mainstream recognition, and players still stubbornly cling to it despite Wizards of the Coast’s repeated attempts to downplay, de-emphasize, and even outright ditch it (I don’t know why they keep trying, considering these attempts don’t ever seem to stick… but I digress).

Through character alignment, D&D formalized the mechanization of morality—the idea that beings might be Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good as fundamental characteristics rather than mere choices. So when games distinguish between angels as “forces of order” and demons as “forces of chaos,” they’re often following D&D’s framework.

D&D also introduced another idea that still echoes through gaming: the idea that demons and devils were dangerous to name. The 1980s “Satanic Panic” led TSR (the original owners of D&D before WotC) to temporarily rename demons “tanar’ri” and devils “baatezu” in D&D’s 2nd Edition… but more importantly, it established that this was contentious cultural territory. Media (including games) depicting Hell were no longer just using cool imagery; they were making heavy statements that some people took very seriously indeed. That tension, between demons as fun monsters and demons as theological claims, persists to this day.

🎲👺😱 SIDE QUEST: The Devil’s Playthings (A Brief History of the Satanic Panic)

If you’re under 35 or so, the Satanic Panic might sound like ancient history—a weird thing your parents’ generation got worked up about, like New Coke or leg warmers. But understanding it is crucial for realizing why games depict demons the way they do, and why some of those depictions still carry faint traces of cultural scar tissue.

The short version: from roughly 1980 to the early 1990s, a significant portion of America became unironically convinced that organized Satanic cults had infiltrated every level of society. These cults were allegedly abusing children in daycare centers, recruiting teenagers through rock music, and using tabletop games as indoctrination tools. Yes, parents actually believed that cults of devil worshippers were recruiting their kids through games about fighting imaginary goblins. It sounds ridiculous (mostly because it was ridiculous), but law enforcement took it very seriously: prosecutors filed charges, and actual people went to actual prison. Countless lives were destroyed.

And almost none of it was real.

The panic had multiple ignition points, but Dungeons & Dragons became one of its most visible targets. In 1979, a gifted but troubled 16-year-old named James Dallas Egbert III disappeared from Michigan State University. A private investigator, unfamiliar with the game, theorized (incorrectly, as it turned out) that Egbert had gotten lost in the steam tunnels beneath campus while LARPing a D&D session, and the media ran with it. When Egbert later died by suicide, D&D took the blame despite having nothing to do with his actual struggles (which mostly involved depression, pressure, schizophrenia, and his closeted sexuality… but the D&D angle made for better copy).

The floodgates of moral panic had swung wide open. In 1982, the TV movie Mazes and Monsters (starring a young Tom Hanks, of all people) dramatized a thinly veiled version of the Egbert case, portraying tabletop RPGs as gateways to psychotic breaks. 60 Minutes dedicated a full hour to the supposed connection between D&D and violent crime. Moral crusader and Elite Karen Patricia Pulling, whose own son had died by suicide, founded Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD) and spent years crusading against the game, claiming it “taught children how to perfect the art of premeditated murder.” Her 1989 book The Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children for Satan? made assertions so wild that even other anti-occult activists looked away in embarrassment.6

And you’d better believe that Jack Chick got in on the fun.

If you’ve never encountered a Chick tract (and if that’s the case, be sure to thank the good Lord for giving you such a blessed life), imagine a tiny comic book designed to scare you into accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior through sheer evangelical fever dream intensity. His 1984 tract “Dark Dungeons” depicted D&D as a literal cult recruitment vehicle: the Dungeon Master teaches players real magic, a girl hangs herself after her character dies, and the protagonist only escapes by burning her D&D books while a helpful Christian explains that she’d been practicing actual witchcraft. It’s so over the top that it was eventually adapted into a film by fans who played it completely straight and somehow made it even funnier.7

The games industry responded with what you could charitably call “strategic cowardice.” TSR (D&D’s original publisher) scrubbed demons and devils from the 2nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in 1989—demons became “tanar’ri,” while devils became “baatezu.” The words themselves were treated as dangerous, as if calling a monster a “demon” might attract actual infernal attention, but calling it a “tanar’ri” was just fine because... well, reasons.

They later added an almost endearingly desperate in-universe justification: “Devils are by nature deceptive. They call themselves by many names to confuse mortals.”

Sure, guys. That’s definitely why you did it.

The whole thing was darkly ironic, but you know what the most darkly ironic layer of them all was? D&D was created by devout Christians! Gary Gygax was a Jehovah’s Witness for much of his life, while Dave Arneson was a practicing Lutheran. Also, the game’s moral framework is explicitly about fighting evil: paladins smite demons, clerics turn the undead, and good triumphs over darkness. The people screaming about Satanic content had apparently never noticed that D&D characters spend most of their time killing the things the panic accused the game of promoting.

But moral panics almost never involve logic. Instead, they’re almost always about anxiety seeking a target.

And the broader Satanic Panic extended far beyond gaming. The McMartin preschool trial (1983-1990) saw innocent daycare workers accused of ritualistic Satanic abuse, based on children’s testimony that (as we now know) was coerced through leading questions and incompetent or unscrupulous therapists with either shoddy training, a broader agenda, or both (either way, this was clearly therapeutic malpractice). Again, none of it was real; no physical evidence ever materialized.

Similar cases erupted nationwide. Heavy metal music faced actual congressional hearings, with Tipper Gore and her Parents Music Resource Center successfully pushing for warning labels. Backward masking (the idea that Satanic messages were hidden in songs played in reverse) became an urgent concern for people who’d apparently never considered how hard it’d be to record intelligible backward messages that also worked as forward music.

The panic eventually burned itself out, largely because (again, say it with me now…) none of its predictions came true. The “Satanic underground” never materialized, and all those “recovered” memories proved (at best) unreliable. The CDC, the American Association of Suicidology, and Health and Welfare Canada all investigated and published statements confirming that D&D was safe; no correlation between the game and harmful behavior was ever established. The imprisoned daycare workers were eventually exonerated and released (though some had served several years first, and their livelihoods and reputations were already in tatters; by and large, the damage was already done). By the mid-1990s, the cultural mood had decidedly shifted from “AAAIIYEE, demons everywhere!!!” to “…wow, we really overreacted, didn’t we?”

But the effects lingered, particularly in gaming. When Diablo launched in 1996, it did so in a strange cultural moment. We were still processing the panic’s aftermath, and the game was drenched in demonic imagery (inverted pentagrams, hellfire, literal Satan-adjacent boss monsters)—Blizzard was keenly aware they were working in fraught territory. Yet the game somehow escaped controversy.

Why? Partially timing (the panic had crested), partially framing (you were clearly killing the demons, not potentially worshipping them), partially the shift from tabletop to video games (which were seen as more “mainstream” and slightly less associated with the weird kids in the basement), and partially because Diablo launched on PC (at the time, PC games were considered more “adult” or “mature” than console games, which were targeted at kids… and which, funnily enough, were then embroiled in a moral panic of their own—this one centered on video game violence).

Diablo III (2012) notably toned down some of the franchise’s religious imagery. According to developer commentary, Blizzard removed pentagrams and explicit crosses to avoid offending anyone. But this wasn’t Satanic Panic 2: Electric Boogaloo, and had more to do with global markets and not wanting to alienate religious players of different faiths. Still, it’s hard not to see the specter of the 1980s in that decision. After all, “once bitten, twice shy”—even several decades later.

(And still, the fact remains that an entire generation of game developers learned the visual and mechanical vocabulary of angels and demons under conditions of moral siege. And something about being told your hobby was Satanic seems to have given many of them a mischievous interest in exploring exactly why those images hold such power. But that’s a topic for another day.)

In any case, the Satanic Panic’s most enduring legacy is actually far subtler than just censored monster names, for it established a template for moral panics about media that we’ve seen recycled ever since:

1. A new medium emerges.

2. Young/weird/countercultural people embrace it.

3. Older/normie/mainstream people don’t understand it.

4. Something bad happens that can be loosely associated with or attributed to the medium.

5. Moral entrepreneurs discover there’s money and attention in sounding the alarm, so they do exactly that.

6. The panic builds—destroying reputations and lives in the process—until it collapses under the weight of its own ridiculousness (or just its lack of evidence).

7. Lather, rinse, and repeat, ad infinitum.

We’re arguably living through several such panics right now, though cataloguing and examining them all would make this sidebar even longer than it already is. Still, here are a few off the top of my head: video games cause violence, the internet enables predators, social media destroys children’s minds, AI is destroying art/labor/the environment, etc.

In each case, the specific devil changes, but the overall structure remains.

The games industry learned something from the Satanic Panic era, though I’d argue it wasn’t the right lesson. It learned that one could avoid controversy by enacting superficial changes: rename the demons, remove the pentagrams, add a content warning, and boom—problem averted. But it didn’t necessarily learn that moral panics are irrational, and that capitulating to them only encourages the next one. Every time a game company preemptively censors content because someone might complain, the ghost of Patricia Pulling adds a notch to her kill count.

And ultimately, the panic failed to achieve its main stated objective: it actually boosted D&D sales (you had one job, Satanic Panic!). Teenagers who’d never heard of D&D suddenly became quite curious about this game that was supposedly so dangerous. The forbidden fruit effect is real, and so is the Streisand Effect; the Satanic Panic handed D&D the most effective marketing campaign imaginable: parental disapproval.

And now, 40 years later, Dungeons & Dragons has never been more popular. The game’s 5th Edition brought demons and devils back under their proper names, while Stranger Things made D&D nostalgically cool. The kids who were warned that role-playing games would damn their souls to Hell grew up to be parents who now play with their own children.

Sometimes the devil doesn’t get his due. Often, it turns out that the moral guardians were just wrong, and the weird kids in the basement were fine all along.

From Pixels to Perdition: Paving the Path to Hell in Video Games

The history of angels and demons in video games tracks pretty closely with technological capacity. Come, let’s take a (very quick) loot look!

Early hardware couldn’t render terror; at best, it could suggest it. Ultima and Wizardry (late 1970s–1980s) built elaborate fantasy cosmologies, but their demons existed primarily in text descriptions and crude tile graphics. Gauntlet (1985) let you fight ghosts and demons in procedurally generated dungeons, but they were tiny sprites with limited animation. The horror was more abstract, and your imagination did the heavy lifting.

Then came DOOM (1993).

id Software’s masterpiece didn’t invent the first-person shooter, but it sure as hell (pun abso-friggin-lutely intended) popularized it. It also invented Hell as a video game destination. Its Hell was spatial: a place you could walk through, with things like architecture and geography. The game’s plot (such as it was) involved demonic invasion via teleportation experiments gone wrong. Mars bases gave way to something something Phobos moons gave way to literally fighting your way through the infernal realm.

And DOOM’s demons, at long last, actually looked like demons. The Cacodemon, floating with its single eye, is about as iconic and representative of the game as you can get. Same with the Baron of Hell’s goat legs and huge ram horns (highly reminiscent of a certain other demonic mastermind from a few years later, come to think of it). And, of course, how could I not mention the Spider Mastermind, horrifying and distinctly “metal album cover” in its aesthetic. id’s artists (particularly Adrian Carmack) actually built clay models and photographed them from multiple angles! This attention to detail led to them creating sprites that felt present in ways that earlier games hadn’t managed.

But DOOM also flattened things somewhat: its demons were nothing more than targets. No narrative complications, no moral quandaries, no theology, and no nuance… just pure, sweet digital catharsis, delivered at high velocity through the barrel of a shotgun. The game’s gleeful ultraviolence positioned Hell’s legions as pure obstacles. They weren’t tempting, seducing, or possessing anyone; they were just trying to kill you, and you were going to kill them first. Even the Cyberdemon and the aforementioned Spider Mastermind, nominally the lords of Hell, were just bigger things to shoot.

This was a deliberate simplification, mind. Legendary id co-founder John Carmack famously said, “Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” DOOM’s Hell was a setting, not a statement—it provided the atmosphere, without argument, and set players loose to run and shoot around in.

Still, DOOM’s seeds would eventually bear strange fruit. Later entries in the franchise would flesh this paper-thin excuse plot out into a proper cosmology: both the 2016 reboot and DOOM Eternal (2020) established Hell as an ancient dimension feeding on the suffering of souls, created by the angelic Maykrs (who were complicit in demonic schemes), and positioned the Doom Slayer as something closer to a messianic figure than a mere soldier. So even the franchise that began with demons as pixelated targets eventually learned to take its premise quite seriously. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

*ahem* Anyway… three years later, along came Diablo.

The Dark Wanderer’s Long Journey: Diablo’s Rise and Evolution

DOOM may have been the first to commit Hell to code and let players run around in it, but Blizzard North’s Diablo (1996) actually gave the place a story.

Not a complex story, mind you—the original game’s plot fits on a cocktail napkin. There’s a cathedral in Tristram with something evil beneath it; you descend, you fight, you win (sort of). But despite the barebones plot, the game clearly cared about its mythology in ways that DOOM studiously avoided. It had in-game tomes to read, and lore to absorb. A fallen hero-king named Leoric, a traitorous undead archbishop called Lazarus (any resemblance to the biblical resurectee of the same name is purely coincidental)... and at the very bottom, not just another demon, but the Demon: Diablo, the Lord of Terror, himself.

David Brevik and the Schaefer brothers built Diablo from a simple insight: you could simplify the dungeon crawl without dumbing it down. Earlier RPGs involved hours of character creation, pages of instructions, and turn-based combat that turned every encounter into a chess match. Diablo stripped all that away, and the end result was a devilishly addictive (pun again intended) gameplay loop:

1. Click to move.

2. Click to attack.

3. Watch the loot fountain flow.

4. Go deeper.

The game was a bonafide phenomenon, selling over three million copies and essentially creating the “Action RPG” (ARPG) genre as a commercial category. Battle.net let players cooperate (or betray each other) online. The game’s Gothic atmosphere—dark churches, corrupted priests, demonic sigils—also felt mature in ways that gaming hadn’t quite achieved before.

Diablo II (2000) expanded on all of this. Four acts instead of one, comprising a sprawling journey across deserts and jungles and the fiery hellscape of Pandemonium Fortress, paired with five character classes that would eventually become gaming archetypes in their own right, each with its own skill tree system that let players customize their characters more flexibly, and in ways that gave their choices more weight in how their characters developed and progressed.

But most significantly for our purposes, it had a story that actually went somewhere: you follow the first game’s corrupted hero as he releases Diablo’s brothers, Mephisto and Baal, to threaten all of Sanctuary. It introduced key background lore on the broader cosmic conflict between Heaven and Hell, which later games would build and expand upon even further. Tyrael first appeared, starting his arc toward becoming the franchise’s most beloved character. And other lore that would drive the story forward for decades—such as the Worldstone, Mount Arreat, and the Horadrim—debuted here.

The expansion, Lord of Destruction (2001), added an entire new act (set in the Barbarian Highlands and Mount Arreat), a compelling antagonist in the form of Baal (the eponymous Lord of Destruction), and two new classes. It concluded with one of gaming’s most consequential moments: the destruction of the Worldstone, an artifact that had—unbeknownst to most of Sanctuary’s inhabitants—been suppressing humanity’s latent power for generations.

But perhaps most importantly, the expansion introduced runewords: powerful item combinations that gave players concrete goals beyond pure randomness. The game now had legs; people could (and would) play Diablo II and its expansion for over a decade.

And just as well, because then started the long wait.

Blizzard North fell apart. Key developers left, then the studio was shuttered and folded into Blizzard proper in 2005. An earlier version of Diablo III was developed and then scrapped. The franchise, for a while, seemed dead.

But (plot twist!) it wasn’t.

Diablo III finally emerged in May 2012, developed by Blizzard’s main campus rather than the now-defunct Blizzard North. It sold over three million copies in its first 24 hours… which is when the complaints started.

And they were legion. The game had an always-online requirement, leading to the infamous “Error 37” disaster as Battle.net’s servers buckled under launch demand. It also had an auction house that let players buy items for real money, fundamentally altering the game’s reward structure and breaking the in-game economy. Its brighter, more “cartoony” art style seemed to soften Diablo’s trademark Gothic horror aesthetic. And its story, while ambitious, leaned into some players’ least favorite Blizzard tendencies—namely, turning the protagonist into a prophesied Chosen One instead of a random adventurer who got in over their head.

But Diablo III eventually found its footing. The Reaper of Souls expansion (2014) added a compelling villain in Malthael, removed the auction house, and introduced the endgame systems that would keep players engaged for years. It also finally broke PC containment, eventually releasing on all major consoles (and the console versions were actually better than the PC original in some ways). In the end? It was a good game, sir.

Diablo Immortal (2022), however, was a different story. A free-to-play spinoff co-developed with Chinese mobile behemoth NetEase, it was announced to a chorus of boos at BlizzCon 2018 (”Do you guys not have phones?”) and released to intense criticism over its insanely aggressive monetization. The game itself was perfectly competent, as Diablo’s core loop translated reasonably well to mobile. But the business model felt predatory in ways that alienated longtime fans.8

Diablo IV (2023) constituted a deliberate course correction. Darker art direction, with a more open world, and Lilith—the Daughter of Hatred, and Mother of Sanctuary—as the game’s central antagonist. It was received reasonably well, though the community remains soured on the game’s seasonal model, monetization, and balance issues.

The game’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred (2024), added the Spiritborn class and the jungle region of Nahantu, continuing Neyrelle’s story as she struggles against the imprisoned Mephisto. It launched to generally positive reception, with critics praising the new class’s flexibility and the expansion’s many quality of life improvements. But some players found the campaign too short, and the live-service treadmill continues to divide the community.

And the upcoming Lord of Hatred expansion (releasing April 2026) promises an epic confrontation with Mephisto himself, and will re-introduce the Paladin alongside an unannounced second class. Blizzard’s president has described 2026 as potentially “the biggest year yet” for the company.

This is where Diablo stands today: a franchise at a crossroads. Beloved for its core appeal (click, kill, loot, repeat), burdened by three decades’ worth of fan expectations, facing stiffer competition from Path of Exile 2 and other ARPGs, and navigating the challenging economics of live-service gaming in an industry increasingly at odds with its consumers. Whether Diablo IV can recapture its predecessors’ decades-long cultural dominance, or remain just one quality game among many in an increasingly crowded genre, remains to be seen.

To be fair, this is a tough position for any franchise to be in. The original Diablo succeeded partly because of its simplicity—you could install it and be playing in minutes. But modern games require patches, accounts, season passes, and always-on connections. The type of friction that the first Diablo removed has been systematically reintroduced in recent years by contemporary gaming infrastructure.

And yet, people keep going back to Tristram. They keep descending those stairs, wondering what’s at the bottom.

Maybe that’s because Diablo, at its best, isn’t really about the loot or the builds or the season passes.

It’s about something far older.

🧙‍♀️🧛🏻‍♂️🧝 SIDE QUEST: Class & Craft

Diablo’s archetypal character classes draws from thousands of years of IRL magical and martial traditions, and understanding these sources vastly enriches the game’s power fantasy. So let’s have a quick look!

Let’s start with the Necromancer, perhaps the Diablo franchise’s most iconic class. Historical necromancy (nekromanteia—communion with the dead) was serious business in the ancient world; it was very much the forbidden art. The biblical Witch of Endor summoned the Prophet Samuel’s ghost for King Saul, and the text makes it very clear this was Not Okay (though I should mention that this condemnation wasn’t quite universal; Greek oracle sites like the Necromanteion of Acheron even offered institutional necromancy, séances were all the rage in the Victorian Era, and spirit mediums like John Edward continue to carry the torch today). The taboo really stuck; thousands of years later, medieval necromancers (who were often rogue clergy, interestingly) were often accused of basically the worst crimes imaginable, which I’m hesitant to even reprint here. Just take my word for it that it’s pretty bad.

But Diablo’s Priests of Rathma reframe this forbidden art as basically ecology: “All that grows must also wither and die. All dies and rots, and will then nourish the living.” The necromancers simply… facilitate this process. The Great Cycle of Being thus transforms necromancy’s rising skeletons and exploding corpses from transgression into cosmic compost management, and gives a universally condemned practice a veneer of philosophical discipline.

Meanwhile, the Paladin and Crusader channel the checkered history of the infamous Knights Templar. The Zakarum faith parallels the Templars so directly—warrior monks who combine religious devotion with martial prowess, their prime purpose of protecting pilgrims, their distinctive cross imagery, and the order’s ultimate destruction on heresy charges, spawning inquisitions and holy wars—that it’s almost Medieval Church historical fan fiction. Mephisto’s corruption of the Zakarum hierarchy (while being imprisoned beneath their holiest site) even resembles accusations leveled against the actual Templars!

The split between Paladins (who saw the corruption and walked away) and Crusaders (who believed they could purify the faith from within) also mirrors real Reformation-era debates. Do you abandon a corrupted institution, or try to fix it? As of press time, Diablo doesn’t answer that question, though it does let you play both sides across different games, which is at least more fun that way.

The Sorceress embodies Hermetic and Western Ceremonial Magic traditions. The Zann Esu Clan’s focus on elemental magic (fire, lightning, cold) reflects the classical element system derived from Empedocles (fire, water, earth, air). Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) organized all magic into Natural (elemental), Celestial (astrological), and Ceremonial (divine) categories, and Diablo’s spellcasters (roughly) follow this taxonomy.

Moving onto the Druid, who seamlessly blends historical accounts with myth and legend. Julius Caesar, our main historical source for IRL druids (who, admittedly, had his own reasons for making them seem exotic), documents them as priest-judge-philosophers responsible for worship, sacrifice, and legal matters, and who trained for over 20 years. They did not, as far as we know, turn into werewolves. That bit comes from entirely separate European folklore traditions, bear-warrior cults, and lycanthropy legends that have nothing to do with Celtic religion.

Diablo just... kind of mashes all of this together. Druidic nature philosophy plus shapeshifting plus authentic Gaelic terminology (Caoi Dúlra, or the “Way of Nature”) equals a class that feels mythologically coherent, even though it draws from entirely disparate historic components. It’s a really well-executed exemple of synthetic mythology—which, when you think about it, is what most “ancient traditions” actually are, anyway.

Moving on!

The Barbarian echoes Norse berserkers—members of Odinic warrior cults who entered berserkergang (berserker rage) and totally mauled out on the battlefield. The Ynglinga Saga describes warriors “as crazed as dogs or wolves and as strong as bears or bulls,” which any Barbarian main can tell you totally tracks. The Barbarians’ sacred charge—protecting Mount Arreat—also mirrors Germanic sacred mountain traditions. And similarly, when Mount Arreat is destroyed and the Barbarians lose their purpose, it echoes the berserker cults’ historical decline after Christianity outlawed them in the 11th Century.

Finally, the Witch Doctor, hailing from the reclusive Umbaru tribe, engages Haitian Vodou and similar West African shamanic practices. The Mbwiru Eikura (”Unformed Land”) parallels Vodou cosmology’s invisible spirit realm, while the character class’ zombie-summoning abilities connect to the Kikongo word nzambi (god/spirit) and beliefs about souls captured by bokors (sorcerers).

As you can see, there’s a thesis statement about magic, faith, and power hidden inside every class—and to think you only picked yours because you liked the skill animations!

Building Sanctuary: Blizzard’s Theological Architecture

Ok, now that we’ve got all that background out of the way, it’s time to go deep.

Diablo’s cosmology adeptly blends several real-world religious and occult traditions to tell a highly compelling dark fantasy story. Once you learn more about these sources, you’ll not only appreciate the games themselves more, you’ll also realize how thoroughly Blizzard engaged with humanity’s oldest questions about good, evil, and our place in the cosmic order.

So, shall we begin?

The Eternal Conflict: Zoroastrianism with a Twist

Diablo’s foundational myth—the Eternal Conflict, an endless war between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells—draws directly from Zoroastrianism, the world’s oldest explicitly dualistic theology.

In Zoroastrianism, reality is a battleground between Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord, representing light and truth) and Angra Mainyu (the Destructive Spirit, representing darkness and deception). These two primordial forces are locked in Kosmic Kombat, and humanity must choose sides.

Diablo almost directly lifts this myth’s structure: Anu (pure light/order) and Tathamet (a seven-headed dragon of chaos) represent the same primordial duality. Their conflict created the universe, and their deaths created the realms and the beings within them that vie for supremacy (the High Heavens’ angels from Anu’s spine, and the Burning Hells’ demons from Tathamet’s seven heads).

Blizzard, however, introduces a key twist.

Zoroastrianism promises that Ahura Mazda will ultimately triumph: the good guys will win. Diablo, on the other hand, offers no such assurance. The Eternal Conflict is truly eternal—an irresolvable stalemate where neither side can claim permanent victory. This pessimistic inversion transforms a religious promise into a fertile narrative engine; after all, if either side could decisively win, there’d be no more stories to tell!

Sanctuary as Gnostic Creation

Meanwhile, the creation of Sanctuary—the mortal world where the games take place—mirrors Gnostic cosmology.

In Gnosticism, the material world was created by a demiurge (a flawed or malevolent divine being) who trapped sparks of divine light in matter. Salvation comes not through faith nor works, but through gnosis: hidden knowledge that reveals your true divine nature and allows you to escape the prison and torment of physical existence.

Sanctuary’s creation myth (mostly) hits these notes:

The angel Inarius and the demon Lilith, sick and tired and weary and totally over the Eternal Conflict, steal the Worldstone and create a hidden world where they could take refuge from the war. Their offspring, the Nephalem, are literal angel-demon hybrids whose power potentially exceeds both their parent races.

But Inarius fears this power, and uses the Worldstone to suppress humanity’s divine potential across generations. So just as the Gnostic demiurge traps divine sparks in matter, Inarius traps the Nephalem’s potential in ignorant mortality.

And just as Gnostic salvation comes through knowledge, Diablo’s humans (the comparatively weak and mortal descendants of the Nephalem) awaken their power when the Worldstone is destroyed, revealing to them the truth of their heritage.

The Worldstone: Axis Mundi and Philosopher’s Stone

The Worldstone functions as what religious scholars call an axis mundi—a sacred “center” that connects cosmic realms. Housed within Mount Arreat and guarded by Barbarian tribes fulfilling a sacred charge, it mirrors how various traditions imagine both sacred mountains and holy objects.

Mount Arreat parallels Zoroastrianism’s Mount Haraberazaiti, the Hindu Mount Meru (both sacred mountains at the world’s center), and Norse Yggdrasil (the world tree connecting realms), whereas the Worldstone itself parallels the Ark of the Covenant (guarded artifact of immense power),

It also parallels the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone: an object of immense transformative power sought by opposing forces, capable of reshaping reality, and ultimately corrupted when misused. When Baal corrupts the Worldstone, he’s playing the role of the failed alchemist whose hubris turns gold into lead (instead of the other way around).

Nephalem: Better Than the Bible

The term “Nephalem” directly references the biblical Nephilim—mysterious beings mentioned in Genesis 6:4 as “heroes of old, warriors of renown,” born from unions between “sons of God” and “daughters of humans.”

Then, about a handful of centuries later, the Book of Enoch expands this with the lore of the Watchers—angels who descended to Earth, taught humanity forbidden knowledge, and fathered giant offspring (the aforementioned Nephilim). The Nephilim were abominations, destroyed by God in the Flood for their transgressive existence.9

Blizzard, of course, puts its own spin on the myth; whereas biblical Nephilim result from angel-human unions, Diablo’s Nephalem are angel-demon hybrids—combining two eternally opposed forces rather than merely mixing divine and mortal. This makes the Nephalem potentially superior to both their parent races: they inherit power from both Heaven and Hell, while being bound to neither. They are “heirs to the power of the creator god Anu itself”; not abominations to be destroyed, but the true inheritors of cosmic legacy. Instead of the sad middle ground between Heaven and Hell, humanity is the synthesis that might one day transcend both.

This theological position, by the way, would have been outright heresy through most of Christian history: the idea that humans—specifically, bastard hybrids of cosmic good and evil—might be spiritually superior to angels would’ve been liable to get you burned at the stake. It democratizes divinity in ways that traditional ecclesiastical hierarchies explicitly forbade.

And yet, it also resonates with several mystical traditions for precisely those reasons, from Gnosticism itself (which, as we’ve just gone over, taught that every human has an inner divine spark, waiting to be awakened) to Kabbalah (where mystics ascend the Tree of Life toward divine reunion) to Hermeticism (where the practitioner’s ultimate goal is to commune with their Holy Guardian Angel, an idealized celestial self).

This is Diablo’s central theological innovation: humanity’s mixed heritage isn’t a curse, but a superpower.

Angels & Demons: Inverting the Divine Hierarchy

Meanwhile, the Angiris Council (the five archangels who govern the High Heavens) constitutes another one of Blizzard’s more sophisticated theological adaptations.

In traditional angelology, the Archangels explicitly and unquestionably serve God. There’s no doubt about this; it’s ironclad. Even their Hebrew names encode this relationship, through the suffix -el (meaning “of God”):

• Michael (”Who is like God?”),

• Gabriel (”Strength of God”),

• Raphael (”God heals”),

• Uriel (”Light of God”).

They exist solely to enact divine will, not to exercise independent judgment.

By contrast, Diablo‘s archangels serve no supreme deity (although their names, in many cases, preserve the -el suffix). They instead embody aspects of the deceased Anu:

• Valor (Imperius)

• Justice (Tyrael)

• Hope (Auriel)

• Wisdom (Malthael)

• Fate (Itherael)

They are the manifestations of cosmic principles, not servants of a higher power. Heaven, in Diablo, operates less like the Kingdom of Heaven from our own cosmology, and more like a kind of celestial council democracy. Major decisions require a majority vote. Angels can, and often do, disagree with each other. But even more significantly, Angels can be wrong.

And they frequently are!

Now, I know what you’re thinking, so let me just stop you right there: no, it’s not because they’re “fallen.” They’re not. They’re also not corrupted, nor are they being manipulated by some greater evil.

They’re just... kind of assholes.

Take Imperius, the Archangel of Valor. This guy is technically your ally, fighting against Hell, on the side of Heaven. But he’s also a warmonger, and a total celestial chauvinist who voted to exterminate humanity when we were still in our cosmic cradle. He ven threatens to kill the Nephalem player character, multiple times, throughout Diablo III. His response to most problems is “stab it repeatedly with my big shiny spear.”

Imperius isn’t corrupted by demonic influence, nor does he have a sympathetic tragic backstory that explains his behavior. He’s just an angel whose defining virtue (Valor) has curdled into something uglier: martial supremacy as an end in itself. Bravery, bereft of wisdom or compassion.

Now consider Malthael, the Archangel of Wisdom. In Diablo III’s expansion, Reaper of Souls, Malthael becomes the primary antagonist—again, not through demonic corruption, but through following his nature to its logical conclusion. As the embodiment of Wisdom, Malthael eventually reasoned his way to a terrible conclusion: the Eternal Conflict between Heaven and Hell can only end if everything with demonic heritage is destroyed. And since humans carry demonic ancestry through their Nephalem bloodlines... well, you see where this is going.

Malthael’s genocide sounds insane and irrational, from our perspective. But from his perspective, it’s actually the only rational solution. Wisdom without hope, it turns out, becomes nihilism.

Meanwhile, consider Tyrael, the one and only angel who consistently sides with humanity. And what does he have to do? Give up being an angel entirely. In Diablo III, Tyrael tears off his own wings before the Angiris Council, falls to earth as a mortal, and declares, in one of the most badass cinematics in all of gaming:

“You cannot judge me. I am justice itself!”

Tyrael then becomes the “Fallen Star” that opens Diablo III, both invoking and inverting the falling star imagery traditionally associated with Lucifer. Where Lucifer fell through pride and rebellion against God, Tyrael falls through compassion for humanity. And while Lucifer’s fall was punishment from above, Tyrael’s is self-chosen sacrifice—indeed, in contrast with the traditional fallen angel narrative (they become evil), Tyrael becomes more heroic by abandoning his angelic nature. He may have physically fallen downward, but he morally fell upward precisely because he chose sacrifice.

Think about how theologically subversive this really is! In traditional angelology, angels who leave Heaven are corrupted by the fall. In Diablo, the only good angel is the one who quits.

And the demons?

Blizzard actually gets quite clever here. The demons in Diablo are evil, yes… but they’re comprehensibly evil. Their motivations make sense. Mephisto (Lord of Hatred) spreads hatred because… well, because that’s his nature; Baal (Lord of Destruction), meanwhile, destroys because destruction is his domain (I wonder what could’ve possibly hinted at that?).

So they’re not gratuitously cruel, in ways that serve no purpose. They’re functionally evil—which, paradoxically, makes them more relatable than angels whose “virtue” produces outcomes just as destructive but with far more inscrutable motivations.

Indeed, consider Lilith, who becomes the primary antagonist of Diablo IV. In traditional mythology, Lilith is Adam’s rebellious first wife who refused submission and was cast out to become a demon. In Diablo, she’s a far more morally complex character: the Daughter of Hatred who truly loves her children (the Nephalem, and by extension, humanity). She’s absolutely ruthless, and her goals are morally questionable, but her motivation—protecting and empowering her offspring against both Heaven and Hell—is quintessentially maternal in nature, instantly relatable to anyone who’s raised children.

A demon who loves. Angels who hate. This is another one of Diablo‘s biggest theological innovations: Heaven and Hell are both wrong, and both tyrannical in their own ways. Humanity’s only hope, therefore, lies in rejecting them both entirely.

👼⚖️❌ SIDE QUEST: When Angels Deserve to Die

“The forces of good” and “the forces of order” are used almost interchangeably in fantasy fiction, but they’re not the same thing. In fact, some of the most interesting games ever made explore what happens when they diverge.

The Shin Megami Tensei series has built its entire identity around this tension. Rather than “good vs evil,” SMT presents a cosmic conflict between Law (embodied by YHVH and his angels) and Chaos (likewise by Lucifer and his demons).

Law promises peace, harmony, and security… but at the cost of free will, creativity, and everything that makes existence interesting. Chaos offers freedom and self-determination… but also endless conflict, and the strong preying on the weak. Neither side is “good” in any conventional sense.

YHVH, in these games, is a tyrannical deity who demands absolute worship and will happily annihilate anyone who defies him. He’s “evil,” not because he’s secretly a demon or anything, but because absolute authority is inherently corrupt, even (especially?) when wielded by a god. The angels who serve him, meanwhile, aren’t fallen or corrupted—they’re just doing exactly what angels are supposed to do, which is enforcing divine order. That’s the problem.

Bayonetta takes a similar stance. The angels of Paradiso wholeheartedly believe they’re serving cosmic good, but their “good” consists entirely of maintaining the tyrannical Jubileus’ power structure. When humans exercise free will in ways that threaten that structure, angels descend to correct them… violently. The witch protagonist fights not against corrupted angels or rebellious angels, but against angels doing exactly what angels do, and the game asks whether that’s something worth fighting.10

Even games with more traditional good/evil frameworks often complicate things when you examine them closely. In Final Fantasy Tactics, the corrupt Church of Glabados manipulates wars to maintain power, complete with fallen church leaders under the thrall of angelic beings called Lucavi. Here, the critique extends beyond “demons bad” to “institutions that claim divine authority are dangerous.” The Lucavi are terrible, but they succeeded because the church was already compromised by its hunger for control.

And let’s not forget Safer Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII’s Big Bad’s iconic final form. His angelic appearance and heavenly battle arena are not coincidental, and not without meaning.

Diablo itself eventually embraces this critique. Imperius, the Archangel of Valor—who, again, is not fallen or corrupted—repeatedly advocates for humanity’s destruction because he truly believes that the cosmic order would be better served without the unpredictable Nephalem muddying the waters. His “valor” manifests as zealotry, and his “righteousness” as contempt for anyone outside Heaven’s purview. He’s a perfectly “good” angel, in the sense that he perfectly embodies angelic nature… and that’s precisely what makes him dangerous.

All of this is pointing towards a subtle, but highly significant, theological point: “Good,” defined as obedience to authority, isn’t actually good—it’s just submission dressed up in moral drag. True virtue requires choice, and choice requires the possibility of disobedience. An angel who cannot disobey isn’t actually virtuous; it’s simply programmed properly. But a human (or Nephalem) who chooses good, despite having the option of choosing evil, achieves something that angels cannot.

This is why many games find angels so compelling as villains. Not out of anti-religious animus (at least not usually, or not entirely), but because they recognize that “doing what you’re told” is not the same as “doing what’s right,” and that beings defined entirely by obedience to higher authority make surprisingly good antagonists.

The Demon You Know: Blizzard’s Demonological Sourcebook

Hey, while we’re talking about Diablo’s demons, let’s take a deeper look at their mythological and literary pedigrees. Unlike the franchise’s angels (which mostly subvert our expectations), its demons actually quite faithfully embrace the traditions they’re drawn from. In fact, each major demon’s name traces to specific religious and literary sources—Blizzard quite clearly did its homework here.

Let’s start with the Prime Evils.

Baal (Lord of Destruction) derives from Ba’al, the Canaanite storm god. “Ba’al” simply means “lord” or “master” in Proto-Semitic—it was a title before it became a demon’s name. The transformation happened through Hebrew Bible polemic (i.e., literally demonizing your rival’s god): Ba’al was the chief rival to the worship of Yahweh, so Ba’al-Zebub (”Lord of Flies”) became a deliberate mockery and corruption of the original Ba’al-Zebul (”Lord of the Heavenly Dwelling”). By the time the New Testament came about, Beelzebub was the “prince of demons,” and in the Ars Goetia, Bael commands 66 legions of Hell. Diablo inherits this entire cultural history every time Baal stomps into frame.

Mephisto (Lord of Hatred) comes from Mephistopheles, which actually isn’t ancient at all! Unlike Baal or Belial, Mephistopheles has no ancient mythological roots whatsoever—he was invented for the German Faustbuch of 1587. He was Renaissance literary creation, not a figure from traditional demonology, who proved so compelling he eventually became canonical; through Cristopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Goethe’s Faust, this relatively young demon became the archetype of the cunning tempter. Blizzard reached past the medieval grimoires to grab a literary villain, then placed him alongside genuine biblical demons—his presence in Diablo thus explicitly connects the franchise to demonology’s European literary tradition, alongside its more biblical sources.

Diablo (Lord of Terror) himself takes the simplest path: Spanish/Latin for “devil,” from the Greek root diabolos (”accuser” or “slanderer”), which translated the Hebrew satan (”adversary”) in the Septuagint, calling back to Satan’s original role as a moral prosecuter (which we touched on earlier in this piece). As the Lord of Terror, Diablo‘s eponymous devil weaponizes fear rather than hatred or destruction, making him perhaps the most psychologically insidious of the Prime Evils and (fittingly) the one the player faces most frequently.

The Lesser Evils, meanwhile, show us how Blizzard sometimes adapts its source materials more selectively.

Belial (Lord of Lies) has the deepest biblical roots, appearing twenty-seven times in the Hebrew Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls personify him as the leader of the “Sons of Darkness,” while Milton’s Paradise Lost calls him “the vilest demon, embodiment of impurity and lies” (which could pretty much be a direct quote for his Diablo incarnation).

Azmodan (Lord of Sin) adapts Asmodeus, whose name derives from the Avestan root aēšma-daēva (”wrath-demon”)—showing how Zoroastrian demonology influenced Jewish traditions. In the apocryphal Book of Tobit, Asmodeus is “the worst of demons,” killing seven of Sarah’s husbands, out of nothing but jealousy, before she even consummates her marriages (damn… that’s cold, bruh), and later Talmudic legends make him a trickster who briefly usurped King Solomon’s throne. Finally, the Ars Goetia lists him as commander of 72 legions and, significantly, the demon of lust in Peter Binsfeld’s classification (which creates interesting resonances with his “Lord of Sin” title, hinting at broader wickedness).

Notably, Andariel (Maiden of Anguish) and Duriel (Prince of Pain) have no historical, religious, or literary precedent at all. They’re entirely original Blizzard creations, which proves that the game’s designers selectively adapted tradition rather than transcribed demonological encyclopediae wholesale. This franchise knows when to borrow, and when to invent.

Which brings us, finally to Lilith.

Lilith is by far the franchise’s most complex demonological adaptation. Her origins trace to Sumerian/Akkadian storm demons (lilītu), but the Midrashim (Jewish folklore)—particularly the Alphabet of Ben Sira (c. 700–1000 CE)—transformed her into Adam’s first wife, created from the same clay (and not from Adam’s rib, unlike Eve), who refused subservience: “We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.”

When Adam insisted on his authority, Lilith spoke God’s ineffable name and flew away to the Red Sea, where she cavorted with demons and spawned monsters. God sent three angels to retrieve her, but she still refused to return, after which God just kind of shrugged and created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, putting the whole spat to rest and restoring domestic harmony to Eden (until the serpent showed up, at least… perhaps at Lilith’s behest?). But I’m getting sidetracked here.

Anyway, through this folklore, Lilith became mother of demons, associated with infant mortality and nocturnal seduction. Kabbalistic texts also describe her as consort to Samael (the angel of death), while modern feminism has reclaimed her as a symbol of independence and equality.

Diablo IV elevates Lilith from demoness to Mother of Sanctuary—a morally complex figure who clearly deeply loves her children (humanity), but is absolutely ruthless in protecting and guiding them. She’s trying to save the world, not destroy it like an ordinary villain; albeit through unquestionably villainous means that horrify everyone who learns what they cost.

She believes love justifies any cruelty… and she deeply loves her offspring. She wants humanity to embrace its Nephalem heritage and overthrow both Heaven and Hell—a goal that’s not obviously wrong, given what we’ve seen of both angelic arrogance and demonic malice. But in the service of her goal, she manipulates, murders, and otherwise coldly disposes of anyone who stands in her way. She’s a mother who would burn the world to save her children, which can be either heroic or monstrous depending on where you stand.

👹🗡️🤔 SIDE QUEST: What Would Satan Think [WWST]?

Christian preachers and televangelists have made it quite clear what they think about games like Diablo. But has it ever occured to you (perhaps while deep into farming Greater Rift Keystones) what an actual Satanist would make of Diablo?

I can already hear some of you: “Wait… like, people who worship THE DEVIL?!”

Well... sort of. And also, not at all. It’s… complicated. So let me explain.

Video game “Satanism” (demons to fight, pentagrams on floors, vaguely infernal aesthetics) has almost nothing to do with IRL Satanic movements, of which there are several, each with very different goals.

LaVeyan Satanism, founded in 1966 by Anton Szandor LaVey (real name: Howard Stanton Levey, because even the founder of the Church of Satan gave himself an edgier stage name), is essentially Theater Kid Satanism. It is thoroughly atheistic. There’s no literal Satan to worship. “Satan,” in this context, is a symbol: a middle finger raised at arbitrary authority, and a celebration of pride, carnality, and individual will. LaVey’s Satanic Bible reads less like a grimoire and more like Nietzsche or Ayn Rand with darker and edgier window dressing. The Nine Satanic Statements include gems like:

• “Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!”, and

• “Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!”

But no, LaVeyan Satanists don’t worship demons, because they don’t believe demons exist. Their rituals are pure psychodrama; no invocations here. And their aesthetic is deliberately provocative—designed to push back against what LaVey saw as life-denying Christian morality.

Another strain of Atheistic Satanism, the Satanic Temple (founded 2013), is explicitly political and non-supernatural in nature. They use Satanic imagery to advocate (usually in court, whether of law or public opinion) for religious pluralism and separation of church and state—if a courthouse displays the Ten Commandments, they argue, it should also allow a statue of Baphomet. Their “Seven Tenets” are basically humanistic ethics: compassion, justice, bodily autonomy, the freedom to offend.

A LaVeyan Satanist or member of the Satanic Temple watching you play Diablo would probably be mildly amused. On one hand, the game’s power fantasy (one human ascending, through sheer determination, to surpass angels and demons alike) actually tracks with their philosophy pretty well.

But on the other hand, the game’s literal demons, as well as the idea that “Hell” is a place with geography and a CEO structure, are the kind of superstitious thinking that Atheistic Satanism explicitly rejects. According to these guys, the real demons are your internal drives that Christianity taught you to be ashamed of… and you should be embracing those, not clicking on them until they drop legendary loot.

Theistic Satanism, on the other hand, is a different beast (no pun intended… no, really!), and more akin to what people usually think when they hear “Satanism.” These creeds do believe Satan (or Lucifer, or various demons) actually exists as a spiritual being worthy of reverence, and they encompass individual practitioners and organized groups—with theologies as varied as Christian denominations. Some view Satan as a liberator or bringer of knowledge, while others pursue more straightforwardly malevolent interpretations. But even here, their Satan usually bears little resemblance to Diablo‘s boss monsters.

Many theistic Satanists view Satan as a Promethean figure: the first liberator who gave humanity knowledge and autonomy against a tyrannical Creator who wanted to keep us ignorant and subservient. In this reading, the serpent in Eden (already linked to Satan in Christian mythos) is the hero of the story.

But beyond this, there’s quite a bit of divergence even amongst Theistic Satanists. Some work with demons as individual spirits with their own personalities and domains, approaching them through ritual much like ceremonial magicians approach angels. The Temple of Set, founded by former Church of Satan member Michael Aquino, focuses on the Egyptian deity Set (whose domains include storms and violence) as an embodiment of individual consciousness opposing cosmic entropy. And the Order of Nine Angles (controversial even among Satanists, and for good reason) presents Satan as a cosmic force of change and evolution, neither good nor evil in a conventional sense, though their broader ideology and practice veers into territory most people would find abhorrent.11

Diablo‘s demons (screaming masses of claws and hatred, serving abstractions like “Terror” and “Destruction”) don’t really map onto any of this. They’re basically fantasy monsters with theological name tags, and don’t really represent or symbolize anything most theistic Satanists would actually venerate (though I’m sure some of them actually do have an Andariel vinyl figurine on their black altar).

Luciferianism takes yet another angle. “Lucifer” (lux ferre) means “light-bringer,” and Luciferians typically emphasize enlightenment, wisdom, and self-actualization over the carnal indulgence that LaVeyan Satanism celebrates. Michael W. Ford, probably the most prominent contemporary Luciferian author, describes Lucifer as “the archetype of the awakened and independent mind seeking freedom through knowledge.”

This is actually closer to Gnosticism than to heavy metal album covers. The Luciferian Lucifer is the figure who illuminates, encourages questioning, and represents the spark of divine consciousness within humanity, struggling to free itself from material illusion; quite distinct from the adversarial “Satan” of Christian demonology. If anything, Diablo‘s Tyrael—the angel who defies Heaven out of compassion and chooses mortality to stand with humanity—embodies Luciferian ideals far more than any of the game’s actual demons do.

Finally, the broader Left-Hand Path (an umbrella term for magical and spiritual traditions that emphasize self-deification and individual will over surrender to either external authority or some abstract notion of a “greater good”) would probably have complicated feelings about Diablo.

On one hand (pun intended), the Nephalem are extremely Left-Hand Path: beings who reject both Heaven and Hell to transcend imposed categories and forge their own destiny through personal power. The franchise’s critique of angelic absolutism, and its suggestion that “good” defined by authority isn’t really good, comes straight out of LHP philosophy.

On the other hand, you spend the whole game killing beings called “demons.” It’s actually quite ironic: the game’s theological message says “question authority, transcend categorical thinking, embrace your shadow self and your divine potential”, while its mechanical message says “demons bad, stab demons, get loot from demons.”

But maybe that irony is instructive; media that explicitly traffic in “demon slaying” often end up articulating values more aligned with self-proclaimed Satanic philosophy than with traditional Christianity. Besides, Diablo‘s demons aren’t really “demons” in any meaningful theological sense—they’re obstacles and challenges, which represent everything that prevents human flourishing. And overcoming obstacles through will and power is a very Left-Hand Path-coded value, too.

So, there you have it! The game where you fight and kill demons may well articulate a more nuanced demonology than other media that just try to be “edgy” with inverted pentagrams and backward Latin. Something to ponder next time you skewer Azmodan for the umpteenth time.

The Human Position: Why Any of This Matters

Now, let’s return to the thesis.

Diablo’s central innovation lies not in its demons (there are lots of demon games) or its loot systems (there are lots of loot games) or even its atmosphere (there are lots of dark games), but rather the position it carves out for humanity in its cosmic architecture.

In traditional religious cosmologies, the war between good and evil has a predetermined outcome. God wins, Ahura Mazda triumphs, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. These are comforting narratives, but they’re also deterministic; the outcome is never really in doubt, and individual human choices matter only within a frame that’s already been decided.

Diablo, on the other hand, inverts this. The Eternal Conflict has no predetermined end, because Heaven and Hell are evenly matched, and thus locked in an irresolvable stalemate. Neither side can declare permanent victory.

But humanity—those pesky Nephalem—inherit power from both sides while being bound to neither. Our mixed heritage gives us access to abilities that neither angels nor demons alone possess. By the end of Diablo III, the player character is explicitly the most powerful being in all of creation, having become strong enough to kill ancient demons who’ve terrorized the cosmos for eons, to invade Heaven itself, and to destroy the Prime Evil in its ultimate form.

Think about it for a second: isn’t this quite profound? In Diablo, human choice doesn’t only matter within a predetermined frame—human choice decides the frame itself. The player thus makes destiny, instead of just fulfilling it.

This infuses an otherwise ordinary hack-and-slash loot grind with something akin to existentialist philosophy. You aren’t the good guy and the hero because angels said so or because prophecy foretold it. Rather, you’re the person who chose to descend into Hell and didn’t stop until the job was done.

The Nephalem, therefore, represent a “third way” beyond absolute good and evil—a position that questions simplistic moral frameworks while also using them as dramatic scaffolding. Heaven can be wrong, demons can love (Lilith’s affection for humanity is real, even if it manifests horrifically), and humans can (and, indeed, should) surpass both.

🧙‍♂️🕯️👹 SIDE QUEST: So You Want to Summon a Demon

The Horadrim—the order of mages first charged with binding and containing the Prime Evils—make use of binding techniques that actually track quite well with IRL grimoire traditions.

Solomonic magic, also known as Goetic magic—the legendary power to bind demons—provides the template. The Testament of Solomon (1st–5th Century CE pseudepigrapha) establishes the foundational myth: King Solomon, widely revered today as the wisest king of Ancient Israel, received a ring from the Archangel Michael that allowed him to “stamp” (ie, seal) demons with divine seals and compel their obedience. He interrogated each demon, learning their names, weaknesses, and the angels who thwart them, then put them to work building the sacred Temple (the foundation of which still stands today).

The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton, 17th Century CE), and specifically the (in)famous Ars Goetia, catalogs 72 demons, each with their own individual summoning sigils, along with the “Secret Seal of Solomon” used to bind spirits in brass vessels.

Diablo’s Soulstones function the same way: as containment artifacts empowered by divine authority (provided by Tyrael) and requiring ritual preparation.

Anyway, we’ve been dancing around the Ars Goetia long enough, so let’s finally talk about what’s actually in Western occultism’s most famous demon-summoning manual… and it’ll become instantly clear to you why Diablo‘s Horadrim are basically Goetic summoners.

As mentioned, the Ars Goetia catalogs the 72 demons supposedly bound by King Solomon, providing for each:

• A name and rank (King, Duke, President, etc.)

• A sigil (a unique symbolic signature)

• A description of appearance (often monstrous, but sometimes surprisingly mundane)

• A list of abilities and specialties (teaching sciences, revealing hidden things, causing love or hatred, etc.)

• The number of legions they command

• Any special conditions or dangers associated with summoning them

So, let’s assume you’ve decided you’re going to summon a demon, you’ve already picked one out from the list, and now you just need to know the proper procedure for calling on it. Well, it’s all highly complex and meticulous, and it varies a bit for each demon, but here’s the TL;DR:

1. Construct a magic circle,

2. Inscribe the demon’s sigil on a metal disc,

3. Perform invocations using divine names, and finally…

4. Command the spirit to appear within a triangle of manifestation, placed outside the circle (very important! The triangle constrains the demon, and the circle protects the magician).

If you did everything correctly, the demon will appear and either answer your questions or perform whatever services you ask of it, after which you give it “license to depart” (a formal dismissal that closes the operation, and is meant to prevent lingering… attachments).

But if you did it incorrectly... well, for being so meticulously detailed about literally everything else in this process, the grimoires (surprisingly) don’t tell you much about what happens when you muck up a ritual. Which, IMO, is somehow even more chilling than if they’d laid it out explicitly.

In other words: do this at your own risk.

Anyhoo, the binding is what really sets this apart from demonolotry or straight-up devil worshipping. Contrary to popular belief, the magician doesn’t worship demons, or make Faustian bargains with them (at least, not in the classical Goetic tradition). Instead, the magician operates with divine authority with the goal of compelling demons to serve against their will. So it’s not quite a “deal with the devil,” because the devil isn’t really getting much out of the arrangement. It’s much more akin to “court-ordered community service for spiritual entities.”

Anyway, tying this back to Diablo: the Horadrim are basically Sanctuary’s Goetic magicians. They identified the Prime Evils, developed binding protocols (the Soulstones), and imprisoned demons that would otherwise be running amok. And, of course, they didn’t destroy Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal… because they couldn’t. The Prime Evils are cosmic forces, and therefore functionally immortal; if they destroyed any of them, they’d eventually respawn back in Hell, only to come back and wreak more havoc. All the Horadrim could do was bind them in a spiritual prison. Which is kind of the better option, as the Prime Evils could conceivably stay locked in there indefinitely… as long as their seals were maintained over time.

Neither the Horadrim nor the Goetic summoners destroy the demons they summon; but they do constrain the demons (whether temporarily or permanently) through an invoked higher authority.

That said, there’s a drawback to this approach: the ever-present danger that the bindings might fail—the demon might find a loophole, the magician’s successors might forget or mess up the proper procedures, or some idiot might wander into the summoning chamber and knock over the wrong candle.

Which is exactly what happens in Diablo. Repeatedly.

Tal Rasha deserves special mention here. When Baal’s Soulstone couldn’t fully contain him, Tal Rasha volunteered his own body as an ad hoc prison by jamming the Soulstone into his chest, reinforcing the binding with his living will. This is a variation on a concept that actually appears in some grimoire traditions: the magician using his own body as a ritual vessel, as a last-ditch containment option when other material constraints fail.

Tal Rasha spent centuries in that cave wrestling with Baal’s consciousness, keeping the Lord of Destruction from breaking free through nothing but sheer willpower. It’s one of Diablo‘s most haunting images: here we have a hero who won so thoroughly that his victory became an eternal prison, his sacrifice invisible to history right up until Marius wandered in and ruined everything.

This points to how Diablo’s Goetic parallels extend even to failure modes. In grimoire tradition, botched or improper summonings release demons from their constraints, often ending in catastrophe. Pretty much every Diablo game follows this structure: a binding fails (or is sabotaged), a Prime Evil escapes, and the heroes must clean up the mess. The games are essentially “what happens when Goetic magic goes wrong” simulators, playing out the grimoires’ implicit warnings (but with more apocalyptic stakes).

[WARNING: I’m describing these traditions academically and analytically. I am not—repeat, NOT—providing instructions for actually attempting any of this. If you want to summon demons, you’re on your own; Game & Word accepts no liability from any infernal experiments you choose to conduct. Also, frankly, you should probably reconsider your life choices.]

Devil May Care: Demons as Protagonists

Before we close, let’s acknowledge two other great franchises that built their identity on demonic imagery.

Devil May Cry (2001) emerged from Resident Evil 4’s development and established a different type of relationship with demonhood. Its protagonist, Dante, is half-demon himself—the son of the legendary dark knight Sparda, who betrayed demonkind to protect humanity.

Where Diablo positions humanity between angels and demons, Devil May Cry positions its hero as a demon who chooses humanity. Sparda’s rebellion against Mundus (the demon emperor) mirrors the Luciferian rebellion against Heaven, but inverted—a fall upward into virtue, rather than downward into sin. Dante’s cocky, pizza-loving style also frames demon-hunting as fun, rather than grim duty.

The series asks a different question than Diablo: not “what does it mean to be caught between cosmic forces?” but “what does it mean to inherit power from evil and use it for good?” Dante’s demonic abilities (transforming into devil form, wielding weapons forged from demon souls) are tools for righteousness, and his heritage is empowerment instead of corruption.

Bayonetta (2014) takes this even further. Its protagonist is an Umbra Witch who draws power from demonic contracts to fight angelic enemies. The cosmos is inverted: Heaven is tyranny, Hell is liberation, and a woman who literally uses her hair as both clothing and weapon dances through it all with gleeful irreverence.

These games establish that “demonic” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “evil.” In this view, power itself is neutral, and only its application carries moral weight. It’s a more Nietzschean position than Diablo’s existentialism: beyond good and evil, there is only strength and weakness, and strength in service of freedom is its own justification. As always, how much of this to accept or reject is, ultimately, up to you.

Stay Awhile and Listen

So what have we learned?

Angels and demons endure in video games because they endure in the human imagination. They’re not just monsters to fight or settings to explore; they’re symbols, condensations of everything we fear about ourselves (appetite, cruelty, selfishness) and everything we aspire to (transcendence, justice, love).

The best demonic games get this. They go beyond borrowing the aesthetics (fire and brimstone, wings and halos) to engage with the meanings those aesthetics encode. Diablo’s cosmology works so well because it synthesizes millennia of human theological speculation into a coherent system that rewards both action and reflection.

And at the center of that system: us. The contested terrain, the middle ground between extremes. We are the only beings who can genuinely choose, and whose choices therefore genuinely matter.

The cathedral is dark. The stairs go down. Somewhere below, something terrible waits.

But that’s not why you’re afraid, is it?

No, you’re afraid because you know—you’ve always known—that the real question isn’t whether you can defeat the darkness…

It’s whether defeating it will change you into something you don’t recognize.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Stay awhile and listen.

~Jay

Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts

While you wait for the next issue, I invite you to mull over the following discussion prompts. Please reply to this email with your answers, or post them in the comments—I'd love to hear your thoughts!

1. The Nephalem as theological statement: Diablo proposes that beings born from both angel and demon might be spiritually superior to either parent race… a position that would have been heretical through most of Christian history. Does this resonate with you as a compelling theological premise, or does it feel like empty power fantasy? Are there other games that handle the “transcend the cosmic binary” theme more (or less) effectively?

2. Sympathy for the devils (and the angels): Lilith makes genuinely compelling arguments about the Eternal Conflict’s pointlessness and humanity’s suppressed potential. Imperius, meanwhile, is kind of a celestial jerk despite being an archangel. How do you feel about media that complicates traditional good/evil assignments? Is there a point where “morally grey” becomes its own cliché?

3. The order/good conflation: We discussed how “forces of good” and “forces of order” are often treated as synonymous in fantasy, despite being philosophically distinct. Can you think of IRL examples where “maintaining order” was framed as morally good despite causing harm? Conversely, are there cases where chaos or disruption was actually necessary for ethical progress?

4. The Satanic Panic’s children: The moral panic of the 1980s seems absurd in retrospect (because it was absurd), but similar patterns frequently recur with each new medium. What are the current moral panics about games or digital media? Do you think they’ll look equally absurd in thirty years, or are some concerns more legitimate than others?

5. Playing the other side: Have you played games like Shin Megami Tensei (where you can side with Law, Chaos, or neither) or made morally ambiguous choices in other RPGs? If so, what draws you to particular alignments or factions? Do you tend to play as yourself, or do you explore positions you’d reject in real life?

Leave a comment

Further Reading

On Angels, Demons, and Western Esotericism:

• A Dictionary of Angels by Gustav Davidson — The definitive reference work on angelology. Encyclopedic, exhaustively researched, and occasionally unintentionally hilarious, you’ll learn about angels you never knew existed and desperately wish you could forget. [Amazon]

• The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels — Learn how the figure of Satan evolved from a Jewish legal term (”the adversary”) into Christianity’s cosmic villain. Essential for understanding why demons became what they became. [Amazon]

• Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman — A collection of essays from the author of His Dark Materials on storytelling, religion, and why he made the Church his antagonist. Not directly about games, but still highly relevant to anyone interested in fiction that engages with theological themes. [Amazon]

On the Satanic Panic:

• Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s by Kier-La Janisse and Paul Corupe — A comprehensive cultural history covering everything from D&D to daycare trials to heavy metal. Academic rigor with real affection for the era’s weirdness. [Amazon]

• The Dungeon Master by William Dear — The private investigator who searched for James Dallas Egbert III eventually wrote this book clarifying that D&D had nothing to do with the kid’s disappearance. A corrective that came far too late to stop the panic, but remains valuable as primary source. [Amazon]

• We Believe the Children by Richard Beck — A harrowing account of the daycare abuse trials. Not at all about gaming, but essential for understanding how the panic destroyed real lives based on nothing. [Amazon]

On General Demonology:

• The Book of Enoch (R.H. Charles translation) — The Jewish apocalyptic text that introduced the Watchers, the Nephilim, and much of what became Christian demonology. Weird, visionary, and surprisingly readable for such an ancient text. [Internet Archive]

• The Lesser Key of Solomon (various editions) — The most famous grimoire, containing the Ars Goetia‘s catalog of 72 demons. If you want to see what Diablo‘s Horadrim were supposedly working from, start here. WARNING: If you attempt any of these rituals, don’t come crying back to me after. I warned you! [Sacred Texts]

• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alghihieri (James Sibbald translation) — Come on, you knew this was coming. The masterpiece behind every Westerner’s conception of damnation, Inferno gave us the idea of a concentrically-layered underworld, poetic punishment, and the guided descent into the abyss that’s become all but archetypal now. After hell, keep on reading for Dante’s further expeditions into Purgatorio and finally Paradiso. [Project Gutenberg]

• Paradise Lost by John Milton — You also knew this was coming, as well. The original sympathetic Satan, the template for every charismatic villain since, presenting in all his original glory. It’s also genuinely beautiful poetry, which obviously helps with readability. [Project Gutenberg]

On Left-Hand Path Traditions:

• The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey — Whatever you think of LaVey himself (opinions vary wildly), this is the foundational text for modern Satanism. Shorter than you’d expect, weirder than you’d expect, and more Ayn Rand-ish than you’d expect. [Amazon]

• Lords of the Left-Hand Path by Stephen E. Flowers — Academic survey of antinomian spiritual traditions from ancient times to the present. Dense but comprehensive and rewarding. [Amazon]

Documentaries and Videos:

• “Dark Dungeons” (2014) — The Chick tract adaptation, played completely straight. Best enjoyed with friends and adult beverages. [Streaming Link]

• “Satan Wants You” (2023) — Documentary about the “Michelle Remembers” memoir that helped ignite the Satanic Panic. Infuriating and essential. [IMDB]

• Various YouTube deep-dives on Diablo lore — Rhykker and other content creators have produced hours upon hours of lore videos for those who want to grasp the full cosmology without reading every in-game description. [YouTube]

Games Featured:

• Diablo, developed and published by Activision Blizzard — Battle.net

• Diablo II: Resurrected, developed and published by Activision Blizzard — Battle.net | Xbox | PlayStation | Nintendo Switch

• Diablo III, developed and published by Activision Blizzard — Battle.net | Xbox | PlayStation | Nintendo Switch

• Diablo IV, developed and published by Activision Blizzard — Battle.net | Steam | Xbox | PlayStation

• Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, developed by Atlus, published by SEGA — Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

• Devil May Cry 5, developed and published by CAPCOM — Steam | PlayStation | Xbox

• Bayonetta, developed by PlatinumGames, published by SEGA — Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

• Bayonetta 2, developed by PlatinumGames, published by Nintendo — Nintendo Switch

• Bayonetta 3, developed by PlatinumGames, published by Nintendo — Nintendo Switch

• Blasphemous, developed by The Game Kitchen, published by Team17 — Steam | Xbox | PlayStation | Nintendo Switch

  • BONUS: This one wasn’t in the main article, but I just couldn’t resist including it because it’s just that good. TL;DR: Spanish Catholic imagery rendered as a brutal Soulslike. If you’ve ever wanted to fight bosses inspired by Goya paintings and flagellant monks, here you go.

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Footnotes

First: A Necessary Disclaimer (and Apology)

If you’ve been reading Game & Word for pretty much any length of time, you know we don’t do reviews here. We are absolutely, resolutely, positively, 100%, emphatically not a review site.1 This is, as I’ve proudly declared on multiple occasions, a Substack that examines and dissects video games through several different interdisciplinary academic lenses: history, psychology, philosophy, theology, and whatever other “-ology” happens to strike my fancy that week (or month, or whatever).

Reviews are the domain of other, perfectly fine publications. IGN can tell you whether a game is a 5.6 or a 9.2 (though more likely than not, it’ll be a 6 or a 72). Kotaku can tell you whether a game “reads the room” enough for the Reddit/Bluesky cancel crowd. Gamespot can… wait, is Gamespot still around? Is it even still a thing?

Ok, bad examples… but guess what? Your favorite gaming podcaster or YouTube essayist or video game Substacker (may I suggest , , or ?) can easily spend hours on end telling you why some game you’ve never heard of is actually a misunderstood masterpiece (or secretly a steaming pile of dog crap).

Point is: I have no interest in competing with any of that. I’d rather spend my time telling you how Elden Ring draws inspiration from medieval death cults, or breaking down the centuries of mystical symbolism encoded in Balatro’s Jokers. That’s my jam. That’s why I started this entire venture, the whole point of this little slice of online real estate I call a newsletter.

So why am I writing a conventional review, then?

Because, dear reader, I have been driven to it. Pushed to the brink. Forced (FORCED, I tell you!) by circumstances beyond my control to break my own rules and do something I swore I’d never do in these pages:

I must speak the truth about Kentucky Route Zero.

🚨🚨🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨🚨🚨

Common courtesy compels me to warn you that this review contains SPOILERS for Kentucky Route Zero. Now, if you haven’t played it, I still encourage you to read ahead anyway, because:

1. I’m doing you a favor, and

2. This game has no coherent plot (so to speak) to spoil, anyway.

You can thank me later for the 8-10 hours of your life I’m about to save.

Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Measures

You see, dear reader, we live in an age of misinformation and disinformation. Of fake news and alternative facts. Of infohazards, echo chambers, and data poison. In this era, in the year of our lord 2026, people readily, enthusiastically, and uncritically believe things that are demonstrably and provably false, simply because enough other people also believe them. And while I usually leave debunking these falsities to the professionals, there is one particular lie that has persisted (and indeed strengthened) for over a decade now… a lie so pervasive, and so universally accepted, that I can no longer sit idly by as it continues to metastasize into a bigger cancer of consensus-slop than it’s already become.

That lie is this: Kentucky Route Zero is a good video game.

The truth: It is not.

It is, in fact, a bad video game. A very bad video game. A terrible video game. A video game so bad that if you told me aliens uploaded it to Steam in the hopes of sowing decadence, discord, and the seeds of societal decay itself into the fertile soil of humanity’s collective unconscious back in 2013, I’d entirely believe you because there’s no way an actual person would be so nefarious as to do such a thing intentionally.3 A game so thoroughly, comprehensively, and almost impressively bad that its near universal critical acclaim constitutes either the biggest mass delusion this side of NFTs, or a conspiracy so vast it would make the CIA blush in begrudging admiration.

“But Jay,” I hear you protesting through your screen, “KRZ won literally dozens of awards! It was named Game of the Year by multiple publications! It has a 92 87 on Metacritic!”4

Yes. I know. And that’s precisely the problem.

Look, I understand the impulse. I really do. For decades, us gamers have yearned for mainstream acceptance, longing for society to view our hobby as more than a pointless and addictive time sink for emotionally stunted manchildren (or, alternately, a mass shooter factory). And ever since Roger Ebert so cruelly poured a rhetorical bucket of ice water on us by authoritatively declaring that games were not and could never be art, we’ve desperately pleaded with the world to finally take our medium seriously, to at long last recognize that games can be art just like film and literature and music.

So when other critics (more gaming-friendly critics, sure, but nevertheless “real” critics, from ostensibly “serious” publications) started lavishing praise on this game—which ran the gamut from merely “profound,” “revolutionary” and “visionary,” all the way to “a milestone in the history of the medium” and even “the most important game of all time” (!!!)—of course we wanted to believe them. Of course we wanted this to be the moment everything changed. Believe me, I feel your pain, and I feel your longing. I was there. I wanted to believe, too!

But wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true. And no matter how many awards committees gave this game their seal of approval, no matter how many thinkpieces declared it a watershed moment for the medium, and no matter how many lotus-eating Millennial Redditors tirelessly continue to declare otherwise, Kentucky Route Zero remains what it always was:

A boring, pretentious, and narratively incoherent slog that mistakes inscrutability for depth and insufferability for artistry.5

There. I said it. And now, because I am nothing if not thorough, I’m going to explain exactly why.

Let Me Count the Ways (that You Suck)

Part I: The “Game” Part

Let’s start with the most fundamental question anyone can ask about a video game: Is it, in fact, a game?

I’ve written before about the tension between ludology and narratology in game studies: the fierce and painfully nerdy debate between those who believe games should be primarily (or exclusively) defined by their mechanics and systems, and those who believe narrative and experience constitute equally valid focuses. I’ve generally positioned myself as a moderate straddling this schism’s middle path, arguing that one can (and should) evaluate games on multiple axes, though perhaps weighing gameplay at least somewhat more heavily than the rest (owing mostly to gaming’s unique nature as an interactive medium).

But even by the most generous, narratology-friendly standards and assessments, Kentucky Route Zero barely qualifies as a game.

What do you actually do in KRZ? You walk. Slowly. So incredibly SLOWLY. You walk (again, slooooowly) from one end of a room to the other, at a pace that’d make a sedated sloth start impatiently tapping its foot at you. You also click on things. Sometimes the things you click on do something. Sometimes they don’t. The game, to its credit, does tell you in advance which things are more likely to do something… but (to return to that most fundamental question above) does this make it more, or less, “game-like?”

And then there’s the driving (pictured above).

Grrrr, the driving... aka Kentucky Route Zero’s signature mechanic, the one gameplay element that sets it apart from its walking simulator brethren. So, what does it entail? You get a little truck, you get a little map, and you drive around looking for locations.

I mean, in theory this sounds fine. Maybe even atmospheric! A chance to soak in rural Kentucky’s famed scenic ambiance as you navigate the mysterious, eponymous “Route Zero.”

But in practice, this is nothing but an exercise in how frustrated you can get before finally punching your screen in an exasperated and desperately futile grasp at catharsis.

The sparse map is deliberately obtuse, giving you cryptic directions like “turn at the old barn” (or whatever) when there are approximately seven hundred old barn icons visible on screen (or, just as likely, none at all). Your truck moves at approximately three miles per hour. And the worst part of it all, the salt in the wound, the real slap in the face? Many of these locations only appear after you’ve driven around aimlessly for long enough that the game decides you’ve suffered enough and finally deigns to reveal them.

Is this the developers’ idea of a challenge? Or even, god forbid, of gameplay?! Because this isn’t “challenge,” and it certainly isn’t gameplay! This is shitty RNG grafted onto a barebones navigation system, all designed by some dolt who believes that creating a “deep” experience means confusing the living hell out of the player.

Now, I can already hear the game’s defenders: “But the driving is supposed to feel disorienting! It’s a metaphor for the characters’ own sense of being lost! You’re not supposed to know where you’re going, because they don’t know where they’re going!”

To which I say: fine. I accept that interpretation. But a metaphor that makes me want to throw my controller out the window is still a bad metaphor. You can make me feel lost without making me want to get lost (specifically, lost in literally any other activity).

Part II: The Story (Such As It Is)

Okay, so we’ve established the gameplay is minimal at best, and actually closer to nonexistent. Big whoop, you might say. Many great games have minimal gameplay. The Stanley Parable is basically just walking around an office getting gaslit by a sardonic Brit, and it tells one of the most mind-bendingly hilarious stories in gaming. What Remains of Edith Finch asks you to do little more than open doors and trigger vignettes, and it’s a masterpiece that holds the rare distinction of being equally beloved by both chuds and wokies. Hell, graphic adventures (such as the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion series) are an entire goddamned genre where you do nothing but point and click your cursor for hours on end, and they practically defined gaming for gamers of a certain generation.6

So, considering this, maybe Kentucky Route Zero justifies its utter mechanical emptiness with a stellar narrative?

My brother in Christ, it does not.

I’ve played all five acts of Kentucky Route Zero, plus the interstitial episodes, plus whatever bonus content I stumbled across. This represents, conservatively, somewhere between 8 and 12 hours of my life (it felt like 8 to 12 years, but let’s be charitable). And even after all of that, I still could not tell you what Kentucky Route Zero’s story actually is.

I know there’s a guy called Conway. He works for an antique shop and needs to deliver something. He has a dog. At some point he injures his leg, and then it gets replaced with a glowing skeletal leg because sure, why not. There’s also a woman named Shannon who fixes TVs, I think? And some other people who show up and get in your truck for reasons that never became entirely clear to me.

They’re all looking for an address—5 Dogwood Drive—which sounds straightforward until you realize that Dogwood Drive exists on the mysterious Route Zero, a secret underground highway system beneath Kentucky that you access by driving into caves and lakes and other places that definitely should not have highway onramps.

Along the way, you encounter… things. A tugboat ferry shaped like a trumpeting woolly mammoth. A boy named Ezra, whose “brother” is a 30-foot-tall bald eagle that flies you across the countryside. An abandoned mine haunted by the flickering apparitions of drowned workers. A whiskey distillery staffed by glowing skeletons who appear to be working off debts they can never repay. A psychological research facility testing whether walking through doorways makes you forget things. A storage facility that’s been reclaimed as a church, complete with a looping recorded sermon playing to an empty room. (Did I miss anything?)

Are these things connected? Do they form a coherent narrative? Does any of it mean anything?

I honestly don’t know. And I’ve tried to know; I’ve read interviews with the developers, I’ve seen YouTube analyses, I’ve consulted the wiki… and I’ve come to the conclusion that either:

1. There is a coherent story here and I’m simply too stupid to understand it, or…

2. There isn’t a coherent story, and everyone who claims to understand it is lying.

I’m willing to entertain the first possibility. I know I talk a big game—what with all the big fancy words and assorted “-ologies” I like to invoke in this newsletter—but believe it or not, I wouldn’t consider myself (generally speaking) the sharpest knife in the drawer. I’m certainly no Stephen Hawking or Richard Feynman, in any case. In fact, there are plenty of things I don’t understand:

• Calculus

• Cricket

• Love is Blind’s enduring popularity

• The fact that James Corden still has a career

• …among many other things.

But despite all of this, I’ve also (somehow) managed to follow some fairly complex stories over the years. I’ve parsed Metal Gear Solid’s labyrinthine conspiracy, for one. I’ve also tracked The Legend of Zelda’s multiple branching timelines and endless cycles. And get this, I even managed to piece together Elden Ring’s scattered lore from cryptic item descriptions and subtle environmental cues. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not incapable of engaging with difficult narratives.

So considering all of this, when I say that Kentucky Route Zero’s story left me completely confused, totally baffled, and utterly unsure of who I even was as a person or what this thing we call “reality” even is, I don’t think the problem is me. Rather, I think the problem is that this story is told with such an aggressive disregard for coherence that understanding it becomes essentially impossible.

All the characters speak in riddles. The developers constantly dangle plot points in your face and then just leave them dangling, loose and untied as they recede in your truck’s rearview mirrors, stranded in want of a resolution that will never come. Entire chapters take place in locations that may or may not exist within the game’s established reality. And by the time you reach the end (if you can even call it an “end”), Conway himself—you know, the protagonist!—has vanished from your party.

The delivery does technically get made, I think? Shannon and the others haul Conway’s cargo to 5 Dogwood Drive (which turns out to be a pristine house in the middle of a flood-ravaged town, because fuck your suspension of disbelief). But by then Conway is gone,7 and the game ends with a funeral for two horses named “The Neighbors.” I sat there, dead eyed, staring blankly at the credits like Elon Musk on day five of a ketamine bender, wondering if I’d simply missed something.

Turns out, what I missed was the entire plot (because there wasn’t any to speak of, see).

🤰🏻🏚️🪦 SIDE QUEST: What Remains of What We Could’ve Had

I want to take a brief detour here to talk about What Remains of Edith Finch.

Edith Finch came out in 2017, four years after Kentucky Route Zero began its protracted, episodic release schedule and three years before it finally (and mercifully) concluded. Like KRZ, it’s also a walking simulator that aspires to artistry and is interested in exploring themes of death, memory, and the passage of time.

But unlike KRZ, I’m happy to say that Edith Finch actually works.

You play as Edith Finch, the last surviving member of a family seemingly cursed by tragedy, returning to her childhood home to learn the truth about her relatives’ deaths. Each room in the house triggers a vignette depicting a different family member’s final moments, each rendered in a unique visual style and following a different gameplay format.

It’s haunting, melancholically beautiful, and genuinely moving. But crucially, it makes sense. You can actually summarize the plot! You can explain what happened! And get this—are you sitting down? Cuz you’re not gonna believe this—you can point to specific moments and say “this meant something,” and actually articulate what that “something” was!

Kentucky Route Zero offers NONE of this. It’s all vibes and no substance, all mystery and no revelation, all setup and no payoff. Edith Finch, meanwhile, proves that you can make a bold, artistically ambitious, and narratively experimental walking simulator that actually respects its players’ time and intelligence.

Kentucky Route Zero, on the other hand, proves that you can also not do that, and critics will eat out of your a**hole anyway.

Part III: The Art of Looking Artsy

Let’s talk about the visuals.

Kentucky Route Zero has a distinctive greyscale-heavy art style, featuring a muted color palette rendered with harsh angles and dramatic silhouettes. It looks undeniably striking. The first time I booted up the game, I was actually fairly impressed. “You know, this looks like nothing else out there,” I thought. “This must be what art looks like!”

And then I played for eight hours and realized that “looks like art” is not the same as “is art.”

The greyscale-lite palette feels atmospheric for about the first 30 minutes. After that, it just becomes monotonous. It doesn’t take long before locations start blending into each other, and characters become hard to tell apart. That harsh, angular aesthetic that looks so bold in screenshots becomes actively fatiguing over extended play.

But more than that, this visual style feels calculated. It feels like the developers sat down and asked themselves, “What would make a video game look like an arthouse film?” and then just… did that, without ever asking whether it served the story, the gameplay, or the player’s experience.

This is the visual analogue of a 2014-era hipster wearing thick-rimmed glasses with non-prescription lenses. It signals “artistic” without actually demonstrating artistry; it’s the appearance of depth masquerading as the real thing.

Compare this to something like Limbo or Inside, both of which also use a limited color palette and a similarly stark visual style. In those games, the aesthetic choices serve a purpose: they create tension, guide the player’s eye, and convey information about the game’s world and mood. Their simplicity is functional, rather than merely decorative.

In Kentucky Route Zero, meanwhile, the art style says: “Look at me! I’m different. I’m serious. I’m not like those other video games!” But it doesn’t actually do anything beyond that. It’s more a costume than a real artistic choice.

Part IV: The Purple Prose Problem

And then there’s the writing.

Ooooh boy… the god... damned... writing. Easily the worst part of this game, and the bane of my existence while writing this review. Hold on, gimme a second to steel myself for this section…

*inhales deeply*

Ok, I’m ready.

Kentucky Route Zero is written in a style I can only describe as “MFA Graduate Student Who Just Discovered the Vocabulary of Postmodern Theory.”8 Every line of dialogue drips with self-conscious and faux “literariness,” each description strains to be poetic, and every single exchange goes on for three times longer than it needs to.

Here’s a rough reconstruction of an average conversation in Kentucky Route Zero:

CONWAY: “I’m looking for Dogwood Drive.”

MYSTERIOUS STRANGER: “Ah, Dogwood Drive. The name resonates, doesn’t it? Like an echo reverberating through an empty hall. Or perhaps more like the memory of an echo… the way sound lingers in the mind long after it has ceased to exist in the physical world. Do you know the feeling? Of course you do. Everyone does. It’s the feeling of searching for something you’re not sure you’ve ever actually seen.”

CONWAY: “So… do you know where it is?”

MYSTERIOUS STRANGER: “Where is anything, really? We speak of places as if they have fixed coordinates, as if latitude and longitude could capture the essence of a location. But a place is also a feeling, a memory, a collection of experiences accumulated like sediment at the bottom of a river. Dogwood Drive exists. But where it exists… that depends on what you mean by ‘where.’”

This goes on for approximately 45 minutes, at the end of which you are no closer to finding Dogwood Drive and also you want to lie down with a stiff gin & tonic to bleach the bitter aftertaste of pure, unadulterated pomposity from your battered synapses.

And hey, I’m actually quite fond of literary prose. No, seriously! I love big words (look through the archive if you don’t believe me). Hell, I even enjoy magical realism!9 I very much enjoyed the late nights I spent in high school and undergrad, lattes and stickies and highlighters and Red Bulls in hand, plowing through García Márquez and Borges and Murakami, thank you very much.10 I’m not at all opposed to elevated language in games, and in fact I think there should be much more of it than there currently is!11

But there’s a Grand Canyon of a difference between prose that elevates and prose that suffocates. And while Kentucky Route Zero’s writing tries to be evocative (like all good prose should aspire to be), it’s actually just exhausting. Where it should illuminate, it instead obscures. Each line that should take five words takes 50, and each conversation that should take two minutes takes 20.

Also, none of these characters talk like actual people. And no, I’m not expecting hyper-realistic dialogue (this is a game about a magical underground highway, after all), but Kentucky Route Zero is set in rural Kentucky, populated by truck drivers and antique dealers and whiskey distillers and TV repair technicians. These are working class people living in remote and economically underserved communities.

And yet every single one of them speaks like a sophomore philosophy major workshopping his first experimental short story.

“The resonances and reverberations of an old mining tipple… it’s tragic even to think.”

“Regrettably, I must be extremely selective in my fellowship applications so as to leave enough time in which to eat my lunch, and in the successive years I will no longer be contributing to your illustrious submission count.”

“Many of us have found ourselves in his position, arrogantly grasping at personal sovereignty when our lives had become unmanageable — there’s no shame in it, only condolence.”

Do you really think, do you honestly believe, that rural Kentuckians talk like this? That anyone talks like this? There’s character voice, and then there’s this—pure authorial pretension. And it bleeds through every line of dialogue. The writers are clearly using these characters as mouthpieces for their own purple prose, regardless of whether that prose fits the character, the setting, or the scene.

Meanwhile, Disco Elysium also features sophisticated and literary dialogue, but it works because the writing’s calibrated to each character. The hardboiled detective’s internal monologue sounds different from the corporate board member’s diplomatic shiftiness, which in turn sounds different from the dockworkers’ rough banter, which itself sounds different from the street urchin’s brusque and foul-mouthed (yet oddly endearing) brattiness.12 The style serves the substance.

In Kentucky Route Zero, everyone sounds exactly the same: insufferable.

Part V: The Pace of Molasses in January

I’ve already touched on this, but it deserves its own section: Kentucky Route Zero is slooooow.

And not “contemplatively slow” in the way that Shadow of the Colossus is slow, using emptiness and distance to create a sense of scale and melancholy. Nor is it “narratively slow” in the way that Firewatch is slow, letting you soak in the game’s gorgeous scenery and peaceful yet vaguely menacing atmosphere while it builds narrative tension. It’s not even “mechanically slow” in the way that survival games are slow, limiting your movement to create challenge and force you to get smart about resource management.

Kentucky Route Zero is just… slow. Pointlessly, interminably, agonizingly, and maddeningly SLOOOOOOW.

Walking takes forever. Driving takes forever. Dialogue takes forever. Transitions between scenes take forever. Everything takes forever.

And not “forever” in a productive way, in the way a show like Mad Men does. The slowness doesn’t build any tension, nor does it establish any atmosphere or characterization that the game couldn’t have established in half the time. There’s also no gameplay reason for KRZ’s deliberately glacial pace.

It’s just slow because… well, because the developers decided it should be slow. Because slow means serious, you see! Because if you’re not groaning and checking your phone every three minutes, the game must be doing something wrong.

I’ve heard defenders argue that the pacing is meant to be “meditative.” That it’s supposed to force you to slow down and appreciate the experience, and that rushing through would be missing the point.

I don’t think these defenders have ever actually meditated, or possess even a rudimentary understanding of what meditation actually entails. Because meditation isn’t doing nothing slowly. Meditation is doing nothing with intention; there’s a purpose to the stillness you create, a presence in the emptiness you sit in. When Journey asks you to just walk across an empty desert, there’s a point: you’re experiencing the pilgrimage’s loneliness, so adeptly portrayed visually and experientially in the character’s figure’s smallness against the vast landscape.

When Kentucky Route Zero asks you to spend four minutes walking from one side of a cave to another while nothing happens, there’s no point. Only waiting (for even more waiting afterwards).

The Gallery Incident

I also need to talk about the first interstitial episode: Limits & Demonstrations.

For those who haven’t played it (congratulations on your better life choices btw), this is a short standalone piece that takes place between Acts I and II. In this utter insult to your time and intelligence, you explore an art installation called (what else?) “Limits & Demonstrations.” The introductory plaque states that “the works on display here also trace the extremes of our capabilities and the frontiers of our patience as both viewers and exhibitors.”

Well, that’s certainly one way to put it!

The installation consists of various… art things. Floating words. Tape recordings. Abstract shapes. Random objects. You know, the type of stuff you’d see at a gallery opening where everyone’s drinking bad wine and pretending to understand what they’re looking at.

And you, the player, wander through this space, clicking on exhibits, reading descriptions that say things like “comprises a diagonal slice through time, place, and form,” and presumably nodding thoughtfully while secretly wondering if you’re being punk’d.

And sure, I’ll concede that I don’t particularly like modern art. I’ve done my time in the SF MoMA, trying (truly trying) to get it, but I guess I just don’t. That said, I do think modern art serves a purpose. I don’t wish it didn’t exist. I’m not reflexively anti- abstract, conceptual, or experimental art.

But (and I really hate to break it to the developers… actually, wait a minute, no I don’t!) Limits & Demonstrations isn’t a straightforward portrayal of, or engagement with, modern art—it’s a parody of it, except the parody is completely sincere. It’s an entirely self-serious recreation of everything people find insufferable about the contemporary art world, presented without even the tiniest, most nanoscopic shred of irony or self-awareness.

This sequence is the gaming equivalent of someone at a party who won’t shut up about their trip to Berlin and all the amazing underground galleries they discovered. You know the type. They’ve somehow turned their own cultural consumption into a core personality trait, and they want you to know that their tastes are so much more sophisticated than yours, you filthy plebeian.

That’s Kentucky Route Zero in microcosm, really. That’s what the entire game feels like! It’s not actually deep, no matter how ardently the developers wish that it were; it’s just signaling depth. It’s so desperate to be perceived as artistic, but it only wears the costume of artistry while forgetting to, you know, actually be artistic.

And the gallery sequence is where the mask completely slips. This is where the game stops even pretending to be a game, and becomes nothing more than a pure delivery mechanism, an IV for mainlining uncut pretension into your withered veins.

I played through Limits & Demonstrations with my jaw on the floor, unable to believe that the developers had actually made this, actually released it, and that critics had actually praised it. Did nobody see what was happening here? Did nobody recognize this for what it was?!

Apparently not. The reviews were as glowing as ever. “A bold experiment.” “A meditation on art and perception.” “Proof that games can be more than just games.”

No. It’s proof that if you act pretentious enough, people will be too embarrassed to admit they don’t get it.

The Emperor’s New Art Form (of Boring)

And that at long last brings me to the actual problem. The crux of the matter, and the root of my nightmares for the past five years—the thing that elevates Kentucky Route Zero from “bad game I don’t like” to “cultural phenomenon I feel compelled to publicly denounce.”

Kentucky Route Zero has become, in certain circles, a symbol. It’s not just a game; it’s THE game. The one that proves video games can be art, the game that transcends the medium, the one game to rule them all that elevates gaming from mere entertainment to legitimate cultural expression.

This is infuriating, because it actually gives ammunition to everyone who thinks games can’t be art!

Think about it. If you wanted to convince a skeptic that video games deserve to be taken seriously as an art form, what would you show them? Would you show them Kentucky Route Zero, a plodding, incomprehensible mess that’s boring to play and impossible to understand? A game that even its fans can’t coherently summarize?

Or would you show them The Last of Us, and its devastating examination of love and loss? Maybe The Stanley Parable’s incisive and bitingly recursive meta-commentary on agency and the nature of the medium itself? Or perhaps Outer Wilds, with its meditations on mortality and celebration of curiosity? Still not enough? Then how about Disco Elysium’s brilliant political satire and actual psychological depth?

These are games that actually work as games and as art. They tell compelling stories through engaging gameplay, and they brilliantly bend, mold, and otherwise creatively wield their interactive medium to conjure up truly magical experiences that would be impossible in any other format. They are also, for the most part, accessible enough for a newcomer to appreciate while being deep enough for scholars to analyze.

Kentucky Route Zero is none of these things. It’s inaccessible, incoherent, and painfully insufferable. If this is the best argument for games as art, then we’ve already lost.

And yet, somehow, this is the game that got the accolades. This is the game that won the awards. This is the game that critics pointed to when they wanted to prove their medium could hang with the greats.

Why??? Why, oh dear God almighty in heaven, WHY did it have to be THIS particular game?!

*falls to my knees wailing in despair*

🧐💯🤷‍♂️ SIDE QUEST: The Pretension Industrial Complex

I have a theory: nobody actually likes Kentucky Route Zero. They just think they’re supposed to.

This is a phenomenon I call the “Pretension Industrial Complex” (I’m only half joking). It works like this:

1. An opaque piece of media emerges that’s unconventional enough to resist easy interpretation.

2. Certain critics, eager to demonstrate and prove how sophisticated they are, praise it lavishly; not because they actually liked it, but because praising it signals that they “get it.”

3. Other critics, not wanting to appear less sophisticated, follow suit. Negative reviews become social risks; nobody wants to be the philistine who didn’t understand the masterpiece.

4. Regular consumers, trusting the critical consensus, purchase the media. Many of them don’t enjoy it, but they assume the problem lies with them, not the work. “I must not be smart enough to appreciate it.”

5. A small percentage do genuinely love it (there’s no accounting for taste, after all), and they become vocal defenders, reinforcing the critical narrative.

6. The work achieves “classic” status, at which point criticizing it becomes heresy.

This is how The Favourite became an Oscar darling despite being a deliberately off-putting mess, and this is also how Ulysses became “the greatest novel ever written” despite being essentially unreadable. But most relevantly for our discussion: this is how Kentucky Route Zero became gaming’s artistic standard bearer despite being an absolute chore to experience.

The emperor has no clothes, but everyone’s too polite (or too insecure) to say so. Eat your heart out, Hans Christian Andersen.

A Grudging Concession

In the interest of fairness, I should acknowledge that Kentucky Route Zero does one thing well: its music.

Ben Babbit’s original soundtrack is truly delightful, and a joy to listen to. There’s a sequence in Act III where a group of musicians performs a song called “Too Late to Love You,” and it’s simply beautiful. Sublime. Maybe even (gasp… dare I say!) almost moving. And all throughout the game, KRZ serenades you with atmospheric and evocative music that’s actually very well-suited to the tone the game is trying to establish.13

I would happily listen to the Kentucky Route Zero soundtrack as background music. Divorced from the game itself, it’s really quite good!

That said, even this praise comes with an asterisk. The musical sequence in Act III, while lovely, takes approximately 15–20 minutes to resolve. Twenty minutes during which you are doing nothing but watching a concert. And while I didn’t mind the music, I did find myself wondering why I’d purchased a video game to watch a concert instead of, you know, playing a video game.14

Once again, it’s the game in microcosm. Something that could have been moving and affecting becomes painful and tedious through nothing more than its sheer, unforgiving length. In Kentucky Route Zero, even the good parts are way too long.

Final Thoughts (And An Olive Branch)

Listen, I’m not saying you’re wrong if you liked Kentucky Route Zero. Tastes vary, after all. Some people think cilantro tastes like soap, and some people don’t; neither group is objectively correct.15

If the game’s languid pacing truly appealed to you, if its fragmented narrative felt mysterious rather than incoherent, or if its prose struck you as poetic rather than pretentious? That’s fine! Your experience is valid. I’m not going to tell you your feelings are wrong.

But I would encourage you to ask yourself a question: do you actually like Kentucky Route Zero, or do you like the idea of liking it?

Do you honestly enjoy the experience of playing this game (the hours of slow walking, the eye-rollingly stuffy and opaque conversations, the pointlessly endless driving)? Or do you enjoy being someone who appreciates a game like this? Could it be that what you really enjoy is feeling culturally sophisticated (perhaps even, dare I say, superior) because you champion something that other people don’t understand?

Because if I’m being honest, I think a lot (maybe even most) of the praise for this game comes from the latter place, rather than the former.

Kentucky Route Zero is the modern art of video games, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Like many strains of modern art, it has utterly and hopelessly confused obscurity with profundity, misconstrued difficulty as depth, and equated insufferability with excellence.

The best art (regardless of medium) rewards your engagement. It might be challenging, but the challenge serves a higher purpose. And it might be unconventional, but its unconventionality says something that it couldn’t have said conventionally.

Kentucky Route Zero does neither, and if anything it punishes your engagement. It’s challenging for the sake of being challenging (and not in a good way, a la Dark Souls),16 and it’s unconventional for the sake of being unconventional. It’s a game that, above all else, exists to be discussed rather than played, and is meant to be admired rather than enjoyed.

And that, ultimately, is why I wrote this review. Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but to provide a counterweight (however small) to the overwhelming tide of uncritical praise heaped upon this dreck. To say to my fellow doubters, loudly, clearly, and publicly:

You’re not crazy if you didn’t like this game. You’re not a philistine, and you didn’t miss anything.

The game is just bad.

Postscript: Actually Good Artistic Games

Since I’ve spent several thousand words tearing down a false idol like Moses torching the golden calf, let me close by highlighting some workable alternatives. If you want to play artistically ambitious games that are actually good, start with these:

What Remains of Edith Finch: This is gaming’s real Mona Lisa, as far as I’m concerned. Visually stunning, emotionally devastating, and (gasp!) actually narratively coherent. Each segment works as both gameplay and storytelling. If you only play one walking simulator (even if the very concept of walking simulators sends you flying into a nerd rage), make it this one. – Steam | iOS | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

Disco Elysium: A detective RPG that boasts some of the best writing in games.17 It serves up dense and literary prose without becoming impenetrable, and pulls off a legitimately weighty examination of politics, interiority, and failure. Also, it’s actually fun to play. – Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

Outer Wilds: A time loop game about exploration, curiosity, and coming to terms with mortality. The narrative unfolds organically through entirely player-directed discovery, and its final moments are deep and evocative to the point of transcendence. I recently published an analysis of this game, and I stand by every word I wrote. – Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

Journey: Yes, it’s another walking simulator. And yes, it also aims to be artsy, such that it’s often mentioned in the same breath as KRZ. But unlike KRZ, it’s tightly designed, emotionally resonant, and highly respectful of your time. Its wordless multiplayer component is also a masterwork of game design. – Steam | iOS

The Stanley Parable: A game that’s just as meta and self-aware as Kentucky Route Zero thinks it is, except this one’s unironically funny and actually has something to say. The narrative examines choice, free will, and the nature of games themselves, delivered through a cheeky British narrator who’s more entertaining in five minutes than KRZ’s entire cast is in five acts. It proves that a game can be experimental and cerebral without disappearing up its own backside (and while also being, you know, enjoyable). – Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

These games all succeed where Kentucky Route Zero failed, by making a case for games as art while actually being good. They reward your engagement rather than punish it, and they respect your time while commanding your attention.

Play any of these instead of this horse slop (or feel free to suggest your own in the comments). You’ll thank me later.

At A Glance

Final verdict: 1/1018

Would I recommend it? Only as an endurance test.

Did it advance games as an art form? Absolutely not, no matter what the pompous critics and clueless awards committees say.

Would I play it again? I would rather manually defrag a hard drive with a spoon.

This has been the first (and, God willing, last) official Game & Word review. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, starting with my Diablo angelology/demonology deep dive, hitting your inboxes soon! Thanks for indulging me.

But now, it’s just about that time of the year in each volume’s lifecycle that I start looking ahead to what I should cover next.

Wrapping Up Volume 5

Before we leap into the future, here’s what’s still on deck for our current journey through gaming’s magical and occult side:

• Angels and Demons - An examination of celestial and infernal beings in video games, primarily through the Diablo series also but touching on how other games (DOOM, Bayonetta, Devil May Cry) handle the divine bureaucracy of heaven and hell.

• Deities and Their Worshippers - Using Hades and Hades II as starting points to explore gods, Elder Beings, and mortal devotion (Lovecraftian cultists, anyone???), as well as the meta-concept of “playing God” when you boot up a game, particularly simulation games.

• Dark Magic and the Forbidden Arts - The spooooky stuff: necromancy, blood magic, curses, and all the taboo Left-Hand Path practices that games so generously let us gleefully experiment with (and without the attendant risk of spectral or demonic possession!).

• Apotheosis - How mortals ascend to godhood in video games, how it parallels similar ascensions in myth and magic (Hercules, Enoch, Jesus), and what that transformation means narratively and mechanically

• The Meta-Magic of Game Creation - Game development and other creative endeavors as inherently magical acts that bring entire worlds into existence, while transforming the creator and audience alike

• Technomancy - The wacky intersection of magic and computers, tracing a through-line from video games to the internet to generative AI

• The Gamers’ Grimoire - That fun little bonus gaming spellbook I still owe my paid subscribers (it’s about 3/4 done, I promise!)

FAIR WARNING: I may or may not get to all of these, and some might get bumped to Side Quests or become bonus pieces for paid subscribers, depending on how the writing flows and where the rabbit holes take me.

Volume 6: The People Have Spoken (Will Speak)

Just like I did before Volume 5, I’m putting the next theme up to a vote. I’ve brainstormed 10 possible directions, and will give YOU a say in what we explore next!

Here’s what I’m considering:

• Option 1: Press F to Feast [Food + Drink]

• Option 2: Pixel Perfect [Aesthetics + Design]

• Option 3: State of Play [Politics + Governance]

• Option 4: The Long Game [Anthropology + Cultural Evolution]

• Option 5: Friendly Fire [War + Peace]

• Option 6: Working as Intended [Labor + Productivity]

• Option 7: New Game Plus [Memory + Self]

• Option 8: Open World [Nature + Environment]

• Option 9: One Last Score [Cops + Mobsters]

• Option 10: Gears of the Empire [Steam + Punk]

If you like the idea, just vote for it using the handy poll thingy underneath each theme. If you hate the idea, you can also vote “no,” or just leave it blank if you don’t care either way. You can vote on as many as you want!

But you gotta subscribe (whether free or paid) to be able to vote, so if you haven’t subscribed yet, now’s your chance:

Option 1: Press F to Feast

Food, Drink, and Culinary Culture in Video Games

From cooking mechanics to farming sims, whether it’s Monster Hunter’s canteen or Breath of the Wild’s groundbreaking recipe crafting system, food and libations in games serve a deeper function than mere HP recovery or stat boosts! In this volume, we’ll explore the anthropology of the feast, the economics of sustenance, food as cultural memory, and why we find virtual cooking so damn satisfying.

Games To Cover:

• Cooking Mama series

• Yakuza series

• Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom

• Stardew Valley

• VA-11 Hall-A

• Coffee Talk

• Overcooked!

• Monster Hunter

• Chef Life

• Hundred Days

• Final Fantasy XV

• Animal Crossing

Academic Lenses:

• Anthropology

• Economics

• History of cuisine

• Cuisine as cultural vector/framework

• Psychology of comfort food

• Philosophy of consumption and sustenance

• The culinary arts themselves

Option 2: Pixel Perfect

Beauty, Aesthetics, Art, and Design in Video Games

What makes a game beautiful? And no, the answer isn’t just “good graphics.” This volume is all about everything that makes games pleasing to the eye, focusing on art direction, architecture, fashion, and design.

We’ll also take some detours along the way, exploring the psychology of cute, kawaii culture, environmental storytelling through space, the psychology of character creation, and how visual language creates meaning (including visual trends in games as a whole, such as pixel art, cel shading, and low-poly minimalism). So get ready to take a microscope to Journey’s sublime vistas, Animal Crossing’s cozy charm, Control’s brutalist architecture, Hollow Knight’s hand-drawn perfection, and more!

Games To Cover:

• Journey

• Okami

• Gris

• Final Fantasy XIV

• Monument Valley

• ABZÛ

• Sayonara Wild Hearts

• Hollow Knight/Silksong

• Unpacking

• Various character creators and fashion systems

Academic Lenses:

• Philosophy of aesthetics

• Art history

• Architecture

• Psychology and sociology of beauty

• Anthropology of kawaii culture

• Design theory

Option 3: State of Play

How Video Games Mirror Politics, Society, and Culture

Gaming is chock full of deep political commentary that’s just begging for scholarly analysis, but so much of its richest commentary often flies under the radar. This volume will tackle how games explore political philosophy, satirize contemporary society, simulate governance systems, and grapple with dissent, subversion, revolution, surveillance, and control. We’ll examine failed utopias, revolutionary movements, corporate dystopias, and what happens when ideology becomes gameplay.

Games To Cover:

• Disco Elysium

• Bioshock series

• Metal Gear Solid series

• Papers Please

• Frostpunk

• The Outer Worlds

• Fallout series

• Tropico series

• Civilization

• Grand Theft Auto series

• Far Cry series

• EVE Online

• Cyberpunk 2077

Academic Lenses:

• Political philosophy

• Sociology

• Economics

• Ethics

• Criminology

• History of revolutionary movements

• Mass media theory

Option 4: The Long Game

Video Games and the March of Human History

What can a campaign of Civilization or Humankind teach us about ourselves? This volume will take a more experimental approach, using campaigns in grand strategy and 4X games as lenses to examine human development, technological progress, cultural evolution, and the eternal tension between individual agency and historical forces. From hunter-gatherers to space explorers, we’ll explore what games reveal about our journey as a species.

Games To Cover:

• Humankind

• Crusader Kings III

• Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

• Spore

• Civilization VI

• Stellaris

• Alpha Centauri

• Age of Empires series

• Europa Universalis IV

• The Longing

• Frostpunk

• Rimworld

Academic Lenses:

• Anthropology

• Philosophy of history

• Sociology of civilization

• Technology studies

• Comparative history

• Evolutionary theory

Option 5: Friendly Fire

Violence, War, and Conflict in Video Games

Gaming’s relationship with violence is its most examined yet perhaps least understood aspect. No, we won’t be asking that tired and trite “do games cause violence?” question.1 Instead, we’ll explore things like just war theory, the aestheticization of combat, ludonarrative dissonance, mechanical and narrative depictions of pacifism, historical war simulation, and the military-entertainment complex. When is violence justified? What does it mean to enjoy simulated combat? Why do some games question violence, while others glorify it? And how does this fit into a world that teeters ever so precariously to the edge of renewed global conflict?

Games To Cover:

• Spec Ops: The Line

• Metal Gear Solid series

• Undertale

• Hotline Miami

• This War of Mine

• Valkyria Chronicles

• Dishonored

• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

• Devil May Cry

Academic Lenses:

• Ethics and just war theory

• Military history

• Psychology of aggression

• Mass media theory

• Philosophy of violence

• Game studies

Option 6: Working As Intended

Video Games’ Depictions of Work, Labor, and Productivity

Ironically and paradoxically, we work constantly in games (be it by farming, crafting, managing, or building), and often find it more satisfying than our actual jobs. What does this reveal about labor, value creation, resource allocation, and our relationship to productivity? This volume dives into the ever-increasing gamification of labor, the enduring popularity of tycoon simulators, automation philosophy, “the grind,” and when games feel like second jobs.

Games We’d Cover:

• Factorio

• Stardew Valley

• Papers Please

• Overcooked!

• Death Stranding

• Animal Crossing

• Satisfactory

• Deep Rock Galactic

• EVE Online

• Various tycoon/management sims

• MMO daily grinds

Academic Lenses:

• Economics

• Labor theory

• Philosophy of work

• Sociology of capitalism

• Industrial psychology

• Game design theory

Option 7: New Game Plus

Video Games as Mirrors to the Self

Games uniquely explore memory, identity, and selfhood through amnesia narratives, save systems, character creation, and how we remember play experiences. Why do so many protagonists forget? What does it mean when we can be literally anyone? And how do save systems function as memory? (It’s not as simple as you’d think!) So strap in and get ready to explore the reconstruction of self, unreliable narrators, collective gaming memory, and false nostalgia.

Games To Cover:

• Disco Elysium

• Nier: Automata

• Outer Wilds

• Return of the Obra Dinn

• What Remains of Edith Finch

• The Stanley Parable

• Planescape: Torment

• Various RPG character creators

Academic Lenses:

• Philosophy of the self

• Psychology of memory

• Narrative theory

• Phenomenology

• Cognitive science

• Digital humanities

Option 8: Open World

Nature and Environment in Video Games

Video games have always offered us unique ways to explore our relationship with the natural world, whether through simulation, utilization, or restoration. We’ll examine ecology as system, conservation ethics, natural disasters, rewilding, pastoral fantasies, and climate fiction in gaming.

Games To Cover:

• Rain World

• Eco

• Terra Nil

• Death Stranding

• Horizon Zero Dawn

• ABZÛ

• Subnautica

• Ecco the Dolphin

• Stardew Valley

• Frostpunk

• Minecraft

• Various survival games

• City builders with environmental mechanics

Academic Lenses:

• Ecology

• Economics

• Environmental philosophy

• Natural science

• Geography

• Environmental ethics

• Malthusian theory

Option 9: One Last Score

Crime, the Mob, and Gangster Narratives in Video Games

From the tragic arcs of Mafia’s made men and Yakuza’s honorable thugs, to Grand Theft Auto’s satirical crime sprees and Disco Elysium’s profoundly broken detective, games (like the societies that spawn them) have long been fascinated with cops, criminals, and the codes that govern both. Join us as we figure out why we love playing outlaws, how different cultures romanticize organized crime, the economics of black markets, heist planning as game design, and whether it’s possible to depict crime without glamorizing it (and whether or not we should be worried about it).

Games To Cover:

• Yakuza/Like a Dragon series

• Mafia series

• Grand Theft Auto series

• Disco Elysium

• Payday 2

• Saints Row series

• Sleeping Dogs

• LA Noire

• Thief series

• Hotline Miami

• Hitman series

Academic Lenses:

• Sociology of organized crime

• Criminal justice philosophy

• History of crime families

• Economics of black markets

• Psychology of criminality

• Anthropology of honor codes

• Urban studies

Option 10: Gears of the Empire

Steampunk, Victorian Futurism, and Industrial Fantasy in Video Games

Brass, steam, and clockwork dreams… Steampunk games give us retro-futuristic visions of an Industrial Revolution that never quite was. In this volume, we’ll explore why we find Victorian machinery so visually compelling, how games navigate the tension between magic and technology, what alternate technological paths look like in practice, and how different games approach (or ignore) the era’s historical complexities. We’ll explore Dishonored’s plague-ridden Dunwall, Frostpunk’s frozen survivalism, and Arcanum’s philosophical explorations of magic-versus-machine, examining what steampunk reveals about progress, nostalgia, and our relationship with both history and technology.

Games To Cover:

• Dishonored series

• Frostpunk

• Bioshock Infinite

• Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

• Fallen London/Sunless Sea/Sunless Skies

• Final Fantasy VI

• SteamWorld series

• Syberia series

• Machinarium

Academic Lenses:

• History of Victorian Britain

• History of the Industrial Revolution

• Technology studies

• History of organized labor

• Literature (Verne, Wells, Shelley)

• Political economy

• Environmental studies

• Class analysis

• Art and design history

• Narrativology of Science Fiction

Your Turn!

Did you vote yet? Don’t forget to go back up and vote for your top choice, top three choices, or top 10 choices (for the truly indecisive and/or inquisitive). Feel free to leave a comment explaining why you picked what you did, or suggest further angles and games I should explore!

Voting closes a week from today, and I’ll reveal the winner shortly thereafter.

Thanks for another incredible year of Game & Word! Whether you’ve been here since the very beginning or just stumbled across us recently, I’m grateful for every read, comment, share, and debate (yes, even the AI comments!). Looking forward to 2026 and whatever weird academic rabbit holes it beckons us to dive into together.

Happy New Year, everyone! Wishing you high framerates and fast load times to you and yours in 2026.

~Jay

(ED. NOTE: Forgive the clickbaity title. Also, please read the whole thing before sounding off in the comments.)

It’s been less than a week since Larian Studios announced Divinity at The Game Awards, and already the studio that gave us Baldur’s Gate 3 is being pilloried on social media as though Swen Vincke personally shocked kicked a puppy on stream.1

It seemed like just yesterday that Larian could do no wrong. After all, Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed RPGs ever made, still going strong after it swept the Game Awards in 2023, where it won six awards (including Game of The Year).

Oh, and Larian’s also been long beloved by gamers for treating its employees well and actively resisting industry trends towards anti-consumer design and monetization, crunch, and layoffs. Now, Larian’s been revealed to be working on Divinity, the most hyped and anticipated game revealed at the 2025 Game Awards (Seriously, did you see that trailer???):

So, what was the studio’s crime, then? What could they have possibly done to so quickly transmute their mountains of goodwill into pure, sustained Gamer Rage™️?

Well, let’s see…

*checks notes* Larian’s getting cancelled for…

*checks archive* …um, for using generative AI for early ideation work.

…Wait, surely that can’t be it! Surely there’s more to it than that?

*checks Google* Yeah, no… that’s really it.

*sighs*

Again: using AI for early ideation work. Not in the final game. Not to replace artists. For reference exploration and rough composition outlines, aka the same way artists use Google Image searches and art books!

Vincke then took to X, exasperated:

“Holy fuck guys, we’re not ‘pushing hard’ for or replacing concept artists with AI. We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more.”

[Emphasis Mine]

But it doesn’t matter. The Arbiters of Morality™️ have spoken, the discourse has already calcified, and the internet has rendered a verdict: Larian is now “pro-AI.” This, according to the current moral framework that a certain extremely online subset of gamers is trying its hardest to push on everyone else, makes the studio GUILTY. *bangs gavel*

Guilty of… what, exactly? Killing art? Or is it killing labor? I’m not entirely clear on what specific harm they’re supposedly causing… but the vibes are definitely bad, folks!

My take? I’m actually glad this is happening, because by the time this stupid incident resolves, it will have fully exposed the hollow performativity with which anti-AI activists have poisoned The Discourse, which will hopefully render them completely impotent and irrelevant so that actual creators can finally leverage these tools without fear of getting harassed, doxxed, and cancelled.

Because I’m tired. Sick and tired.

I’m tired of watching people—armchair critics who’ve never shipped a game, never managed a creative team, and never had to balance their artistic vision against the brutal economic realities of game development—drag conscientious and good faith developers through the mud.2

I’m tired of all this pointless online moral posturing that accomplishes nothing except making the posturers feel good about themselves.

And I’m especially tired of a Discourse™️ that’s become so unmoored from the real world that it can’t (or won’t) tell the difference between a AAA publisher using AI to gut entire departments and an indie studio using it to explore ideas during pre-production.

So I’m going to state my position, loud and clear. I’m going to be unusually forceful and direct in this piece, and I’m going to say a lot of things that will probably make a lot of people very upset.

I realize this will likely cost me subscribers, and position me as a “bad guy” amongst my fellow gamers and game writers. I know what happened to Cassandra. But I just can’t hold it in any longer. I can’t take it anymore.

So, if you have any capacity whatsoever to understand nuance and hold multiple conflicting thoughts in your head without melting your dopamine-fried synapses, I invite you to continue reading and engage me constructively in the comments. Because I’m going to tell you what’s actually happening here, why the anti-AI crusade will end up sabotaging its own goals, why the people screaming loudest about “slop” are often the ones actually making it, and suggest a better way forward that doesn’t involve doxxing, review bombing, or Twitter pile-ons.

But if you’re unable to handle that, if you just want to yell at me in the comments for the headline, if I’ve made you so mad you can’t handle yourself maturely and civilly, if you can’t separate an argument from the person making them, or if you’re constitutionally unable to have an actually productive conversation with people you disagree and try to meet them somewhere in the middle, then don’t even bother. Close this tab and go about your day (if you comment and it’s clear you haven’t read the rest of this article, that’s an instant ban). In fact, just go ahead and unsubscribe right now:

Subscribe now

Still here? Ok, let’s get started. I have a lot to get off my chest.

When 72 Artists Isn’t Enough

Before we go any further, let’s be crystal clear about what Larian actually did. In a Bloomberg interview, Vincke explained that the studio uses AI tools for:

• Exploring references (again, similar to how they [and other artists] already use Google and art books)

• Rough composition outlines in early ideation, which they then replace with original concept art made by actual humans

• Placeholder text for internal use

• PowerPoint presentations

• Automating tedious tasks like emotion retargeting for different species animations

• Whiteboxing during rapid iteration, before real implementation

Meanwhile, here’s what Larian explicitly stated would not be in Divinity:

• Any AI-generated content.

In Vincke’s own words: “Everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves.”

Oh, and just for good measure, here’s what Larian has also been doing while adopting these tools:

• Hiring more artists.

Yes, you read that right. Their concept art team has grown. Their total headcount is now 530 people, larger than Insomniac or Naughty Dog! The studio’s director of publishing, Michael Douse, noted that any machine learning tool “used well is additive to a creative team or individual’s workflow, not a replacement for their skill or craft.” [Emphasis Mine]

This is, by any reasonable metric, an instance of responsible AI adoption. Larian is using AI to accelerate parts of development that don’t need a human touch, and in doing so, freeing up skilled artists to focus on work that actually matters. The final product will still be entirely made by human beings. And again, they’re creating jobs, not eliminating them!

And yet, anti-AI zealots reacted as if Vincke announced he was replacing Larian’s entire art department with Midjourney prompts. Former employees posted dramatic condemnations.3 The gaming press did what the press has always done: run headlines designed to maximize outrage. Twitter/X has likewise done what Twitter/X does, which is to amplify the most unhinged voices and dumbest takes possible.

Jeff Gerstmann (formerly of Giant Bomb) spoke for this aggrieved cohort when he lamented that Larian was “throwing all that goodwill away.” But goodwill with whom, exactly? The handful of Very Online accounts who’ve made opposing AI their entire personality? Or the millions of players who bought Baldur’s Gate 3 and will absolutely buy Divinity because (this part seems to always escape the critics, for some reason) it will almost certainly be a very good game?

Who do you think Larian should listen to? Who do you think they will listen to?

We’ve Fought This Boss Before

I see a familiar pattern at work here. Do you see it? I sure hope so, because it should give pause to any anti-AI crusader who genuinely cares about the issues they claim to care about.

Remember when the progressive left had genuine, material concerns about diversity in media, representation, and inclusive storytelling (and the deeper issues and grievances those pointed to)? I disagree with the scope, salience and urgency of some of those concerns, but I’ll grant that as a whole, they were perfectly valid. Certainly worth discussing, at least! And I wouldn’t have begrudged anyone for advocating for them.

But somewhere along the way, a certain strain of activist captured the discourse and turned every creative decision into a referendum on the artist’s moral character. Eventually, this metastasized and escaped containment into business, politics, and even interpersonal and family relationships. Practically no aspect of society was left untouched.

These activists wielded the threat of cancellation, ostracization, and reputational (and even financial) ruin to force studios, politicians, celebrities, and even each other to perform their virtue in increasingly elaborate ways. Any deviation from the new orthodoxy (no matter how minor, or how long ago it happened) became grounds for having your reputation destroyed and your life ruined.

Meanwhile, actual material gains for the groups they claimed to fight for remained elusive. But that was fine, because the scolds and hall monitors (certainly not the people doing any actual work) had found a new way to feel morally superior to everyone else!

Inevitably, a backlash started to brew. And when The Great Vibe Shift of 2024-2025 finally boiled over, it caught the activist class by surprise. Even the ones who had an inkling that the 2024 election would not go their way were still shocked by how swiftly and brutally the pendulum had undeniably swung back on them.

But it’s not like folks suddenly stopped caring about representation or fairness. The “vibes shifted” so forcefully because ordinary people (many of whom initially supported those causes) grew exhausted of being constantly moralized, purity tested, and talked down to (not to mention sometimes falsely accused) by activists who constantly treated them as acting in bad faith, and whose rhetoric was increasingly disconnected from material reality.4

These people did more damage to progressive causes than any right wing pundit or influencer ever could, because they handed their opponents crate after crate of military-grade rhetorical ammunition:

Look at how unreasonable these people are, how unmoored from reality, how quick to destroy innocent people over perceived slights.

Yet these folks continue to hand their opponents said ammunition, refusing to shift tactics even after they’ve clearly proven fatally counterproductive; support for almost every major left-wing cause (BLM, #MeToo, trans rights, climate change, and Gaza) is markedly down from their early 2020s peak, and the GOP gained control of all three branches of government after explicitly campaigning against everything the activists stood for.

Now that these same people have made AI their new pet project, we’re now watching the same playbook unfold here. And just as it did with all those other causes, we’re going to watch it fail in exactly the same ways.

There Is No Winning This Game

The anti-AI position, as articulated by its loudest proponents, has become functionally unfalsifiable. According to these people, no use of AI is ever acceptable. No matter how limited its use, no matter how divorced from the final product, and no matter how many human artists you employ and feed, if you use AI in any way, shape, form, or capacity, you are an evil person who deserves to be fired, shunned, blacklisted, and ostracized from polite society.

Larian uses AI for reference exploration during ideation, but then has human artists create all the final work? UNACCEPTABLE!

Sandfall Interactive uses AI for some placeholder textures in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and patches them out before most players ever see them? BZZT! That studio is now tainted, FOREVER! Never mind that Expedition 33 absolutely crushed The Game Awards this year, winning nine awards including Game of the Year and Best Art Direction.5

These critics aren’t operating by any limiting principles. They don’t have standards that, if met, would ever satisfy them, because their objection isn’t really about specific practices, nor is it about material harms. Instead, they’re maintaining an ideological position that AI is inherently corrupting. In their view, AI constitutes a sort of spiritual pollution that taints everything it touches.

In other words, they’re operating out of a religious conviction that they’ve dressed up as labor or environmental advocacy.

And like many religious convictions, it demands increasingly elaborate demonstrations of faith. We’ve even now reached the point where writers are being accused of using AI because they employ em dashes, multisyllabic words, or (God forbid!) the Oxford comma.6

📝⛔️🙅‍♀️ SIDE QUEST: The Em Dash Inquisition

Sadly, the type of insanity being directed at Larian is not limited to games; the discourse on writing has become similarly unhinged in the Age of AI. People have convinced themselves they can detect AI-generated text by spotting surface-level stylistic markers, and they’re using this supposed superpower to harass and accuse not the frontier AI labs (not that it would make it ok), but actual human writers.

Among the “AI tells” they cite: em dashes, triads (three item lists), negation-affirmation constructions (”It’s not X, it’s Y”), even marginally more elevated vocabulary than average, varied sentence structure, and now the Oxford comma (how dare they… the sheer audacity!). In other words: the hallmarks of skilled and educated writing.

Every single one of these “AI tells” used to be a feature of good prose, long before GPT-1 was a twinkle in Sam Altman’s eye. Strunk and White, every writer’s foundational handbook on written style, recommends many of them. In fact, AI models produce these patterns in the first place because they were trained on good writing, and all of these “tells” are simply patterns that good writing often employs.

Now, as a result of this paranoia, actual writers (ie, people who’ve spent years developing their craft, who genuinely do use em dashes and sophisticated vocabulary because that’s what good writing looks like) are being harassed for having actually mastered the fundamentals.

Meanwhile, the actual AI “slop” that should concern us (the content farms churning out SEO garbage, fake Amazon reviews, bot-generated social media posts) often carefully avoids these patterns to fly under the radar.

So we’ve created a system that punishes craft and rewards mediocrity. The scolds have thus become the slop makers. Great job, everyone! I hope you’re happy.

And then there’s .

Gioia, a music critic and cultural commentator who occupies a lauded position amongst the Substack intelligentsia, publishes an annual “Best Online Articles” list. It’s well worth reading, and an example of the genuinely valuable service that Gioia provides by curating excellent writing across the internet.

The Honest Broker

The Best Online Articles of 2025

Every December, I showcase the work of other writers. They are total strangers to me, but have written some article or essay of exceptional merit during the previous 12 months…

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4 months ago · 234 likes · 22 comments · Ted Gioia

Anyway, this year’s list included an essay called “Meditations for Phone Addicts,” written by an anonymous author going by “Fyodor” (as in Dostoevsky). It was, by all accounts, a thoughtful, well-written piece that resonated with readers… Gioia included.

Then, someone pointed out in the comments that it was AI-generated.

Gioia’s response: “I’m removing it from the list. Even if it was trained on Dostoevsky (one of my five favorite novelists), I don’t want it here.”

Now, think about this for a moment.

Gioia read hundreds, possibly thousands of essays this year. This one was good enough to make his “best of” list. He liked it. Other people liked it. It accomplished what good essays are supposed to accomplish (which is to make readers think, offer a perspective, resonate emotionally, or some combination of the three).

None of that changed when that commenter revealed the essay’s origin. The words on the page didn’t suddenly rearrange themselves, and neither did the arguments magically become less coherent. The prose itself didn’t instantly become worse; only the label changed.

If an essay is genuinely good enough to fool an experienced cultural critic into featuring it alongside the best human-written work of the year, then in what meaningful sense is it “bad”? The content is the content. Either it has value or it doesn’t. Gioia’s initial judgment was that it had value. His revised judgment is that it doesn’t, not because anything about the essay changed, but because he learned something about how it was made.

This is pure essentialism: the belief that there’s something metaphysically different about AI-generated text that renders it valueless, regardless of its actual quality. You might as well argue that a painting becomes less beautiful if you discover the artist used a particular brand of brush.7

If experts can’t tell the difference, and the work produces genuine value for readers, what exactly are you protecting by enforcing a purity standard?

Meanwhile, writers throughout the internet are suffering, even to the point of deliberately worsening their prose so as to not be lumped in with AI, and it’s taken much of the joy out of writing while also hurting the writers’ final product:

I’m guilty of this, too. I’ve found myself constantly revising my own writing, purely to pre-empt such accusations. Well, no more. You can pry my em dashes, triads, fancy words, and negation-affirmation constructions from my cold, dead hands (the Oxford comma was definitely a line too far). If you’re too stupid or too dogmatic to evaluate my content based on the essence of what it’s saying instead of through flawed and superficial heuristics, then maybe this newsletter isn’t for you. Perhaps Keeping Up with the Kardashians is more your speed.

And no, I’m not blaming AI for this state of affairs (at least, not exclusively). It’s not AI’s fault that people don’t read, have become culturally illiterate, are addicted to shouting from their high horses, and are too lazy to engage with content on its own terms.

Besides, do you even remember what the internet was like before AI? Slop wasn’t an AI invention. Remember SEO? Remember clickbait? Remember BuzzFeed? If that’s not slop, I don’t know what is—and it was entirely and exclusively human-generated slop until about three years ago. Furthermore, even in this post-ChatGPT era, AI still needs a human to prompt it to create slop at all.

Blaming AI is easy, yes. And I won’t deny it’s an enabler and multiplier of “enshittification.” But pointing the finger at AI only lets shitty humans, the ones who ultimately direct the AIs, off the hook. Don’t fall into that trap.

Honesty Is the Worst Policy

Also, the anti-AI crusaders don’t seem to realize that their scorched earth tactics are actively undermining one of their stated goals.

The same people demanding AI purity also advocate for AI transparency measures: labels on AI-generated content, disclosure requirements, and otherwise clearly communicating how and when creators use AI tools in production. These are entirely reasonable things to ask for! I do think transparency is genuinely valuable; consumers and workers alike benefit from knowing how things are made, and thus being able to make informed decisions about what they partake in.

But transparency requires a climate where disclosure doesn’t result in immediate social immolation.

Larian told the truth. They explained exactly how they use AI, what safeguards they have in place, and what will and won’t appear in the final product. They were, by any measure, transparent.

And what did they get in return for their honesty? They got dragged through the mud. Anime furry profile pics on Twitter accused them of betraying their fans, and subjected them to a sustained harassment campaign. Even former employees joined in and even led some of the pile-ons (never mind what any future potential employers might make of this magnanimous display of grace and loyalty).

Tell me: what lesson do you think other studios are learning from this?

Because many major studios are almost certainly using AI in similar ways (or even more extensively), but they’re simply not talking about it. And why the hell would they? The incentive structure is clear: say nothing, and avoid the mob. The only studios actually suffering any consequences from using AI are the ones honest enough to openly discuss their practices.

When you treat all AI disclosure as a confession of sin, this is the entirely predictable result. Or, to put it more clearly: when you punish transparency and reward silence, you get less transparency. DUH. If you treat good faith actors identically to bad faith ones, the good faith actors then stop engaging. And if the only winning move is to keep your mouth shut, then everyone will keep their mouth shut. OBVIOUSLY.

So, congratulations to the AI purity movement! You’ve created an environment where the studios most likely to use AI responsibly are also the most likely to hide it, while the ones most likely to use it maliciously were never going to tell you anyway. The discourse now fully selects for opacity and rewards dishonesty.

Honestly, what the hell did you think was going to happen?!

If you actually wanted transparency—if you actually wanted to know which studios are using AI, how they’re using it, and what safeguards exist—you’d create conditions where the public met disclosure with good faith engagement instead of reflexive outrage. You’d reward companies that are honest about their practices and distinguish between responsible and irresponsible use.

Instead, we have a climate where Swen Vincke has to tweet “Holy fuck guys” at people who’ve decided he’s now the enemy for doing nothing more than using AI the same way artists use Pinterest mood boards, all while continuing to employ and hire human artists.

The activists have optimized for feeling righteous, not for achieving outcomes. And the outcomes show it.

Your iPhone Called, It Wants Its Selective Outrage Back

The environmental case against AI is one of the more believable and seemingly coherent arguments deployed by the AI critics. After all, training large language models uses enormous amounts of energy, and the data centers themselves consume tons of resources… won’t someone think of the planet?

They’re not wrong that AI has an environmental footprint. Literally everything on Earth does! But this environmental concern is staggeringly selective, and conveniently targets a technology the speaker already dislikes on other grounds.

A 2024 study published in Communications of the ACM compared the carbon footprint of machine learning with broader technology infrastructure. And guess what? The embodied carbon footprint from manufacturing IT equipment, particularly smartphones, is approximately 70 times larger than operational emissions from machine learning. We’ve discarded 7.5 billion smartphones in the past five years alone. The embodied carbon footprint of those short-lived phones was nearly three times that of all data center servers worldwide.

Hell, charger inefficiency alone accounts for 70% of the energy use associated with phones, while machine learning accounts for less than 3% of smartphone energy consumption. One study found that generating an AI image uses about as much energy as fully charging a smartphone once (something most of us do, without any moral hesitation, every single day).

If you genuinely care about the environmental impact of technology, the smartphone in your pocket—manufactured using rare earth minerals extracted through highly environmentally destructive processes, assembled in factories with significant carbon footprints, and discarded every two years to upgrade to a new model—is a far more significant concern than asking Claude for help editing your document.

But nobody’s organizing social media campaigns to shame people for upgrading their iPhones, because that would require scrutinizing the activists’ own consumption rather than someone else’s.

NOTE: There’s more I could say here, but actually summed up the actual environmental cost of using generative AI much better and far more comprehensively than I ever could. Read his post if you want to dive deeper:

Andy Masley

Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment - a cheat sheet

This post will be a cheat sheet for answering every environmental objection to using ChatGPT. I’ve broken it up so you can skip around and only read sections relevant or interesting to you. If you think I’m getting anything wrong I’d be excited to update this with the most accurate numbers. Please let me know in the comments or at…

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a year ago · 687 likes · 99 comments · Andy Masley

Luxury Beliefs and The Art That Never Gets Made

Also, isn’t it curious how the loudest voices demanding total AI abstention are almost never the people who would actually bear the costs of abstaining?

It’s one thing for a AAA publisher to use AI to justify laying off entire departments. That’s a legitimate concern, and studios that do this deserve pushback (even if for no other reason than the product will almost certainly suffer as a result). But that’s not what Larian is doing with Divinity, nor is it what Sandfall Interactive did with Expedition 33. And it’s certainly not what most small studios and independent creators are doing.

The writer who uses Midjourney to create art for his articles isn’t doing so to screw over artists. He’s doing it because he literally cannot afford to hire an artist. And the solo game dev who uses AI voice synthesis isn’t stealing work from voice actors, she’s making a game that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

I know this firsthand. I co-founded an AI game studio that was developing a dating sim called AI Sweetheart Royale. We had a simple concept: a romance game with functionally infinite dialogue, where every conversation with your love interest was unique. Obviously, we used AI tools, including LLMs to generate dialogue and text-to-speech for character voices, and yes, Midjourney for concept referencing. But we also hired a concept artist (as well as several technical artists), and we paid our voice actors fairly for their reference performances. I also wrote all the character sheets and reference/training dialogue myself. It wasn’t “slop” by any stretch of the imagination; it had a thoroughly human touch, through and through.

Ultimately, we tabled the game.8

But my point (and what I keep coming back to) is that the version of that game that exists without AI is not “the same game, but with more human writers and voice actors.”

The version without AI is simply “doesn’t exist, and never will.”

Our entire premise—truly dynamic, responsive romantic dialogue that never repeats—is impossible to hand-craft. Even if it were possible, you’d need to write and record thousands of hours of dialogue for a game that maybe sells a few thousand copies to a niche audience. No studio would greenlight that. No investor would fund it.

Hopefully, some day, AI Sweetheart Royale can finally see the light of day. But that’s just not going to happen for as long as these zealots dominate the discourse.

The anti-AI crowd never engages with that part honestly. They act like every use of AI is a direct substitution; in their view, one AI image equals one artist who didn’t get hired. But for a lot of projects (especially weird, experimental, or niche ones), that simply isn’t true. When people like me use AI tools, the counterfactual isn’t “hire a human artist/writer/voice actor instead.” The counterfactual is “this thing doesn’t get made.”

This applies even outside of game development. For example, I generate gamer Tarot cards for my articles using DALL-E and Midjourney, because I can’t afford to hire an illustrator for every piece I write (I did, however, commission a human artist for my logo). And good luck finding bespoke gamer Tarot pics on Unsplash, too.9 So if I don’t use Midjourney, those cards simply don’t get made. No artist loses a job, because no job was ever on offer! Once again: in so many cases, the choice isn’t “AI art vs. human art”, it’s “AI art vs. no art.”

This is the reality for countless creators. But instead of understanding, the anti-AI position offers them nothing but contempt.

This insane demand for total AI abstinence is, ultimately, a luxury belief. It’s easy to hold (and demand others do the same) when you’re not the one facing the tradeoffs. “Just don’t ever use AI!” is the position of someone who can afford to be “moral” about tools, because they’re not the ones who need those tools to compete.

Small business owners can’t afford this morality when they’re being outcompeted by businesses with no such qualms. Solo developers can’t afford it when AI tools are the only way to realize their vision. And the people most loudly demanding purity are, overwhelmingly, not the people whose livelihoods depend on the outcome.

Speedrunning Your Own Defeat

But let’s say you’ve read this far, and don’t buy anything I’ve just argued. You believe that AI is categorically bad, and that it is your duty, as a good and moral person, to fight back against its development and deployment by any means necessary, which renders the tactics I’ve just argued against entirely justified and defensible.

And let’s also say, just for the sake of argument, that you genuinely care about artists’ well-being, the responsible adoption of new technology, or any of the other values the anti-AI movement claims to champion, and aren’t just looking for a way to feel better about yourself and your lot in life.

Well, then, maybe this will convince you (at the very least, it should concern you): if you and your fellow travelers continue down this path, then your crusade is going to fail, and its failure will completely discredit all the concerns it purports to represent. Even the legitimate ones.

Expedition 33 won Game of the Year. It used AI. Players loved it anyway.

Divinity is going to sell millions of copies. It also used AI. Players will love that too.

The crusading scolds will screech as loud as they can, and nobody who matters will care, because the games will be good.

This is the same trajectory we saw with the culture war insanity of the 2010s and early 2020s. The more the loudest voices demanded everyone else conform to and exceed their increasingly unreasonable standards of ideological purity, the more ordinary people tuned them out. When the backlash finally hit, people weren’t pushing back against the underlying causes (at least not at first… though that is changing, and will continue to change if the activists don’t change tack!), but rather against the crusaders’ tactics, tone, constant presumption of bad faith, and the increasingly obvious disconnect between their rhetoric and reality.

Every time someone gets pilloried for using AI responsibly and in good faith (or falsely accused of using AI when they didn’t), the entire movement loses credibility in the public eye. And when you’ve lost credibility, you’ve lost power. You can’t advocate effectively for artists after people have stopped listening to you because you’ve been crying wolf every time a studio uses AI for reference images.

The AI maximalists are going to lose, because reality always wins in the end. And the reality is: this technology is useful! It makes things possible that weren’t possible before. People like making things, and they’re going to use tools that help them make things. Fighting this is like fighting the tide—you’re only going to get swept away in the current.

And the worst part is that there really are genuine issues we should all address. Training data practices, for one; artists and writers whose work was scraped for training AI should be credited and compensated fairly. That’s perfectly reasonable! And then there’s the issue of what we as a society owe, or how we should help, all the workers whose jobs will soon be entirely automated away. These are real concerns that deserve real conversation, negotiation, and yes, even advocacy.

But that’s not what’s happening. You think you’re advocating, but all you’re doing is purity testing and moral grandstanding. And what is that actually accomplishing? You’re completely erasing anyone’s ability to meaningfully distinguish between “AI used to automate tedious tasks while hiring more artists” and “AI used to gut creative departments.”

When you treat Larian the same as you’d treat Activision yanking the rug from under its artists, you’ve lost the ability to make meaningful distinctions—and meaningful distinctions are the very foundation of persuasive advocacy.

Outcomes Over Ontology (OR: How to Actually Win)

In the interest of being productive, why don’t we all arrive at a framework that actually makes sense? Here, I’ll propose one: what matters is outcomes.

Does a studio’s use of AI lead to less jobs and lower quality? That’s bad.

Does it lead to more jobs, better tools for existing workers, and equal or higher quality? That’s good.

Does it enable creative projects that couldn’t exist otherwise? That’s interesting and probably good.

Now, let’s apply this framework to some real-world examples:

Larian: hiring more artists, using AI for tedious tasks and ideation, final product still made by humans. Good outcome.

Indie developer using Midjourney because they can’t afford an artist: enables creation that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Good outcome.

AAA publisher using AI to justify firing half the writing staff while shipping worse games: bad outcome.

Notice how this framework allows for moral reasoning without requiring purity tests? See how it focuses on material consequences rather than metaphysical “pollution”? Understand how it doesn’t demand that everyone agree with you about the essential nature of AI-generated content?

This is how adults approach complex technological and ethical questions. With attention to context, consequences, and material reality—not with blanket prohibitions.

Git Gud

I want to end with something that will probably make me very unpopular with my fellow creatives on Subtack, but it needs to be said.

Some jobs will be affected by AI. That’s undeniable. This has been true of every significant technological change throughout our history. I feel for all the scribes the printing press put out of work, as I do for the portrait painters disrupted by the advent of photography and the audio producers who had to contend with digital audio workstations. Each time, some people adapted and thrived, and some people didn’t.

The creatives who will thrive in our AI-augmented future will use the technology to enhance their capabilities rather than substitute for them. They’ll have a genuine creative vision that AI can help them realize. And I know this is a total cliché at this point, but they’ll understand that AI is a tool (like Photoshop, synthesizers, cameras, and computers), and tools are only as good as the people wielding them.

The “slop” everyone (correctly) complains about is made by people with no taste, no vision, and no craft, who think that prompting a model is the same as creating. These people have always produced garbage, and they always will, with or without AI. The technology just makes their garbage easier to make.

But in the hands of a skilled creator, using AI well? That’s a different story. One we’re only now starting to see the fruits of. Talented writers, artists, and musicians who struggle with coding will soon be able to realize their lifelong visions for their perfect game (and vice-versa for engineers with grand artistic visions but limited artistic skill). Entire new concepts that wouldn’t have even been possible three years ago will soon become not only possible, but economically feasible to develop. And just imagine what John Romero or Peter Molyneux could have done had they had access to these tools when they were first starting out!

Enterprising indie studios are already starting to experiment with using AI in novel and creative ways (you just don’t hear about it, because they’re understandably in stealth mode so as to not provoke the wrath of the zealots). It’s only a matter of time before some pioneering developer creates the first best-selling, award-winning AI-generated game. It could be you!

The future is exciting… if you can overcome your fears, hesitation, or irrational anti-AI essentialism.

Now, if you’re a creative whose entire value proposition is “I can execute tasks that an AI can now do,” then yes, you have a problem. But if you’re a creative with actual vision, actual taste, and actual craft, then AI is probably going to make you more powerful, and more relevant, provided you can get over yourself and make peace with the new reality we live in—in a sea of generic slop, actual artistry is going to command a much higher premium.

Ultimately, AI is only an actual threat to mediocrity. If you’re not mediocre, you have nothing to worry about. There may be some growing pains along the way, but if you’re smart, brave, and nimble enough to adapt to change and to strategically and effectively augment your skills with these tools, you’ll end up in a far better position than everyone screaming into the void about AI.

I’ve always been a writer by trade, which means I’ve been in the position of having my livelihood threatened by technological change. Hell, that’s the reason I co-founded the AI game studio—to adapt to that change while also trying to do something cool and new. So I understand the fear. But I also understand that demanding that the world stop changing isn’t going to do jack. The forces and incentives hard at work bringing about this new age are far greater and far more powerful than we can contend with. So shouting about AI on X and Bluesky isn’t the answer. Instead, the answer is to adapt. Find the parts of your value that can’t be automated, and use these exciting new tools to make those irreplaceable parts even more powerful.

Also, the former Larian employees throwing fits about AI should look at the aftermath of the recent Genshin Impact voice actor drama and related SAG-AFTRA strike and ask themselves some hard questions. In some cases, studios aren’t in a rush to find alternatives to human creators because AI is magically better, but because human creators have become, in many cases, extremely difficult to work with. That’s not an excuse for steamrolling them (artists should always be compensated fairly and treated with dignity), but it is a reality check.

In the brutal calculus of competitive markets, “we’d rather not deal with you at all” is always an option on the table. In a capitalist economy, making yourself indispensable requires more than demanding indispensability.10

At the end of the day, all of this will be moot anyway. Fact of the matter is, Divinity is going to be great. I’m going to play it, and so will millions of other people. Some of those people might even have been vaguely aware of the “AI controversy,” and exactly none of them will care once they’re 40 hours into an incredible RPG crafted by ~500 skilled humans, some of whom happened to use some AI tools during development.

The zealots will still screech, of course. But nobody will listen.

So think about what you actually want for artists, for games, and for our wider culture. Then think about whether the tactics you’re supporting actually advance those goals, or whether they’re just making you feel better about your life while actually accomplishing nothing (or worse, accomplishing the exact opposite of what you claim to want).

The adults are in the room, and they have games to make.

~Jay

Game & Word Volume 4, Issue 10: Friday, December 12, 2025

• Publisher: Jay Rooney

• Author, Graphics, Research: Jay Rooney

• Logo: Jarnest Media

  Your name can be on the masthead, too! Simply upgrade your subscription to become a Founding Member.

Table of Contents

1. Summary & Housekeeping

2. Feature: “22 Minutes to Midnight” (~45-minute read)1

3. Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts

4. Further Reading

5. Game & Word-of-Mouth

6. Footnotes

Letter from the Publisher:

Well. This is awkward.

Two years ago, I wrapped up Game & Word Volume 4—our deep dive into time in video games—and moved on to other things. The volume felt complete. We’d dissected Chrono Trigger’s time-traveling shenanigans, explored game preservation, dug into archaeology and temporal narrative… after nine issues, it felt like a nice, tidy package. Case closed. Tempus Ludos, indeed.

And then I played Outer Wilds.

I spent ~40 hours dying repeatedly, getting hopelessly lost and then devoured in the cursed fog of Dark Bramble (damn that place and its anglerfish), forgetting which planets I’d already explored, and occasionally just sitting on Timber Hearth watching the stars blink out one by one as the supernova approached. Somewhere around my ~100th loop, staring at the husk of a dying universe while a haunting synth echoed softly in the background, I realized I simply had to write about this.

The problem was that I’d already closed the book on Volume 4. You know, the volume about time. The volume that would have been the perfect home for a piece about a game that revolves around temporal loops, cosmic cycles, and the slow heat death of the universe (I’d even scrapped an entire “Side Quest” sidebar on that latter subject, though I still made it available to paid subscribers).

But I started writing anyway. Piece by piece, loop by loop, over the course of about a year and change. Now, as the year 2025 draws to a close, it’s finally ready. And where else could it possibly go?

So consider this the proper conclusion to Volume 4; the ending I didn’t know Tempus Ludos needed until I found myself floating in the wreckage of a dying solar system, watching everything I’d explored get swallowed by fire, and feeling strangely at peace with the whole thing.

Indeed, Volume 4 was about time, and sometimes time has a way of circling back on itself, revealing that the ending you thought you’d reached was really just a waypoint. The loop continues. The story isn’t over until you find what you didn’t know you were looking for.

This article is that.

So in today’s thrilling finale to Volume 4, we’ll explore how Outer Wilds uses time (mechanically, narratively, and philosophically) to craft one of gaming’s most profound meditations on mortality, meaning, and cosmic renewal. Along the way, we’ll dig into archaeology as gameplay, quantum mechanics as puzzle design, the existential despair of watching stars die, and two very different alien civilizations’ responses to learning the universe has an upcoming expiration date. There’s a lot to dive into, so I’ll stop yapping here.

Thank you all for your patience, and for sticking with Game & Word through all its detours and evolutions. And if you haven’t played Outer Wilds yet, I’m imploring you… close this tab, go play it, and come back when you’re ready. Some experiences are best discovered firsthand, and this game is very much one of them.

For the rest of you: grab a marshmallow, find a comfortable spot by the campfire, and let’s talk about the end of everything.

It’s about time.

Cheers,

~Jay

Housekeeping:

Let’s go!

Previous Issues

Game & Word’s most recent issues (currently, all of Volume 5) are available to all, free of charge.

Older issues are currently archived and only accessible to paid subscribers. To access the full archive, upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscriptions are currently 95% off, through the end of the year!

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• Volume 1 (The Name of the Game): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4

• Volume 2 (Yo Ho Ho, It’s a Gamer’s Life for Me): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3● Bonus 1 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Bonus 2 ● Issue 8 ● Bonus 3

• Volume 3 (Game Over Matter): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 4 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Bonus 1 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 2 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9 ● Podcast 3 ● Bonus 2

• Volume 4 (Tempus Ludos): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Video Podcast 2 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9

• Volume 5 (AbraCODEabra!): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9

Feature: 22 Minutes to Midnight

🚨🚨🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨🚨🚨 

This post features HUGE MEGA SPOILERS for Outer Wilds and its DLC, Echoes of the Eye. This includes narrative, visual, and thematic spoilers. This is a rich and highly narratively textured title that rewards organic exploration and discovery.

Trust me, it’s really best if you go in blind, so if this game is in your backlog and there’s even the slightest chance you might get to it one day, then do yourself a favor and play it before reading this analysis. Don’t worry, I’ll wait!

🧠🧠🧠 SANITY CHECK 🧠🧠🧠

WARNING: Thinking too hard about entropy and the heat death of the universe may cause existential discomfort. Touch grass as needed.

Explorer’s Log: Cycle Unknown

As I sit here on Brittle Hollow’s brittle surface, the cosmos around me sings a symphony of stars and silence. The sun, once a warm and distant furnace, now swells like a heart in the final throes of its existence. Its crimson radiance bathes the universe in a melancholy glow, a farewell dance before the inevitable parting bow.

I find myself pondering the endless cycle of creation and destruction. This star, which has nurtured all life on these planets and shone as a beacon in the dark, is now the herald of our demise. It reminds us how small we are in the universe’s grand narrative. How fleeting. It’s humbling, dare I say spiritual, to witness this celestial curtain call.

The sky slowly dims, as if the universe itself is readying to sleep. Stars that once sparkled with the fire of life now fade into darkness, mere moments before the dying sun’s overwhelming light engulfs our humble little solar system. What an awe-inspiring, yet profoundly somber sight! The universe, in all its vastness and mystery, feels intimately close in this instant of cosmic twilight.

And then, the sun explodes. A supernova – a radiant, all-consuming fireball. A wave of light, heat, destruction, and rebirth, all racing towards me. In this final moment, I am engulfed in its searing embrace. Everything I knew, everything I was, disintegrates in the blinding inferno.

But then... something happens. It’s as if time itself is unraveling, rewinding like an old tape. My memories, my experiences… they all play backwards in a dizzying cascade. The explosion recedes, the stars un-dim, the sun retracts its fiery claws. I’m thrust in the middle of a whirlwind of confusion and wonder, thrashing about helplessly as the arrow of time flies back into its quiver.

And just like that, I’m back at the beginning. Awake by the campfire, under the familiar trees of Timber Hearth, as if nothing happened. As if the sun never exploded. As if I never witnessed the end of everything.

But something has changed within me. The awe and humility I felt at the universe’s vastness, the melancholy in the face of the sun’s demise… they linger, like echoes of a dream. And with them, a burning question: What the hell just happened?

I am determined. I am invigorated. I must understand. I need answers. Not just for me, but for all of my kind. The cosmos beckons, and I must heed its call, no matter how many of these cycles it takes, no matter how many times I face the end and begin anew. The universe is vast and incomprehensible, but I am driven to unravel its mysteries, one loop at a time.

Though 2019 space exploration game Outer Wilds featured a silent protagonist, I’d imagine something like the above passage raced through his mind the first time he encountered the time loop that serves as the game’s core mechanic.

If you haven’t played Outer Wilds, you really owe it to yourself to give it a spin before reading this piece, even if you don’t mind me spoiling it all for you. It’s a fantastic game, one that distills the wonders of exploration and discovery to their purest forms, all wrapped under layers upon layers of trippy meditations on the nature of space and time that are usually the purview of theoretical physicists, philosophers, and cosmologists, all of which you unravel by applying surprisingly faithful archaeological mindsets and methodologies.

In short, an analysis of this game is the perfect way to tie together Volume 4, however belatedly (turns out, I just needed more time to finish this game… which in a meta way, does make sense for a volume that explores time).

So, to wrap up Volume 4 almost two years after prematurely abandoning it (mea culpa), I will explore how Outer Wilds uses the concept of time—both mechanically and thematically—to craft a narrative that intertwines cosmic cycles, archaeological discovery, and paralyzing existential terror.

Every 22 Minutes, the Universe Forgets

To start, let’s quickly bring y’all up to speed, starting with the biggie, the main thing to learn and remember: Outer Wilds uses a time loop as its core gameplay mechanic.

Once the player loads up his save file, he has a little over 22 real-world minutes to explore and learn as much as he can before the sun blows up, triggering a time loop that spits him right back where he started. Lather, rinse, and (literally) repeat, ad infinitum until the player figures everything out and finishes the game, or else gets distracted/frustrated and moves on.

Once the sun goes “boom” and the time loop triggers, everything in the game is reset, save for the knowledge the player learned during each loop.2 This significantly shapes both the player’s experience and the game’s narrative progression.

On the player’s end, this time loop manifests as a paradoxical gameplay experience.

On one hand, it creates a sense of urgency to uncover and explore as much as possible within each 22-minute window.

This sense of urgency extends to the myriad timed events that trigger at certain points throughout the game’s explorable areas. This solar system is far from static, and the planets the player can explore constantly change throughout the course of the 22-minute loop, sometimes quite significantly. Some places might be completely inaccessible if you arrive at them too late in the time loop (or too early, for that matter).

The best in-game example of this lies in the Hourglass Twins, a binary planet system consisting of Ember Twin—a red planet dotted with intricate cave and canyon systems—orbiting its sister planet, Ash Twin: a big, spherical, planet-sized pile of sand. As the time loop progresses, sand from Ash Twin gets pulled and drawn into Ember Twin, like a big hourglass (hence the name). As a result, Ember Twin’s canyons and underground caverns slowly fill up with sand. At the same time, Ash Twin’s receding sands reveal previously hidden structures.

By the end of the time loop, Ember Twin’s caverns are almost entirely plugged up with sand (and thus impossible to explore), whereas Ash Twin’s mysterious, high-tech, and previously concealed buildings are now fully accessible… for a few minutes, at least, as by that point the sun’s about to go BOOM, and the Hourglass Twins’ orbits are the closest to the sun out of all the planets.

And the game is full of many similar examples!

On the other hand, this sense of urgency is somewhat blunted once the player realizes she quite literally has all the time in the world to piece things together. Since everything resets after 22 minutes, it doesn’t really matter (in the grand scheme of things) if the player arrives at Ember Twin’s lakebed caverns after they’re completely filled with sand—after all, she can always try again on the next loop. Or go explore some other thread before looping back (heh) on the caverns in some future cycle, whether it’s the next one, the twentieth, or even the hundredth.3

The time loop also has nontrivial implications for narrative progression. As the game gives you no explicit instructions or directions past the tutorial area, the player will very likely find the breadcrumbs that eventually lead to the ending out of order, and despite this obtuseness, sequence breaking—even if unintentional—is remarkably easy.

However, the morsels of information the player discovers are actually less like breadcrumbs, and more like puzzle pieces; the order in which you find them doesn’t really matter, and once you’ve accumulated enough of them, they’re easy enough to piece together. This not only encourages the player to explore thoroughly (so as to avoid being confused towards the end), it also allows non-linear, player-driven progression in the truest sense of the word.

In between the first and last loops the player experiences, the world won’t change one bit… but the player surely will.

And this makes the discoveries the player makes (both individually, and in aggregate) all the more personally meaningful, and the sense of accomplishment that much more palpable.

Digging Through the Stars

Despite (or perhaps due to) being set in an entirely fictional setting, I can’t picture a game that better trains its players to adopt an archaeological mindset than Outer Wilds.

Allow me to explain.

This is a game that tells you next to nothing about what to do or where to do it. Outer Wilds does give you some very rudimentary backstory in the optional tutorial section, but it’s so bare-bones that you’d quickly be able to piece it together on your own even if you flew out into space completely blind.

The gist of it is:

Incredible and fascinating ancient ruins and advanced technology—which are clearly alien in origin—litter our solar system, and we have no idea where the species behind them came from, or when they arrived… nor, for that matter, when they disappeared, or how, or why. We developed a space program to figure all of that out, and now it’s your turn to try and get some answers.

And so, as you explore the solar system, you start piecing together a picture of this progenitor race much in the same way an IRL archaeologist would for a long-gone ancient civilization.

First, by observing their material remains:

• Bodily remains (like bones),

• Structural remains (like ruins, or artifacts),

• The remains of written inscriptions and other attempts at communication.

Then, by deducing your way backwards in time to create a reasonably plausible picture of:

• How these people lived,

• Why they created the ruins and artifacts you now behold,

• What might have become of them.

Of course, having not actually lived in the past, we can’t know for sure… but the forgotten people’s remains tell a story that, with the right approach (namely, one involving sharp observation and critical thinking), we can safely take at face value—particularly if said people also left a written historical record to compliment the physical archaeological tracks they left behind.

And sure enough, this is very much the case in Outer Wilds, where the progenitor civilization—whom we soon learn is called the “Nomai”—left behind not only fragments of writings (which you can decipher, thanks to a machine your colleague Hal built after first cracking the language), but also entire cities and even fully functioning technology that your species (the Hearthians) were able to reverse engineer (which actually advanced the space program you’re now a part of).

Every planet in your humble little solar system bears the Nomai’s fingerprints. Some to a greater degree than others, but even your home planet, Timber Hearth, and its moon (which takes less than 30 real-world seconds to circumnavigate), are hiding Nomai breadcrumbs in plain sight, just waiting for an explorer juuuuust curious and smart enough to unearth them and follow their leads to other places in the solar system.

Thus, with each explored ruin, translated inscription, and analyzed relic, the player pieces together a complex temporal tapestry that, one artifact at a time, paints a picture of not just who the Nomai were and why they settled in your neighborhood, but also what they knew about the fate of your star system, and indeed of the universe as a whole.

And this is where the time stuff gets really trippy.

The Long Goodbye (And the Longer Hello)

So, what do you piece together from all your archaeological discoveries?

Hoooo boy. Let me take a deep breath before proceeding.

*Takes deep breath*

Ok… I’m ready. Shall we begin? Let’s start with the heaviest discovery you make:

The Universe is about to die. And not just sometime in the future, but in exactly 22 minutes from now.

Whoa… forget about the game for a second. How would you react in real life, were you to become privy to such information?

Me? I’d down as much gin as I possibly could before blacking out, sparing me the scorching pain and soul-crushing regret as I awaited getting burned up by the exploding sun before finally melting into sweet, sweet oblivion for all time.

Oh, sorry. Got lost in thought there for a second. Anyway, back to the plot of Outer Wilds!

Yes, you do find a veritable treasure trove of information about the Nomai, but all of that is superseded by that one simple fact about the Universe’s imminent demise.

This is even reflected in-game! Your colleague, Chert, has noticed how many stars have gone supernova in the hours before the time loop starts, and becomes increasingly despondent as he realizes the implications. At one point, he becomes practically catatonic, and is generally useless if you try to ask him for help or even just tell him about a discovery you made.

Here’s a representative quote of his:

“Why, isn’t that great! Do you know what, I’ve found a few things myself! Most of them have to do with the sun exploding! Oh, who cares?! What does it matter?! Nothing matters anymore! The sun is about to go supernova! And me, all my research, my life’s work, wasted! WASTED, YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

Though he most succinctly sums up his (and the player character’s) existential predicament later on, as he’s come to reluctantly accept his fate, just a couple of minutes before the sun goes supernova:

“We only get so much time, don’t we? Ah, there was still more I wanted to do… how unlucky to have been born at the end of the universe.”

Emphasis mine, for both quotes. Oh, and for further emphasis, the somber background music that signals the end of the time loop adds extra melancholy and pathos to that most grimmest of lines.

Indeed, Outer Wilds is quite cruel in how it so devilishly leads you on before forcing this bitter blackpill down your throat.

After all, the player starts out completely oblivious to the sun’s demise. And for about 3/4 of the game, the Nomai breadcrumbs the player finds all seem to point towards the Nomai’s increasingly reckless experimentation with supernovae and black holes as the reason for both the sun exploding and the subsequent time loop.

But, as it turns out, the Nomai are only responsible for the latter half of your predicament. Yes, they’re behind the time loop. But they’re not responsible for the sun blowing up! The sun explodes simply because it’s at the end of its natural lifecycle.

And if you take the time to consciously observe the stars throughout the course of the entire time loop, you’ll notice that a lot of them are going supernova as well, to the point that, at most, only 1/6 of the stars visible at the start of the loop are still shining by the time the supernova consumes you.

The implication is obvious: it’s not just the sun that’s dying. The entire UNIVERSE is about to die. And there’s NOTHING you can do about it.

But you CAN have a say in what comes next… IF you piece together the breadcrumbs properly and act accordingly.

Allow me to explain (yes, I know… again… just bear with me).

After digging around enough, the player discovers that the Nomai—the aforementioned, highly advanced progenitor race—had been conducting experiments to understand and potentially harness the power of a mysterious cosmic entity known as the Eye of the Universe. Their search was driven by a profound curiosity about the nature of the universe, and the Nomai’s place in it.

However, their search was cut short by the arrival of a comet, ominously named The Interloper, which approached the sun so close that its core ruptured, spreading its toxic contents—in this case, a noxious and deadly gas called “Ghost Matter” which is instantly lethal to any organic lifeforms it comes into contact with—throughout the universe, snuffing the Nomai out in one fell swoop.

Pretty bad timing on The Interloper’s part, as it extincted the Nomai before they could conclude their experiments to locate and contact the Eye of the Universe… experiments that included setting up the time loop, and trying to blow up the sun to harness the power needed to power said time loop.

However, as the game progresses, it becomes clear that the sun blows up not due to anything the Nomai did, but rather because it’s simply in the final stage of its life, going supernova naturally.4

The game’s climax sees the player actually reaching the Eye of the Universe. Here, they experience a surreal and highly metaphorical sequence that heralds the end of the current universe and the birth of a new one. This is a deeply philosophical moment, touching on themes of renewal, the cyclical nature of existence, and the small but ultimately highly significant role of individuals in painting the vast tapestry of the cosmos.

In the game’s final scenes, the player witnesses the creation of a new universe shaped by your decisions and discoveries throughout the game, the next stage of a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth on a cosmic scale. This sequence suggests that while individual lives and civilizations may be fleeting, they still meaningfully contribute to the ongoing, ever-evolving story of the universe.

It’s a really quite beautiful coda to a bittersweet story that, for all the player knew, was only getting bleaker by the minute. It also underscores the heavy profound philosophical questions the game presents to the player.

Basically, Outer Wilds uses the backdrop of a dying and rebirthing universe to explore deep existential riddles about impermanence, the nature of knowledge, the concept of time, existential meaning, interconnectedness, consciousness, and the balance between destiny and agency. It’s a poignant reflection on the human condition, set against the infinite canvas of the cosmos.

For starters, the game’s central theme of a cyclical universe is permeated with the Buddhist concept of impermanence. From this perspective, everything from stars to civilizations is transient. Accepting this impermanence, as witnessed in Chert’s eventual acceptance of the sun’s supernova, can be seen as a call to embrace the present and find meaning in existence’s fleeting nature.

In light of this fleeting impermanence, the player’s journey—which, like the Nomai’s, is driven by curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge—acquires an even more poignant layer. The player’s quest highlights a Socratic understanding of wisdom: realizing how little one truly knows. By setting the story at the very end of the universe’s lifespan, when the knowledge the characters accrue is arguably worthless and meaningless (as Chert alludes to further above), the game suggests that the pursuit of knowledge is in and of itself valuable—not just for the answers obtained, but for the questions that arise and for the very experience of going on the journey.

Outer Wilds also directly challenges the prevailing Western paradigm of time, which emphasizes linear progression by presenting a universe where time is cyclical. This view aligns with many Eastern philosophies, as well as some interpretations of quantum physics, suggesting that the universe’s end is just a prelude to another beginning, challenging the finality we typically associate with death (whether on a micro or macro scale).

The game also confronts existentialist themes by placing the player in a universe utterly indifferent to their existence, yet similarly filled with meaning that they must create for themselves. It reflects Albert Camus’ interpretation of The Myth of Sisyphus, where the acknowledgment of the universe’s absurdity and embracing one’s role within it is, in and of itself, an act of rebellion and a source of personal meaning—and one which stands in stark contrast to the other alien race introduced in Outer Wilds’ DLC, but we’ll get there in due time.

And yet, despite the universe’s vastness and the individual’s utter insignificance, the game posits that connections and legacies also matter. After all, the Nomai’s long-extinct civilization profoundly impacts the player’s journey, and the DLC’s big reveal underscores this concept even further. This interconnectivity across time and space reflects the philosophical idea that all things are interconnected and that actions, however small, leave ripples throughout time.

Outer Wilds also implicitly explores the role of consciousness in the universe. The player’s awareness of the time loop and their accumulating knowledge across cycles (not to mention the fact that a conscious observer must enter the Eye of the Universe in order to trigger the universe’s rebirth, which directly invokes quantum mechanics) all hint at a broader philosophical question about consciousness as a fundamental aspect of the universe itself, echoing theories of panpsychism and the philosophy of mind… but let’s put in a pin on those for another day.

Finally, the game’s neverending time loop illustrates the paradox of predestination and free will. On one hand, the time loop mechanic creates a predestined universe where preordained events repeat endlessly. On the other hand, the player exercises free will within each loop, hinting at the coexistence of destiny and autonomy.

This paradox invites the player to contemplate the nature of free will in a universe governed by immutable laws. And, as the ending shows, these laws themselves change with each incarnation of the universe, shaped by the observer who enters the Eye of the Universe and heralds this new beginning.

✨🪫⌛️SIDE QUEST: The Entropy of Everything – Thermodynamics and Cosmic Doom

So, we’ve already established that the sun in Outer Wilds isn’t exploding because the Nomai broke something. It’s simply exploding because… well, stars do that. They run out of fuel, collapse under their own gravity, and (if they’re massive enough) detonate in one final, spectacular cosmic tantrum.

Thus, it follows that the game’s central tragedy, and what makes it so existentially terrifying, isn’t that something went wrong (indeed, nothing went wrong), but rather that everything is working, exactly as the laws of physics intended.

Welcome to entropy: the universe’s way of saying “all good things must come to an end.”

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in any isolated system, entropy—a measure of disorder or randomness—tends to increase over time. Hot things cool down, organized structures fall apart, and energy spreads out until it’s evenly distributed, and therefore useless for doing work. This is as close to an ironclad law as you can get in physics, even moreso than gravity—seriously, I dare you to find a single example that contradicts it. I bet you $100 that you can’t.

Extrapolate this to the cosmos as a whole, and you get the “heat death” hypothesis: the idea that the universe will eventually reach a state of maximum entropy where nothing interesting can ever happen again. No stars, no planets, no chemistry, no life—just an endless expanse of uniformly distributed particles at equilibrium temperature, forever. Once the universe reaches this state, time itself will have no meaning.

Understandably, Victorian physicists found this prospect deeply depressing (Lord Kelvin, who first articulated the concept in the 1850s, was apparently not a lot of fun at parties). But the timeline for this depressingly humdrum fate is actually quite generous: current estimates suggest heat death won’t arrive for something like 10^100 years—a number so huge that writing it out would take more paper than exists in the observable universe!

Outer Wilds, however, compresses this cosmic endgame into 22 minutes.

The stars going dark throughout each loop are your first piece of evidence for this. The universe in Outer Wilds is so old it’s positively ancient, and it’s hovering at the edge of its final chapter. Your sun is simply one of the last dominoes to fall in a cascade that’s been building since time immemorial.

This makes Chert’s despair hit differently. When he realizes that “we were just born at the end of the universe,” he’s not just being melodramatic (ok, fine… maybe he is, but can you really blame the guy?). He’s also articulating the thermodynamic destiny that awaits all conscious beings everywhere: given enough time, entropy always wins.

But Outer Wilds doesn’t accept heat death as the final word. The Eye of the Universe, whatever else it might be, contains the mechanism for cosmic renewal: a way to bootstrap a new universe from the ashes of the old. The ending suggests an alternative to unstoppable linear progression toward oblivion: a recurring cycle of death and rebirth. Entropy and creation, occurring in cyclical progression, forever and ever.

And although this may seem like cope or wishful thinking (of the kind that’s completely understandable as a reaction to such a grim fate), it actually aligns surprisingly well with certain speculative cosmological models, most notably Roger Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC).

Penrose proposes that our universe is just one “aeon” in an infinite sequence: each universe expands until heat death, at which point (through some conformal magic involving the loss of mass and the irrelevance of scale) it matches onto a new Big Bang, and the whole process begins again.

It involves some fiendishly technical details that I won’t even attempt to parse here, but what matters most for our purposes is the theory’s compellingly basic intuition: what if the end of the universe isn’t actually an end, but rather a transformation, or a transition? What if this death is also a birth?

The Nomai, with their obsessive quest to reach the Eye, seem to have intuited something similar. They understood that the Eye was older than the universe itself—which, intuitively, only makes sense if “the universe” is a recurring phenomenon rather than a one-time event. Their faith that the Eye held answers proved cosmologically prescient.

It’s unclear whether the fine folks at Mobius Digital consciously drew on Penrose’s work (as far as I know, they haven’t confirmed as much in any interviews), but they hit upon a remarkably striking resonance with it. Both Outer Wilds and CCC suggest that entropy’s victory may turn out to be temporary, after all. They also posit that death and rebirth operate at scales beyond human comprehension, and that consciousness (i.e., the observer, the witness) plays some irreducible role in how the cosmic story unfolds.

Not bad for a game where you spend half your time crashing your wooden spaceship into things!

Shooting the Quantum Moon

One of Outer Wilds’ most mechanically and philosophically fascinating elements is the Quantum Moon: a celestial body that doesn’t simply orbit planets like a boring, quotidian moon, but rather exists in superposition across all of them simultaneously, only “choosing” a location when directly observed. If you’ve ever struggled to wrap your mind around Schrödinger’s cat, congratulations: you’re about to wrestle with Schrödinger’s entire friggin MOON.

The Quantum Moon embodies the game’s boldest conceptual gambit: translating quantum mechanics’ famously counterintuitive principles into a navigable gameplay space. In the real world, quantum superposition typically operates at scales so microscopic that they’re essentially invisible to our everyday experience. Electrons can exist in multiple states at once; cats cannot (no matter what Schrödinger’s thought experiment might suggest). But Outer Wilds asks: what if they could? What if uncertainty was a property of not just subatomic particles, but also entire celestial bodies?

Well, it turns out that the answer would look much like the Quantum Moon. I apologize in advance for any headaches and/or disorientation that you’re about to feel.

When you first encounter the Quantum Moon, it appears as if the game’s playing tricks on you. You spot it orbiting one planet, fly toward it, look away to check your instruments, and suddenly it’s gone… only to reappear near an entirely different planet. At first this feels like a bug or a glitch, but it’s actually very much the point; the Quantum Moon is the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, rendered in polygons and skyboxes.

The Copenhagen interpretation, formulated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s, posits that quantum systems exist in a superposition of all possible states until they are observed, at which point the wave function “collapses” into a single definite outcome. This theory’s key insight (and source of endless philosophical debate) is that observation itself plays a constitutive role in determining reality. Before measurement, there is no fact of the matter about where a particle is; there are only probabilities.

Outer Wilds scales up and literalizes this principle, and it actually does so quite faithfully. The Quantum Moon isn’t “really” in one place; it’s in all places at once, and your observation (literally, your camera’s gaze) forces it to commit to a single location. Look away, and it’s free to slip into another orbit entirely. The game even provides you with tools to exploit this behavior: by photographing quantum objects with your scout launcher, you can “lock” them in place, forcing them to remain in their observed state.

Oh, and this mechanic extends beyond the moon itself. Throughout the game, you’ll encounter quantum shards: fragments of rock that blink in and out of existence depending on whether you’re looking at them. In one fun and particularly memorable puzzle, you use these shards as stepping stones to cross a gap, carefully timing your glances to ensure they remain solid beneath your feet. It’s like playing “red light, green light” with reality itself!

But the Quantum Moon saves its most profound application for when you finally land on its surface and discover the Sixth Location—a position that corresponds to no planet at all, but rather to the Eye of the Universe itself. To reach it, you must understand and master all the quantum rules: land on the moon’s south pole, enter the quantum tower, and then let the moon shift while you’re inside, effectively hitchhiking across the cosmos on a probability wave.

What makes this work as both gameplay and philosophy is that Outer Wilds never treats quantum mechanics as mere window dressing. The rules are consistent and learnable, which means players can develop genuine intuitions about quantum behavior through nothing more than just playing the game! You learn, through trial and error, that observation matters. You learn that uncertainty is a feature, not a bug or a glitch, and that the universe doesn’t owe you stable ground to stand on.5

Can you honestly think of a better way to teach such a mind-beinding and counterintuitive subject as quantum physics?

Oh, and I’m not done yet, for the philosophical implications run deeper still. The Nomai, we learn, were utterly fascinated by quantum phenomena and conducted extensive research into the Quantum Moon and its properties. Their writings reveal a species genuinely grappling with the measurement problem: the question of what constitutes an “observation” sufficient to collapse a wave function. Does a camera count? How about a recording? Does a conscious mind need to be involved, or can any physical interaction suffice?

I know this may sound like gratuitous intellectual masturbation for stuffy Ivory Tower types, but these truly aren’t idle questions—the measurement problem remains one of the most contentious issues in foundational physics. Interpretations range from the relatively conservative (decoherence, which explains collapse as resulting from interaction with the environment) to the wild and borderline metaphysical (the Von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, which suggests consciousness itself causes wave function collapse). The Nomai don’t definitively answer these questions (for that matter, neither do real physicists), but their investigations add tons of intellectual texture to the game’s world.

But most significantly, the Quantum Moon serves as a bridge to the game’s ultimate destination. The Eye of the Universe, like the Quantum Moon, exists in a state of quantum possibility. When the player finally enters the Eye, he experiences a sequence that entirely dissolves the boundaries between observer and observed. Reality suddenly becomes malleable, shaped by consciousness and memory (expressed, in this case, by the player’s choices and thoroughness of his exploration). The game’s final act is, in effect, an extended meditation on what happens when quantum uncertainty scales up to the cosmic level.

Which is kind of ironic, and actually quite beautiful. Quantum mechanics was originally developed to explain the behavior of the smallest things in existence: particles so tiny they can only be described statistically. But in Outer Wilds, these principles govern the largest objects imaginable: moons, planets, and ultimately the universe itself. The game suggests that scale is, in some sense, arbitrary, and that the same fundamental strangeness underlies all of reality, whether we’re looking at electrons or galaxies.

This is all speculative physics, to be sure. But it’s the most imaginative and thoughtful kind of speculative physics. In teaching you about quantum mechanics, Outer Wilds makes you ponder and feel what quantum mechanics might mean for the way we understand reality, knowledge, and observation. And in doing so, it joins a proud tradition of science fiction that uses fantastical premises as vehicles for exploring genuine and deliciously meaty philosophical questions. Ones that we may never know the answer to, yet are very much worth asking.

The Nomai knew this, too. One recording, left by the Nomai explorer Solanum, states: “As a child, I considered such unknowns sinister. Now, though, I understand they bear no ill will. The universe is, and we are.”

After dozens of loops spent chasing a moon that refuses to stay put, I’m inclined to agree.

Pilgrims of the Impossible

So, who are the Nomai, anyway? This is one of the central questions the player seeks to answer in Outer Wilds, and indeed, the Nomai’s quest is a rich vignette of philosophical exploration, encompassing themes of existentialism, empiricism, ethics, the nature of time, and the very human (or Hearthian?) desire for legacy and understanding in an incomprehensibly vast universe. Their journey offers players a deep and textured narrative backdrop that doubles as a profound philosophical reflection.

At the heart of the Nomai’s existence lies an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Their civilization is built on exploration, scientific inquiry, and a deep respect for the unknown. This aligns with the philosophical tradition of empiricism, where sensory experience is the basis of all knowledge. The Nomai’s relentless pursuit of understanding the Eye of the Universe parallels humanity’s eternal quest to comprehend the cosmos and our origins.

But the Nomai are driven by more than just scientific curiosity! There is also an existential aspect to their quest. They seek the Eye of the Universe not just for answers about the physical world, but for a deeper understanding of existence itself. This aligns with existentialist philosophy (of the kind our friend Camus aligned with), where the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe is central to the very concept of meaning itself.

Oh, and that bit about a deep respect for the unknown? Well, the Nomai’s approach to the unknown is characterized by awe and humility (see Solanum’s quote at the end of the Quantum Moon section), mirroring philosophical perspectives that center respect and reverence in the face of the vast, unknowable cosmos. Their attitude reflects a blend of scientific rigor and philosophical wisdom, acknowledging that the universe is far greater than their fundamentally limited understanding—and which stands in stark contrast to the arrogance and hubris that seem to constantly undergird IRL human progress.

However, that’s not to say that the Nomai were entirely humble. Their meddling with time, especially their experiments with time loops and quantum states, could never have been even contemplated without a bit of hubris (and indeed, the spirited debate over constructing the Sun Station, the only purpose of which was to literally blow up the sun to trigger a time loop, shows that even the Nomai themselves were aware of this).

And their experiments also touch on complex philosophical questions about causality, time’s nature, and predestination. Their technology, which manipulates time, raises questions about the linear progression of time versus a more quantum, non-linear understanding of it (which also jibes with the quantum rules we explored in the previous section).

Due to these complexities, the Nomai’s quest carried some heavy ethical implications—indeed, there was fierce internal dissent and debate over how far the Nomai were willing, as a species, to go in pursuit of their quest. The Nomai’s experiments, especially those involving the Ash Twin Project (which created the time loop), raise questions about a civilization’s moral responsibility when wielding such immense power.

This reflects broader philosophical debates about science, ethics, and the responsibility that comes with possessing and deploying highly advanced knowledge and technology. But unlike humanity, the Nomai seemed far more capable of wielding their power responsibly.

This is partly because the Nomai, despite being from different clans and even disagreeing—sometimes vociferously so—with each other, ultimately worked harmoniously towards their common goal (namely: learning about, finding, and communing with the Eye of the Universe). This reflects their deeply held, species-wide philosophical ideals about the strengths of unity and the importance of collaborative effort in achieving significant, civilizational-level objectives.

Or to put it in simpler terms: they kept their eye on the ball, and were able to work through and even set aside their differences in the name of a common goal.

Hell, it’s the reason they were able to create vessels advanced enough to warp into the Hearthian solar system hundreds of thousands of years ago, and to create a machine that could essentially rewind time itself!

Of course, this leads to the biggest question of all:

The answer to this question is equally profound and vexing: it’s the same reason we humans seek to understand the origins and fate of the universe!

The Abyss Stares Back

Indeed, the Nomai’s quest for the Eye of the Universe serves as a powerful metaphor for the human quest to understand truth itself. This metaphor operates on multiple levels, and it touches on and reflects various philosophical and existential themes.

First, there’s the obvious symbolism of The Eye of the Universe as the ultimate source of knowledge, akin to the philosophical concept of an absolute truth. The Nomai’s relentless pursuit of the Eye parallels humanity’s timeless quest to understand the fundamental truths of our own existence, and those of the universe. It symbolizes our innate drive to seek answers to life’s most profound (and likely unanswerable) questions.

The Eye is an ancient and enigmatic entity, much like the elusive nature of truth itself. Before we actually contact it, the only thing we know about the Eye is that it’s older than the universe itself. But even after entering and communing with the Eye, it’s never fully understood or explained, which hints that absolute truth may be inherently unknowable or beyond human comprehension.

This aligns with the philosophical understanding that the pursuit of knowledge is always an ongoing process, always approaching but never completely reaching a complete understanding.

But the Nomai, for all their collective self-awareness and reverence for the unknown, unflinchingly believe that the Eye holds the key to understanding the universe’s nature and possibly their purpose within it, and thus they pursue their quest to reach the Eye with a vigor that sometimes seems manic.

This mirrors our own philosophical and existential quests for meaning in life and the universe. Just as the Nomai seek the Eye to understand their place in the cosmos, humanity has long sought to understand our existence’s purpose and the nature of reality, and we pursue this understanding just as vigorously as the Nomai, pulling at the wallpaper of existence harder and ever harder as science increasingly peels back the layers concealing the secrets of the universe.

The Nomai’s journey to the Eye is fraught with challenges, but also punctuated by discoveries and revelations, which also mirrors the human pursuit of knowledge and truth. Each step in both humanity’s and the Nomai’s journeys adds layers of understanding. This suggests that the pursuit of truth is just as important—if not even more so—as the truth itself.

In other words, the very process of seeking knowledge and understanding is itself a critical component of said knowledge and understanding, writ large. The Nomai’s breadcrumbs led to the player character reaching the Eye, just as alchemy and astrology laid the path for chemistry and physics to bring us to the verge of unlocking the universe’s deepest mysteries.

Notably, the Nomai’s quest is both scientific and philosophical, and it involves empirical investigation and deep contemplation in about equal measure. This dual approach reflects the human endeavor to understand truth through both scientific inquiry and philosophical reflection, though the Nomai approach it quite differently (and arguably more effectively) than we do.

In human history, these two methods of ontological inquiry (science and philosophy) have often been at odds with each other, and at best have had a strained relationship. But the Nomai, by contrast, seem to have acknowledged that different methods of understanding can provide complementary, not competing or contradictory, insights into the nature of reality.

Maybe we should take some cues from the Nomai! Though, to be fair, as theoretical physics gives us an unprecedented lens into the universe’s deepest workings—and both takes us back to its earliest moments and carries us all the way forward to its ultimate fate—it often veers into highly philosophical and even pseudo-metaphysical territory (look up string theory, quantum entanglement, and multiverse theory if you don’t believe me).

In their quest, the Nomai encounter limitations and setbacks (the Eye’s signal abruptly cutting out, their Vessel crashing, the imminent demise of the Universe), teaching them humility. They come to understand that in seeking truth, we must acknowledge our limitations and be humble before nature and reality. This resonates with the philosophical understanding that recognizing our finite nature and the overwhelming vastness of what we don’t know is a crucial piece of our journey towards truth.

And speaking of finite natures, the Nomai do not complete their quest within their lifetime—indeed, they’re wiped out by ghost matter before they even register what’s happening to them—but they nevertheless leave behind knowledge and clues for others. The Nomai’s quest for truth is a collective, intergenerational (and, indeed, interspecies) endeavor: each generation builds upon the knowledge and understanding of those who came before, and leaves their knowledge behind for those who come after to, in turn, build further on it.

This stands in stark contrast to the other progenitor race in the Outer Wilds universe, the one introduced in the DLC, Echoes of the Eye, and whose reaction to the universe’s harsh truths could not be more different.

The Owlks Who Couldn’t Look

As if the base game wasn’t deep enough, Mobius Digital and Annapurna Interactive unleashed a DLC for Outer Wilds just a couple of years later. And as would be expected a game as deep as this, the Echoes of the Eye DLC is just as complex and thought-provoking as the base game.

Like any good DLC, it expands the game’s universe and playable area. But this being Outer Wilds we’re dealing with, Echoes of the Eye also enriches the base game’s philosophical depth, particularly through the poignant and tragic story of “The Prisoner” and the societal dynamics of that character’s civilization—never named in-universe, but usually referred to as either “Strangers” (a reference to their vessel, “The Stranger”) or “Owlks” (owing to their supremely creepy appearance as humanoid owls with elk antlers).

The expansion begins with the player character discovering a hidden satellite, known as The Stranger, orbiting around the Eye of the Universe. Upon investigating, you discover that this “satellite” is actually a concealed ringworld, akin to a miniature Halo, enveloped in darkness—indeed, the cloaking device is so sophisticated that not only the Hearthians, but even the Nomai, were entirely unaware of the Stranger’s existence. The player is the first being to ever learn of its existence and eventually happen upon it (both of which the player can do pretty much right off the bat, though they each require a dash of Sherlock Holmes-level deduction).

The Stranger itself is a marvel of engineering, designed to secretly house an entire civilization. This artificial habitat is a faithful recreation of the Owlks’ actual home world, a design choice that foreshadows their ultimate decision to hide from the universe’s harsh realities, and their chosen method of doing so.

Like the Nomai, the Owlks created a technologically advanced society—albeit in different ways, with the Olks specifically going notably hard on light manipulation and virtual reality. Their philosophical approach and reactions to the ultimate truth of the Eye of the Universe are also polar opposites to the Nomai’s.

You see, like the Nomai, the Owlks also detected a signal from the Eye of the Universe. And similarly to the Nomai, the Owlks also became singularly obsessed with reaching the Eye, even worshipping it—but unlike the Nomai, the Owlks reached the point of stripping their home world entirely bare of resources to build The Stranger, in the hopes that it would eventually bring them to the Eye and its truth.

But as they got closer to the Eye, things went belly up. They received visions of the universe’s impending death (and rebirth), and were horrified by what they saw. In an act of mass apostasy, they burned not only their places of worship to the Eye, but also most of the records of their own history.

Then, despondent from the dual whammy of knowing the universe was about to die and being unable to return to their home world (which, remember, they’d entirely stripped of resources in order to build the Stranger), they chose to instead build a computer simulation of their home world, where they could at least live out their remaining days in an at least passable facsimile of their home planet.6

At the same time, in order to stop other (and perhaps nosier) species from happening upon the Eye of the Universe, the Owlks built and launched a probe that would scramble and cloak the Eye’s signal, so as to prevent other civilizations from suffering the Owlks’ horrible fate.

That’s where the Prisoner comes in.

🪐👾💤 SIDE QUEST: Simulating Eternity – The Owlks’ Virtual Paradise/Nightmare

The Owlks’ decision to retreat into a simulated reality might strike you as cowardly. And in some ways, it is. But it’s also a surprisingly rational response to a genuinely impossible situation.

Consider their predicament: they’ve traveled across the cosmos, stripped their homeworld bare in pursuit of ultimate truth, and discovered that the truth is terrible: the universe is dying, there’s no going back, and the thing they’ve spent generations searching for—the Eye—turns out to herald not their salvation, but rather a complete and utterly unknowable transformation.

So they built themselves a comfortable prison: a virtual reconstruction of the world they destroyed, populated by the ghosts of who they used to be. And there they stayed, dreaming their collective dream, wiling away their days, eternally waiting for an end they’ve chosen not to face.

It’s easy to read their actions as mere denial, but a deeper logic underlies them—and it hints at how advanced civilizations might actually cope with the universe’s thermodynamic endgame.

Physicist Freeman Dyson, in a famous 1979 paper titled “Time Without End,” proposed that intelligent life could potentially survive indefinitely, even in a cooling universe, by slowing down its thought processes and reducing its energy consumption to match the dwindling resources available to it. His key insight was that subjective experience, not absolute time, is what really matters: if you think more slowly as the universe cools, you can stretch limited energy reserves across an effectively infinite subjective duration.

The Owlks’ simulation represents a different strategy, but it operates on similar logic—by retreating into a virtual environment, they entirely decouple their subjective experience from physical reality. Presto, problem solved: the real universe is dying, but it doesn’t matter anymore because within the simulation, time operates according to whatever rules the Owlks programmed. They could, in principle, experience billions of subjective years before the physical hardware finally fails.7

This idea sounds far-fetched, but it’s actually received serious attention from several physicists and philosophers who feed their families by thinking about the far future. Nick Bostrom’s famous Simulation Theory suggests we might already live in such a construction, while physicist Andrei Linde has speculated about “pocket universes” that could persist even as their parent cosmos decays. Then there are the countless science fiction authors who have explored the notion of uploading consciousness onto virtual substrates (whether or not it’s done as a hedge against physical extinction).

The Owlks, in other words, aren’t just tucking their tails (antlers?) between their legs and speedrunning away from reality. They’re actually implementing a survival strategy that some of our own brightest minds have seriously considered.

But it’s actually not the simulation itself that makes their story so tragic, but rather what they sacrificed to maintain it:

• By blocking the Eye’s signal, they condemned other species to die in ignorance.

• By imprisoning the Prisoner (which we’ll explore more deeply in a second), they punished the very curiosity that once defined them.

• And by burning their history, they severed themselves from their own past.

The Owlks originally built The Stranger as a bridge to the future, but in constructing the simulation, they turned it into a tomb. A beautiful, comfortable, self-made tomb.

And yet, we’re never asked to simply condemn them. The game treats the Owlks remarkably sympathetically, presenting their choice to retreat into their own bespoke Matrix as an entirely understandable path to take, even as it starkly illustrates the steep costs of walking it. Faced with the death of everything, the Owlks chose to remember what they’d lost rather than face what was coming.

Can you really blame them? Would you have chosen differently?

One Small Step for a Heretic

The Prisoner’s arc is Echoes of the Eye’s central character narrative. A key figure among the Owlks, The Prisoner—unlike most of his kind—chose to reject the simulated reality his kin embraced, and instead face the harsh truth of their civilization’s plight. This character’s story, beyond being narratively pivotal for reasons we’ll discuss shortly, also highlights the moral and philosophical dilemmas facing the Owlks.

At some point, the Prisoner awakens from the collective simulation (which, remember, is a virtual reality created by the Owlks to escape the harsh truths about their existence and ultimate fate), galvanized by a realization or belief that his species’ fear of the Eye of the Universe is unfounded. The Prisoner, then, embodies a spirit of inquiry and courage by choosing to confront reality rather than succumb to the comfortable illusions that his kin have chosen.

The Prisoner then deactivates the probe that’s scrambling the Eye of the Universe’s signals. This act is both a rebellion against the Owlks’ collective denial, and a quest for truth in and of itself. It’s a crucial moment —a confrontation with the fear that has long gripped the Owlks—a fear so intense that it led them to retreat en masse into an artificial reality.

And just as every action begets a reaction, the Prisoner’s solitary act of defiance ultimately led to the game’s story itself!

When the Prisoner deactivated the scrambling probe, he allowed a signal from the Eye to briefly reach the Nomai in the first place, setting in motion the events that eventually led to the exploration of the Hearthian solar system and, ultimately, the game’s main storyline. This defiant act, born from a desire for truth and understanding, inadvertently becomes the catalyst for Outer Wilds’ entire narrative, illustrating how even the smallest individual actions can ripple across space and time with unforeseen consequences.

But alas, in a tragic and sadly predictable twist, the Prisoner’s pursuit of truth came at a huge personal cost, leading to his eternal imprisonment—both physically, and within the simulation—by his own kin, who were furious at the Prisoner’s act of defiance. The scrambling probe was also re-activated, to add insult to injury (though by that point, the proverbial dominoes had already started falling).

This punishment shows us how deeply the Owlks feared the Eye, as well as the lengths they were willing to go to keep their heads buried in the sand. The Prisoner’s fate—an eternal, solitary existence trapped in a false reality—starkly illustrates the costs of seeking truth within a society committed to illusion.

It’s an immensely powerful metaphor for the isolation and ostracism that often befall those who bravely challenge deeply entrenched beliefs and fears. The prophet gets exiled, the apostate gets burned at the stake, and the brave Owlk gets locked away, alone, for all eternity.

The Prisoner’s story is also a profound meditation on the human condition. It explores the nature of fear—specifically, the fear of the unknown, and the lengths to which individuals and civilizations alike will go to avoid confronting truths that they fear. The Owlks’ collective decision to hide from the Eye, to the point of madness, contrasts sharply with the Prisoner’s courageous confrontation with reality.

This dichotomy raises existential questions about the nature of reality, the ethics of escapism, and the value of truth.

Fortunately, in the grand scheme of things, Prisoner ultimately makes a profound and lasting impact despite his story ending in personal tragedy. Indeed, it is the Prisoner’s actions that directly led to the events central to Outer Wilds’ narrative. The Prisoner’s legacy is a testament to the idea that the pursuit of truth, even in the face of overwhelming opposition and devastating personal consequences, can have far-reaching and transformative effects, often for the better, that can scarcely be predicted at the time.

Indeed, when the player frees the Prisoner at the end of his quest, the Prisoner looks positively elated as the Hearthian fills him in on what happened. Finally free and vindicated after an eternity of punitive solitary confinement, the Prisoner rides away on a raft, presumably to enjoy his last few moments of freedom before the Universe dies out.

All in all, the Prisoner’s story serves as a poignant commentary on the power of individual agency in the face of collective denial. It reminds us how important it is to always question and seek the truth, even when it means standing alone. The Prisoner’s fate is both a warning and an inspiration: a caution against the dangers of willful ignorance, as well as a tribute to the enduring spirit of inquiry.

The Nomai would’ve been very proud of the Prisoner.

The Last Campfire

What does it mean to play a game about the end of everything?

On one level, Outer Wilds is a puzzle box: a meticulously constructed system of interlocking mysteries that rewards patience, observation, and lateral thinking. The time loop provides both constraint and freedom—you can explore however you want, and in whatever order you choose, but you’ll always end up back at the beginning, 22 minutes later, after watching the sun consume everything you’ve learned to love, over and over again.

On another level, it’s a meditation on mortality, on both the individual and cosmic scales—the death that awaits even stars, galaxies, and eventually the universe itself. The game forces you to confront, repeatedly and viscerally, the fact that everything ends. Every loop, without exception, ends in fire.

But what actually makes Outer Wilds genuinely deep (I’d even say profound!) is how it responds to this knowledge. It doesn’t counsel despair (though Chert tries his best), nor does it offer false hope or cheap consolation. Instead, it offers a radical proposition: what if endings could also be beginnings? Could destruction actually be a form of creation? If that’s the case, then it follows that the universe’s final act might actually be an entirely new story’s prologue.

Which brings us to the game’s ending, which is where Outer Wilds fully realizes this proposition. Unlike what’s usually expected in video games, you don’t enter the Eye of the Universe (and, thus, fulfill the game’s victory condition) by defeating death or escaping entropy—indeed, by the time you enter the Eye, entropy will have fully run its course and the universe as you knew it will have already drawn its final breath. But then, you participate in the birth of a new cosmos: one shaped, in some ineffable way, by everything you’ve experienced and everyone you’ve met along the way.

This new universe carries forward some traces of the old: the Nomai’s curiosity, the Owlks’ sorrow, and your own stubborn refusal to stop exploring even when the stars themselves were going dark before your very eyes.

This is, in essence, the answer that Outer Wilds offers to the existential despair that haunts its solar system (as well as our own). Not by positing that death doesn’t matter—indeed, it matters tremendously—but rather that what we do before death matters just as much.

The Nomai’s research led (eventually) to the universe’s renewal, while the Prisoner’s single act of defiance set in motion a chain of events spanning hundreds of thousands of years, culminating in that melancholic and poignant chorus around the campfire at the end of time. And your patient exploration, as well as all the knowledge you’ve diligently accumulated across countless loops (every inscription you translated, every ruin you explored, every connection you made), becomes the foundation for whatever comes next.

This deeply and intrinsically Buddhist perspective infuses Outer Wilds to its very core. The game accepts impermanence as a fundamental truth while insisting that impermanence doesn’t negate meaning. Each moment matters, precisely because it won’t last. And each discovery matters, precisely because it emerges from and contributes to a larger story that transcends any individual person or society’s lifespan.

But Outer Wilds’ emphasis on agency and exploration is also a deeply Western ethos. The Nomai, for all their acceptance of uncertainty, never stopped pushing forward, building their impossible machines and launching their improbable quests because understanding the universe seemed worthwhile, even if (especially if!) the universe was finite and in the twilight of its life. They modeled a kind of heroic empiricism that the game invites you to likewise adopt.

And then there are the Owlks, who chose differently. Faced with the same cosmic truths, they retreated into a comfortable illusion, sacrificing their future (and very nearly everyone else’s, a fact for which the Prisoner feels compelled to apologize to the player on behalf of his species) for the sake of an eternal present. They’re not villains (the game is far too kind for that), but they do represent a path not taken: a warning about what happens when the fear of endings overwhelms the capacity for new beginnings.

The final sequence, where you gather around the campfire with the ghosts of everyone who helped you along the way and play music together as a new universe coalesces, is a startlingly gentle finale for a game about cosmic apocalypse. It suggests that what survives entropy isn’t information or energy or even consciousness, exactly… but rather, connection. The bonds we forge across species and centuries, the knowledge we share and preserve, and the meaning we create together rather than discover alone.

Maybe that’s the secret the Eye was keeping all along. Instead of just dying in the end, the universe transforms. And neither physics nor cosmology nor even philosophy determines that transformation’s nature. Instead, it’s us. WE determine how the universe transforms, through the choices we make and the questions we ask and the simple, stubborn act of showing up, loop after loop, to bear witness to whatever comes next.

Timber Hearth’s final sunset isn’t an ending, but an invitation.

Grab your marshmallows.

Yes, even you, Chert.

~Jay

Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts

While you wait for the next issue, I invite you to mull over the following discussion prompts. Please reply to this email with your answers, or post them in the comments—I'd love to hear your thoughts!

1. On Cosmic Indifference: The universe in Outer Wilds is dying through entirely natural processes—no villain, no malice, just thermodynamics. How does confronting a truly indifferent universe differ from confronting a hostile one? Does the absence of agency in the apocalypse make it more or less bearable?

2. The Nomai vs. The Owlks: Both species discovered the same truth about the Eye of the Universe, but responded in opposite ways. What factors might explain their different reactions? Is one response more “correct” than the other, or are they equally valid coping mechanisms?

3. Knowledge and Meaning: The player’s knowledge persists across loops even as the universe resets. In a world doomed to end, what value does knowledge have? Does learning something that will be erased in 22 minutes still count as meaningful?

4. The Prisoner’s Choice: The Prisoner’s act of defiance came at an enormous personal cost and benefited people who wouldn’t exist for hundreds of thousands of years. Was the sacrifice worth it? How do we evaluate actions whose consequences we can never witness?

5. Observation and Reality: The Quantum Moon only “exists” in a definite location when observed. Does Outer Wilds suggest that consciousness plays a special role in determining reality? If so, what implications might this have for the nature of the universe itself?

6. Cyclical vs. Linear Time: The game presents both cyclical time (the loop) and linear time (the universe’s eventual death and rebirth). How do these two conceptions of time interact? Does accepting cyclical time make individual moments more or less precious?

7. The Ethics of Survival: The Owlks built their simulation to escape the reality of cosmic death. Is retreating into virtual reality a legitimate survival strategy, or does it represent a failure of courage? Would you make the same choice?

Leave a comment

Further Reading

Cosmology and Physics:

• Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe by Roger Penrose — The Nobel laureate’s accessible introduction to Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, which proposes that our universe is one “aeon” in an infinite sequence of cosmic death and rebirth. Essential context for understanding Outer Wilds’ ending. – Amazon

• The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe by Paul Davies — A lucid exploration of heat death, Big Crunch, and other possible cosmic endings. Davies writes for non-specialists while respecting the genuine strangeness of the physics involved. – Amazon

• From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time by Sean Carroll — An ambitious attempt to explain why time has a direction and what that means for the universe’s past and future. Particularly relevant for understanding entropy and the arrow of time. – Amazon

Quantum Mechanics:

• QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman — The most accessible introduction to quantum weirdness by one of its greatest practitioners. Feynman’s lectures on the double-slit experiment remain the gold standard. – Amazon

• The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone by Kenneth W. Ford — A gentle introduction to the measurement problem, wave function collapse, and other concepts that Outer Wilds plays with so effectively. – Amazon

Philosophy of Time and Existence:

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus — The foundational text for understanding how to find meaning in an absurd universe. Outer Wilds is essentially interactive Camus. – Internet Archive

• Being and Time by Martin Heidegger — Dense and challenging, but crucial for understanding how philosophers have grappled with mortality and temporal existence. The concept of “being-toward-death” resonates strongly with the game’s themes. – Internet Archive

• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl — Written by a Holocaust survivor, this meditation on finding purpose in suffering offers a counterpoint to nihilistic despair. – Internet Archive

Games Featured:

• Outer Wilds, developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive — Steam | PlayStation | Xbox | Nintendo Switch

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Footnotes

Meanwhile, if you haven’t read the main article that this piece supplements, be sure to catch up here:

Read more

Game & Word Volume 5, Issue 4: Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025

• Publisher: Jay Rooney

• Author, Graphics, Research: Jay Rooney

• Logo: Jarnest Media

Table of Contents

1. Summary & Housekeeping

2. Feature: “Wild Cards and Wilder Magic” (~135 minute read)

3. Food for Talk: Discussion Prompts

4. Further Reading

5. Game & Word-of-Mouth

6. Footnotes

Summary:

Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃🍽️🍁

After chowing down, instead of arguing about politics with your MAGA uncle/woke aunt for the 1,000th time, why not plop out on the couch with my massive, mega, +2 hour-long Balatro analysis as you digest all that turkey? I’ve been cooking this one in the oven for about as long as it takes to cook an actual Thanksgiving turkey (which is to say, the better part of a year), and now, just in time for this most unironically wholesome of American holidays, it’s fresh out the oven, baked through with layers upon layers of historical, gameplay, and archetypal/metaspiritual analysis. Bon appetit!

Anyway, I suppose I should explain what’s on the menu today.

LocalThunk’s indie darling Balatro is a poker roguelike with a Joker problem. It also happens to be a masterclass in how cards have always been magical, from their 9th-century Chinese origins to today’s Skyrim Tarot readings. So today, we’re going to explore the mystical DNA woven into the game’s every shuffle, deal, and discard.

For today’s appetizer, we’ll examine how playing cards evolved from Ancient Chinese gambling tools into instruments of divination, why the Tarot’s journey from Renaissance parlor game to occult cipher mirrors our own search for meaning in chaos, and what it means when we convince ourselves that our deck is “hot” or that we needed that one particular Joker at exactly that moment.

Then, for the main course, we’ll examine Balatro’s three mystical card systems:

• Planet cards (astrology meets poker),

• Spectral cards (high-risk occult power), and

• Tarot cards (the Fool’s Journey via deck modification)

Alongside a deep dive into the game’s most iconic Jokers themselves!

We’ll examine everything, from the Trickster archetype underpinning every single one of Balatro’s 150 Jokers, to the Ceremonial Dagger’s economics of blood magic. Along the way, we’ll discover that probability and prophecy are the same thing, that Magic: The Gathering and actual card magic (the technical term is “cartomancy”) share more DNA than you’d think, and that every time you play Balatro at 2 AM, you’re participating in a millennia-old mystical tradition.

Finally, we’ll end with a light dessert of fun discussion prompts and a robust reading list for you to dive deeper into all the themes we’ve explored today.

Oh, and paid subscribers will also get an extra side dish (hitting your inbox later today): a side quest exploring the incredible story behind the iconic illustrations of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck!

So whether you’re a practicing magician or just someone who really loves big numbers and broken Joker combos, you’ll discover why Balatro works on such a deeply archetypal level. Short answer: because it shines a light on and makes explicit what cards have always done, which is to transform randomness into meaning, chaos into order, and a simple deck of 52 cards into a pocket universe you can hold in your hands.

Long answer? You’ll just have to read ahead :D

Enjoy, and have a bountiful and satiating Thanksgiving Day!

~Jay

Housekeeping:

Let’s go!

Previous Issues

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Older issues are currently archived and only accessible to paid subscribers. To access the full archive, upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscriptions are currently 95% off, through the end of the year!

• Volume 1 (The Name of the Game): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4

• Volume 2 (Yo Ho Ho, It’s a Gamer’s Life for Me): Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Bonus 1 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Bonus 2 ● Issue 8 ● Bonus 3

• Volume 3 (Game Over Matter): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 4 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Bonus 1 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 2 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9 ● Podcast 3 ● Bonus 2

• Volume 4 (Tempus Ludos): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Video Podcast 1 ● Video Podcast 2 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Podcast 1 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8 ● Issue 9

• Volume 5 (AbraCODEabra!): Intro ● Issue 1 ● Issue 2 ● Issue 3 ● Issue 4 ● Issue 5 ● Issue 6 ● Issue 7 ● Issue 8

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Feature: Wild Cards and Wilder Magic

🚨🚨🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨🚨🚨 

I’m not quite sure how you even spoil a game like Balatro, which has no story, plot, or narrative. Though I suppose if you’d rather discover all the Jokers for yourself, and develop your own strategies organically, without me spilling the beans on a few totally broken and OP Joker combos, then you might want to play the game (maybe win a round or finish a run) before reading ahead (especially the second half of this article.

💡💡💡 POINT OF CLARIFICATION 💡💡💡

Some people spell the supernatural variety of “magic” as “magick,” to distinguish it from stage magic. I, personally, prefer to spell it as “magic.” So if you’re confused as to which kind I’m referring to, just remember that I’m referring to the IRL kind unless I specifically indicate otherwise.

(Card) Tricks & Treats

Ever since it first came out on Switch (and then mobile), I’ve been spending way too many late nights playing Balatro, indie developer LocalThunk’s devilishly addicting deckbuilder roguelike that took Steam, iOS, and consoles by storm and even won Best Mobile Game and Best Indie Game in the 2024 Game Awards.

The premise is quite simple: Poker, but you’re allowed to cheat. Nay, you’re encouraged to cheat. In fact, you have to cheat if you want to get anywhere near winning a round.

But how do you cheat? With Jokers. Which is fitting enough: in many a card game (including some variations of poker itself), Jokers serve as wild cards that add an element of unpredictability to the game. Balatro simply takes this to the next level.1

There are 150 Jokers you can acquire in the game, and they do everything from buffing your cards, to duplicating them, to adding entirely new types of cards to your deck, to increasing your payout when you win a round, to increasing your number of draws or discards, and everything in between.

As a result, you can play crazy and highly illegal hands that would get your knees capped if you ever tried playing them in an actual casino (or even a casual poker night). Among them:

• Five of a Kind

• Flush Five (ie, Five of a Kind, but all the same suit)

• Flush House (a Full House, but again, with all cards of the same suit)

If you’re a poker player, face it: there’s been at least one time you’ve stared at your hand, with a measly pair of 2s, and wished you could pull four Aces out of thin air and make out with the pot like a Wild West bandit. Well, now you can!2

Balatro is relevant to this Volume’s topic for a few reasons:

1. Cards have an inherently magical quality to them. Their sheer randomness and the structures (ie, games) they’re played in make them a microcosm or simplification of the rules and nature of magic. Think about it: there’s even an entire trading card game based on magic,3 stage magicians always have at least one card trick in their repertoire, and cards—most famously, but certainly not limited to, the Tarot—have long been a favored tool for divination;

2. In a very meta sense, magic is kind of like a cheat code for life. You use it to bend the rules of probability to produce a much more favorable outcome than chance and/or skill alone would,4 much like the Jokers in Balatro do;

3. Jokers aren’t the only cards in Balatro that augment your deck. You can also draw and deploy cards that are more overtly magical in nature: Planet cards (astrology), Spectral cards (spooky occult-y stuff), and of course, Tarot cards (self-explanatory).

We’ll now go into all of these themes, in great detail. Ante up, everyone!

The Magical Nature of Cards

Playing cards. I love ‘em, you love ‘em, everybody loves ‘em! But have you ever wondered where they came from? Like, how did people first figure out to slap pictures and numbers on a bunch of small cardboard rectangles, mix them up, and use them for entertainment and fortune telling?

Turns out, to trace the origins of cards, we have to go WAY back, and to the other side of the world!

The earliest known playing cards appeared in China during the Tang Dynasty (so, around the 9th Century CE). Like all things ancient, their precise provenance is up for debate, but these early cards, called pai (meaning “plaque” or “tablet”), likely evolved from paper money or dominos, and were often used for both passing the time and (naturally) for gambling.

People sure love their gambling. And their games, for that matter. Can totally relate to that.

Anyway, cards eventually spread westward from China, eventually reaching India, Persia, and the Islamic world by the 12th Century CE, where they started picking up some of their currently recognizable traits. For instance, the Mamluk cards (which came out of Egypt in the 13th Century CE) resemble modern playing cards much more closely, complete with suits and court cards (though in this case, still a bit different: kings, viziers, and deputies).

These cards then traveled to Europe through existing trade routes—especially around the Mediterranean—and by the 14th Century CE, playing cards had made their way to Europe, with Italy, Spain, and France developing their own card designs.

These early European decks had suits similar to the ones we know today, though they varied a bit by region. For example, Italian and Spanish decks used coins, cups, swords, and clubs5 as suits. But it was the French who’d eventually standardize the suits we recognize today: Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs. And because these symbols were easier to print with wooden blocks (ie, early moveable type), this aided the cards’ mass production, accelerating their adoption.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The Draw of Cartomancy

Cards, especially Tarot, Lenormand, and Oracle decks—but also good ole’ playing cards—have been used in divination for centuries, both to predict the future and to gain insight into the unseen forces at play in the world and in our lives.

Why is this so? Because by their very nature, cards shuffle6 the concepts of randomness and predestination, which mirrors magical and mystical practices throughout the world and throughout the ages. Cards are tools that allow us to shuffle, deal, and reveal the forces of fate, reflecting the mystical balance between chaos and order, or between structure and spontaneity.

You could even say that a deck of cards represents structured chaos. Each card is a fragment of possibility. And while the way the cards are shuffled and drawn feels random, the deck itself is a structured system.

This echoes the duality seen in magic—the balance between control and surrender. In magic, you work within the structure of rituals and symbols to influence the unknown. Cards are therefore a perfect metaphor for this interplay, with their structured randomness mirroring the laws of magic and probability.

Furthermore, cards inherently play with the concepts of chance and fate, which also goes hand in hand with magic, where the practitioner seeks to influence or interpret fate. The shuffling of cards creates a sense of randomness, but in magic, it’s often believed that no card is truly drawn by accident—fate, or a guiding hand, has led the shuffle… and what you draw reflects deeper forces at work.

So when I briefly touched on how magic itself is like a “cheat code” for life, that was a bit of an oversimplification. Maybe even a misnomer! For in many mystical traditions, magic is not quite about breaking rules; it’s about discovering hidden rules that most people can’t see, and then bending them to your will.

In the same way that the Jokers in Balatro let you bend the rules of the game, magic lets practitioners bend the rules of reality. You can think of magic as “hacking” either the cosmic code or the recesses of your mind (depending on whether your views on magic are more overtly spiritual, or of the more secular Jungian/psychological kind), letting you bypass obstacles or find shortcuts to success, much like the Flush Houses and Fives of a Kind you can play in Balatro.

And this can be quite literal. In some folk magic traditions, like Hoodoo, practitioners sometimes use regular playing cards for divination, or even for casting spells. This is known as cartomancy.

In cartomancy, a deck of cards’ four suits (Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades) are often linked to the classical elements (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water), each carrying specific energies and synergies which imbue them with mystical power.

There is, of course, some variance between systems (and even, sometimes, between decks), but here’s how the suits generally correspond to each element:

• Water (Hearts [Cards] | Cups [Tarot]): Emotions, intuition, relationships.

• Earth (Diamonds [Cards] | Pentacles [Tarot]): Material concerns, wealth, the physical world.

• Fire (Clubs [Cards] | Wands [Tarot]): Action, ambition, willpower.

• Air (Spades [Cards] | Swords [Tarot]): Intellect, challenges, conflict.

These associations deepen the idea that when we shuffle and play cards, we are shuffling and playing with the elements of life itself, drawing on the symbolic powers they represent.

Therefore, when the cartomancer shuffles and spreads the cards, she taps into spiritual or subconscious forces that reveal patterns hidden to the naked eye.

The way the cards are drawn is also imbued with mystical significance. Cards often work in spreads—layouts that can be thought to reveal divine or cosmic patterns. In the Tarot, for instance, the Celtic Cross or the Three-Card Spread create a framework through which chaos is made legible. But from the cartomancer’s perspective, even a Texas Hold ‘Em spread can be highly symbolic in its own right.

The magical or mystical act of playing cards, then, is more than a matter of chance—it uncovers a hidden order, and glimpses into the divine patterns underlying the universe.

Indeed, a deck of cards is like a miniature universe we can hold in our hands, shuffling through the elements and fates that govern the world.

And this holds true not just with playing cards, but also—of course—the Tarot.

The Gamer Arcana

Though all cards can be used for divination, the Tarot is by far the most popular and iconic fortune telling deck.7 The Tarot’s popularity stems from its versatility: it’s compatible with and can enhance just about any mystical or magical system from astrology to alchemy, because it makes use of archetypal imagery that’s intuitive and easy to interpret, regardless of the practitioner’s background, culture, or tradition.

The imagery in the Tarot thus acts as a “key” or a cipher for divining the past, present, and future, as well as for revealing hidden truths.

And each card in the deck is dripping with rich symbology. The Major Arcana, in particular, represent the archetypal spiritual journey (The Fool's Journey), mirroring the equally archetypal Hero’s Journey, which in turn mirrors the challenges, growth, and enlightenment we each encounter in our lives.

But even the cards of the Minor Arcana tell a story with each draw, as well. In fact, the Tarot is a phenomenal tool for writing and storytelling—which is also itself a deeply magical act! If you’re a writer, and not currently using the Tarot for worldbuilding, character creation, or plot outlining, you owe it to yourself to start doing so. No other system provides the same degree of structure and flexibility.

From Aristocratic Amusement to Mystical Gateway

The Tarot as we know it today emerged in 15th Century Italy (specifically around 1440 CE) as a lavish addition to the country’s already existing playing card tradition. Unlike the common decks used by peasants and merchants for gambling, early Tarot decks like the famous Visconti-Sforza deck were hand-painted masterpieces commissioned by wealthy noble families. Though these weren’t tools for fortune telling, they did tell of a more literal type of fortune; they were elaborate status symbols, dripping with gold leaf and intricate Renaissance imagery, and therefore the exclusive provenance of those rich and fortunate enough to afford them.

The word “tarot” itself first appears in historical records around 1502 CE in Brescia, Italy, as “Tarocho,” though the cards themselves were known as “Trionfi” (triumphs) throughout the 15th century. The game they were designed for, Tarocchi, was similar to modern Bridge: a trick-taking game where the illustrated trump cards (what we now call the Major Arcana) outranked the standard suit cards.

But while these cards started as a glorified parlor game for bored aristocrats, the imagery painted on them—allegories of virtues, vices, celestial bodies, death, the devil, and divine judgment—already contained the seeds of something deeper. The trumps depicted what scholars call “the journey of the soul”: an archetypal narrative of life, death, and transcendence, rendered in Christian iconography but shot through with classical and even pagan influences (courtesy of the Renaissance’s obsession with Greco-Roman antiquity).

So this spiritual dimension was there from the start, though it remained dormant for centuries. Tarot spread throughout Europe during the Italian Wars of the late 15th-early 16th centuries, but it remained primarily a game (albeit an increasingly popular one). By the 18th century, it had become one of the most popular card games in continental Europe, though it never quite caught on in Britain or Spain.

The French Connection

Tarot’s transformation from game to divination tool was largely the work of 18th and 19th-century French occultists. We can mostly thank Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss-French Protestant minister who, in the 1780s, became convinced that Tarot cards contained ancient Egyptian wisdom—specifically, knowledge from the legendary Book of Thoth.

Was he right? Not even remotely. Modern scholarship has thoroughly debunked the Egyptian origin theory, but people never let facts get in the way of a good story: de Gébelin’s wildly speculative claims lit a fire in Europe’s occult revival, and that fire never fully went out.

Following in de Gébelin’s footsteps, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (who went by the far cooler name “Etteilla”) was a French occultist who published the first definitive guide to Tarot card reading in the late 1700s. Etteilla, not content with using existing decks for divination, instead designed his own by rearranging and reinterpreting the cards to fit his mystical system. Now, for the first time, Tarot was explicitly designed—and not just adapted—for fortune telling. This was a revolutionary development.

The 19th century saw this mystical reinterpretation explode across Europe, with French occultists like Éliphas Lévi (born Alphonse Louis Constant) and Papus (Gérard Encausse) linking the Tarot to Kabbalah, alchemy, astrology, and Hermeticism. Lévi, in particular, contributed by connecting each of the 22 Major Arcana cards to letters of the Hebrew alphabet, positioning Tarot as a visual cipher for ascending the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

These French occultists undertook a whole new level of creative interpretation—in fact, it was more like a wholesale reimagining. And lo, the Tarot had become a syncretic magical system, a veritable Swiss Army knife of Western esotericism that could interface with virtually any mystical tradition. Need to divine the future? Tarot. Explore Jungian archetypes? Tarot. Summon angels or demons? Believe it or not, also Tarot.

The Golden Dawn Rises

The modern Tarot as most people recognize it—you know, with its richly illustrated Minor Arcana and deeply symbolic imagery in every card—was largely codified by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a British magical society founded in 1888. This secret order (if you’re one of the brave souls who read through my entire Elden Ring analysis series, you’ll recall from Part 2 that it counted poet W.B. Yeats among its members) synthesized Kabbalah, Hermeticism, astrology, alchemy, and Tarot into a comprehensive magical system.

The Golden Dawn’s influence on Tarot cannot be overstated. Their interpretations and correspondences underpin virtually every modern Tarot deck and reading system. But their biggest contribution came in 1909, when Golden Dawn member Arthur Edward Waite commissioned artist Pamela Colman Smith to illustrate what would become the most influential Tarot deck of all time: the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (often just called the “Rider-Waite” deck, in an unfortunate snubbing of Smith’s foundational artistic contribution).

What was so special about the Rider-Waite-Smith, and what made it so revolutionary? Well, previous decks only illustrated the Major Arcana and the court cards of the Minor Arcana. The numbered cards (also known as the “pip” cards) showed… well, just pips, like regular playing cards.

Smith changed all that, creating unique and evocative scenes for every single card. This made the deck far more intuitive and accessible for divination, since every card now contained a visual narrative that readers could more easily interpret.

The deck was so profoundly influential that most modern Tarot decks, to this day, are either direct clones or variations on the Rider-Waite-Smith system. When people in 2025 think of the “Death” card or “The Tower,” they’re usually picturing Smith’s art, even if they’re looking at an entirely different deck!

The Tarot Today: Secular Magic for a Secular Age

Fast forward to the 1970s, when Tarot experienced yet another renaissance, this time as part of the broader New Age movement, where it went through yet another evolution: as Tarot became mainstream, its interpretations also became increasingly psychological rather than just supernatural.

This shift owes much to His Luminousness the Prophet Carl Jung (yes, him again—Game & Word’s patron saint strikes again!), whose theories of archetypes and the collective unconscious provided a framework for understanding Tarot that didn’t require practitioners to believe in literal magic or divine intervention. In this view, instead of predicting an objective future, the cards serve as mirrors that reflect the querent’s subconscious mind to reveal hidden patterns, fears, desires, and possibilities.

Is this “watering down” the Tarot? Or is it merely recognizing that the line between the mystical and the psychological was never as clear as we thought? After all, whether you believe the Tarot channels higher forces or merely helps you think through your problems via symbolic free association, the end result (insight, clarity, and better decision making) remains the same.

It’s beautiful, really: the Tarot has endured for over 500 years, constantly reinventing itself while maintaining its core archetypal power. From aristocratic game to occult cipher to psychological tool to postmodern pop culture mainstay, the Tarot persists because it offers something we’re hardwired to seek: a way to make sense of the chaos. Tarot helps us find patterns in life’s randomness, and its cards help us believe—if only for the duration of a single spread—that the fates have woven meaning and significance into the fabric of existence.

🃏🔮🧬 SIDE QUEST: Probability, Prophecy, and the Paradox of Prediction

OR: Why Your Tarot Reader and Your Poker Buddy Are Doing the Same Math (Sort Of)

Ok, hold my beer. I’m about make both mystics and mathematicians very uncomfortable, just by posing this simple (if not so easy to answer) question: what’s the actual difference between reading Tarot cards and calculating poker odds?

No, seriously! Hear me out.

When you sit down for a Tarot reading, you shuffle the deck, cut it, and draw cards. The reader interprets the spread based on position, surrounding cards, and intuitive hits about what the symbols mean in your specific context. The reading feels magical because—and here’s the key—you’re finding meaning in randomness.

Meanwhile, when you sit down for a poker game, you’re dealt cards from a shuffled deck. You calculate odds based on position (your seat), surrounding cards (community cards and your hand), and intuitive hits about what your opponents might be holding. The game feels strategic because—and, again, here’s the key!—you’re finding patterns in randomness.

When you cut all the fat away, all the way down to the bones of it all, it’s the same process. Only the framing is different.

After all, both practices involve:

1. A finite set of possibilities (78 Tarot cards, 52 playing cards),

2. Shuffling to introduce randomness,

3. Drawing/dealing to select from those possibilities,

4. Interpreting the results based on context and position,

5. Making decisions based on probability (expressed as either “he’s bluffing, I should raise” or “the Three of Swords suggests heartbreak”).

The difference is that Poker players admit they’re playing with probability. Tarot readers believe (or at least operate as if) something guides which cards appear. But mathematically, they’re both engaging with the same fundamental question:

“Given limited information in a system with known parameters, what’s most likely to happen next?”

Balatro brilliantly exploits this ambiguity. When you draw a Joker from a pack, is it random? Or did you “need” that Shoot the Moon at exactly that moment, and the game knew it? When you play your last hand and win by exactly 1 chip, was that lucky? Or was fate’s invisible hand stacking the deck (or RNG, in this case)?

If you picked the latter answers, you’d be far from alone. Studies on gamblers show they often develop “hot hand” beliefs: they become convinced that luck comes in streaks, that certain behaviors “change their luck,” and that they can “feel” when a good card is coming. More objective third parties (meaning: everyone besides the gambler himself) dismiss this as cognitive bias—the brain’s pattern-recognition software misfiring.

But ask a Tarot reader how she knows which deck to use for a particular client, or how she decides when to stop shuffling:

“I just know.”

“It feels right.”

“The cards tell me.”

In both cases, it’s the same cognitive process! But we publish one in psychology journals as a cautionary tale about human irrationality, while we call the other one divination.

And Balatro? Pffft… the game doesn’t care which explanation you prefer. Play it enough, and you’ll develop your own superstitions:

• Always reroll the shop before taking a blind,

• Never play odd-numbered cards with even-numbered Jokers in play,

• The Idol is cursed (it’s not, but it feels cursed when it constantly picks 2s),

• And so on, and so forth. Add your own homebrewed example here!

Rational, these are not… but they’re also not entirely irrational, either. You’re just developing heuristics by recognizing patterns across hundreds of games.

In other words, you’re reading probability. Just like the Tarot reader, and just like the poker player.

But wait, there’s more! Quantum mechanics tells us that observation affects outcome. The act of measuring a quantum state collapses the wave function, forcing reality to “choose” one possibility from many. Before measurement, all possibilities exist in superposition.

And that’s exactly what divination claims to do: collapse infinite futures into one present reading. The Tarot reader shuffles (superposition), you cut the deck (observation), the cards are revealed (wave function collapse), and suddenly one future feels more “real” than the others.

Is this literal quantum mysticism? Probably not—quantum effects don’t scale up to macro objects like cards. But it’s a phenomenal metaphor for how probability and prophecy interweave.

Balatro gets this. Every time you open a Buffoon Pack and are offered three Joker options, you’re collapsing wave functions. Similarly, every time you’re deciding between an Arcana Pack or a Celestial Pack, you’re choosing a future to manifest. Meanwhile, the game never reveals what was in the packs you didn’t pick—those quantum timelines vanish, unobserved.

At the end of the day, probability is prophecy. Not metaphorically, and not symbolically. Literally. When you calculate that you’ve got a 73% chance to beat this blind if you draw at least one Ace, you’re prophesying. Likewise, when Madame Clairvoya the Tarot reader says “The Tower suggests sudden change is coming,” she’s calculating that given your current life patterns, disruption is >50% likely.

The math is the magic, and the magic is the math.

Balatro is the first game I can think of (feel free to point out any others in the comments) that finally makes this explicit, where Planet cards are astronomy and astrology, and where Tarot cards are divination and deck manipulation. The game shuffles probability and prophecy together, until you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

So the next time someone scoffs at Tarot readings, ask them about their favorite Joker combo. Then watch them light up explaining the exact probability that they’ll optimally mod their deck by Ante 5. Finally, just for the hell of it, listen attentively as they describe their own bespoke divination process for deciding when to take Spectral packs.

Then, remind them: they’re reading cards, too. We all are!

Which brings us back to Balatro and its deck full of magical cards. But before we get there, let’s talk about the most obvious intersection between magic and cards:

Magic: The Literal Card Game

Yes, there are more literal and explicit connections to magic and cards than even the Tarot. In fact, there are countless of them—but the most popular and iconic is, without a doubt, Magic: The Gathering (or “MTG” for short)

Designed by Richard Garfield in the early 90s, MTG goes beyond playing cards and the Tarot, in that you actually cast spells with your cards. Not literally, of course—it’s all fantasy. Well, unless you buy into the notion that creating and playing in fictional universes is, in and of itself, an act of magic. In that case, then yes, it’s kinda real? In a manner of speaking, from a certain point of view.

Anyway, in MTG, you play as a powerful wizard (called a “Planeswalker”). The objective is to defeat your opponent by getting their life down to 0. And you do so by tapping into mana (magical energy) and casting spells, all represented by cards.

The game’s enduring popularity can be attributed to countless factors, including its practically infinite replayability, optimal mix of skill and luck, reasonably balanced gameplay, gorgeous artwork, and robust community (which sustains a global tournament scene with payouts so large they constitute many players’ full-time jobs). But in my view, it mostly comes down to two overarching factors:

1. The sheer variety of playable cards, which enables practically endless deck customization and strategy;

2. The tradeable nature of said cards,8 which serves to bind the community ever closer together.

That’s not to say it’s perfect, of course. Since I last played in the mid-2000s, the rules have only gotten more complex and convoluted, to the point I feel like I barely know where to begin again, were I so inclined. And the cards themselves—especially the rare, powerful, and highly in-demand ones—are so expensive that competing at even the mid-level is effectively a pay-to-win scheme.9

But if your preferred flavor of game involves cards, and you really want to roleplay as a wizard, MTG is truly unequaled.

MTG even allows you to specialize in different types of magic, helpfully color-coded in this diagram for your convenience:

• White: Right-Hand Path, Angelic, Altruistic Magic

• Blue: Cerebral, Ceremonial, Arcane Magic (includes Divination)

• Black: Left-Hand Path, Demonic, Necromantic Magic

• Red: Elemental, Fiery Magic

• Green: Elemental, Nature, “Earthy” Magic

• Colorless [Not Pictured]: Neutral, Mechanistic Magic (usually involving machines, artifacts, and other material technology); compatible with any color

You can also mix and match between the colors, though you’ll have an easier time if you combine complementary colors. For instance, White and Black spells clash and frequently target/neutralize each other, whereas both colors can boost and synergize with Blue spells.

There’s a lot more I could dive into here. And maybe I will, in the future. For now, just know that MTG is basically the magical nature of cards at its most clear and explicit (short of enabling you to actually cast spells… though I’m sure some folks use it for that, too).

♠️🪙🧙‍♀️ SIDE QUEST: From Gambling Dens to Fortune Tellers — The Occult History of Card Games

Pop quiz: when did playing cards first become associated with magic and mysticism?

If you answered “when Tarot was invented in 15th century Italy,” you’re wrong. But you’re in good company, because that’s what most people think.

The truth, however, is far weirder… and way more interesting.

Playing cards have been magical since their invention. Since Day One. And not figuratively—literally. From the moment cards appeared in China during the Tang Dynasty, players used them for both gambling and divination, because the Chinese didn’t see these as separate activities. Games of chance were divination. Rolling dice, drawing cards, and casting lots were all ways to consult fate and clarify heaven’s will.

Really, just think about it: when you shuffle cards and deal them, you’re literally asking “what does random chance give me?” That question has some heavy metaphysical implications! If the universe is random, you get whatever you get. But if the universe has meaning, or if there’s any sort of cosmic order... then what you draw might matter.

The Chinese knew this. That’s why games often had ritual elements—you’d burn incense, face certain directions, and use specific shuffling techniques. It’s not that they believed these things affected the cards mechanically, but rather, they did them just in case they affected the cards metaphysically. And even if they didn’t? Then at least the ritual put you in the right headspace to correctly read the patterns.

When playing cards reached Persia and the Islamic world (around the 12th Century CE), they picked up new mystical associations. Islamic scholars, who couldn’t use figurative images (because Islam forbids depicting living things), instead developed elaborate geometric patterns for their cards, which encoded mathematical, astronomical, and mystical principles.

This is how the Mamluk deck’s suits came to represent the four classical elements, and the court cards did the same for cosmic hierarchies. Even the act of shuffling became a meditation on tawakkul, the Islamic principle of trust in divine will. You shuffle (introduce chaos), you draw (accept God’s decree), and you play (work within the limitations fate provides).

Thus, by the time cards reached medieval Europe, they arrived pre-loaded with mystical significance. Contrary to popular belief, Europeans didn’t add magic to cards. Instead, they inherited it—though they then added their own layers.

The Catholic Church, predictably, lost its mind. The Vatican condemned playing cards as instruments of the Devil (circa 1377, less than a decade after cards reached Italy). Why? Because gambling led to sin? Sure, partly. But also because cards enabled divination, which was supposed to be the Church’s exclusive territory. People could now tell fortunes through cards? Meaning: without priestly mediation? That’s heresy.

The prohibition, naturally, backfired spectacularly, because anything the Church bans becomes immediately cooler. So by the 1400s, cards were everywhere: in taverns, in courts, and even in churches (yes, really! Some priests used them for Biblical instruction). And everywhere the cards went, divination followed.

Most people don’t know that the Tarot wasn’t actually invented for fortune telling. Regular playing cards were already being used for that! But the Tarot did systematize and codify the practice.

Remember, the original Tarot (the Tarocchi deck) consisted of just ordinary playing cards with extra trump cards added. Those trumps (the Major Arcana) depicted allegorical scenes—virtues, vices, celestial bodies, death, etc—and were useful for playing a trick-taking game (also called Tarocchi).

But fortune tellers noticed that those allegorical images made cartomancy easier. Instead of remembering that “the Five of Coins means financial difficulty” (arbitrary association), you could look at the image depicted in The Tower (literal disaster) and the meaning was right there.

So while the Tarot didn’t make cards themselves mystical, it did make their innate mysticism more legible.

The 18th-century occult revival (particularly in France) then took Tarot and jacked it up to eleven. Suddenly it went beyond mere fortune telling, transforming into a complete mystical system encoding Kabbalah, alchemy, astrology… everything. Antoine Court de Gébelin literally made up the Egyptian origin story (completely fabricated, zero historical evidence) and people believed it because it should be true, even if it wasn’t.

Yes, you read that right: the Tarot’s occult significance is retrofitted. The cards were originally designed for playing games, not as mystical keys. But a centuries-long procession of fortune tellers, magicians, and occultists made the cards into mystical keys through nothing but practice, belief, and sheer imaginative force.

And yet, I don’t believe it diminishes the magic at all. Think about it: Tarot works because we made it work! Collective belief, over centuries, transformed ordinary game pieces into genuine spiritual technology.10 And isn’t that really the most magical thing?

Oh, and by the way, the exact same thing also happened with regular playing cards!

Throughout the 19th century, cartomancy with regular decks was more popular than Tarot readings (because Tarot was expensive and hard to find). Fortune tellers developed elaborate systems for reading playing cards: Hearts = love, Diamonds = money, Clubs = action, Spades = trouble. Each card had specific meanings based on their positions on the spread.

It was less sophisticated than Tarot, but it worked just as well for clients. Why? Because it was a coherent enough system to generate meaningful interpretations, and the readers themselves were skilled enough to apply those interpretations to their clients’ lives.

In either case, the magic wasn’t in the cards themselves, but rather in the system of meaning that people built around them and the skill with which they applied that system.

Which brings us back to Balatro.

LocalThunk clearly understands this history. The game includes regular playing cards, Tarot cards, Planet cards (which are basically a third cartomancy system based on planets/astrology), AND Spectral cards (which are explicitly magical and occult in nature). All four “magical” systems coexist, serving the same purpose: to transform your deck, change probabilities, and bend reality.

The game also understands that the magic is in the ritual as much as the cards themselves. Think of all the neat little details in the game: the satisfying “card flip” sound effect when you draw from your deck. The deliberate pause before revealing what’s inside a booster pack. The way the Soul card pulses with ominous energy. All these little touches help to put you in a mystical headspace, making you feel like you’re performing divination rather than just clicking buttons.

And guess what? It works. Play enough Balatro and you’ll develop genuine feelings about cards:

• “The Hermit always appears when I’m broke” (confirmation bias).

• “I always win after getting Blueprint” (recency bias).

• “Spectral packs are cursed” (risk-aversion bias).

This all sounds irrational, and maybe a little cuckoo. But really, these are just the same heuristic, pattern recognizing, meaning-making cognitive processes that made cards magical in the first place.

People are meaning-making machines. Give us any system with enough complexity and consistency, and we’ll find patterns, develop theories, create narratives, and see significance where there previously was none. We did it with stars (astrology), with numbers (numerology), with dreams (oneiromancy), and yes, with cards (cartomancy).

Balatro just gives us permission to also do it with poker hands and funny joker cards.

The gambling dens and fortune teller parlors were never as separate as we’ve always pretended. They were always the same room, always asking the same questions:

What will fortune bring me?

How do I work with probabilities?

Can I change my fate, or can I only play the hand I’m dealt?

The cards don’t answer these questions (sorry), but they do give us a framework for asking them, for sitting with uncertainty and making peace with randomness—or for believing randomness isn’t random at all.

That’s the real magic.

Always has been.

After all of the above, I hope I’ve convinced you that drawing from a deck of cards—whether consulting the Tarot, competing in a MTG tournament, or even playing with an ordinary deck like in Balatro—isn't just fun and games! It's about drawing out hidden aspects of your self and subconscious… and perhaps, in the process, even altering your destiny.

Which brings us to…

Magical Cards in Balatro: Gotta Cast ‘em All!

Now that we’ve established the magical foundations undergirding card games like Balatro, we’re ready to dive into the really meaty stuff—let’s get practical. Balatro gives you four distinct types of magical cards to work with, each drawing from different esoteric traditions and each serving different strategic purposes.

We’ll start with the stars of the show: the Jokers that make Balatro what it is, focusing on the ones with the most overtly magical themes and the most deliciously broken synergies. Then we’ll tour the cosmos with Planet cards and their astrological correspondences, risk our souls (and hand sizes) with Spectral cards and their Faustian occult bargains, and finally walk through the Fool’s Journey with the game’s Tarot cards.

By the end, you’ll understand both what these cards do mechanically, and why their effects align so perfectly with their mystical symbolism. By the time you make it to the end (well, if you make it to the end—frankly, I’m impressed you made it this far into the article to begin with!), then maybe, just maybe, you’ll appreciate the genius of LocalThunk’s design even more than you already do.

Let’s dive in.

Jokers to the Right: Drawing The Trickster Archetype [Jokers]

In Balatro, everything revolves around the almighty Joker. Out of all the modifier cards, Jokers are the ones you’ll encounter first, the ones you’ll encounter most, and the ones with the most variance as far as buffs and effects.11

They’re so central, that the game’s hardest challenge (and the one players seem to struggle with the most) involves beating an entire run without Jokers at all. And what makes this so devious is that, being the final challenge, it only comes after you’ve been thoroughly conditioned and muscle-memoried to always seek out and combine Jokers.

And why wouldn’t Jokers be so prominent here? After all, the Joker is the most "wild" of all cards—it is deeply associated with chaos, unpredictability, and the Trickster archetype. Remember the Trickster, from way back in Volume 3?

In myth and magic, the Trickster figure often stands at the boundary between the mundane and the mystical. This archetype reveals the paradox of creation and destruction, freedom and fate. In Balatro, the Joker embodies this balance by allowing the player to break the rules, much like how the Trickster in mythology and storytelling does so by throwing a wrench in the established order through pranks and humorously-delivered cutting truths.

The Joker is therefore also a liminal figure—a threshold card that stands between order (the structured deck) and chaos (the freedom to break free of said structure). It's therefore fitting that Balatro makes the Joker central to the game, as the archetypal Trickster exists to bend reality and subvert rules, much like magic itself.

There are 150 unlockable Jokers in the game, each with a different effect (and which can be combined to strengthen each other; in fact, half the fun of Balatro is discovering and deploying the right synergies to blow past the highest blinds12).

Discovering and playing Jokers is fun, and not just because of their effects—the Joker designs themselves are often quite amusing. They’re not limited to mere playing cards! In Balatro, you’ll find Jokers taking the form of gift cards, rebate cards, to-do lists, customer loyalty cards, driver’s licenses, stencils, star charts, architectural blueprints, baseball cards, trading cards (a la Magic: The Gathering), and even credit cards.

And last, but not least… if you lose a run, guess who shows up to taunt you and rub your lack of skill (or luck) in your face? That’s right: The Joker. In fact, I now realize that I’ve started way too many late-night, “just one more” runs out of nothing but spite from said taunting.13

So yeah, the Jokers very much make the game. Hey, I have an idea: let’s go through some of the more strange, overpowered, or straight-up hilarious Jokers in Balatro, as well as the ones that are more explicitly magical in nature and theme.

Joker (“Jimbo”)

Effect: +4 Mult
Rarity: Common
Cost: $2

The OG. The namesake. The face of the game itself. And honestly? Kind of mid as an actual Joker card.

“Jimbo” (as the community affectionately calls him) provides a flat +4 Score Multiplier (“Mult”) bonus—decent in the early game, but entirely forgettable once you start stacking multiplicative Jokers or scaling engines. Yet Jimbo’s simplicity is deeply appropriate. The basic Joker card is, after all, the vanilla wild card—the one that doesn’t do anything too fancy, but gets the job done when you need it.

That said, Jimbo’s true power isn’t in his stats, but rather his role as your tormentor. Lose a run, and guess who shows up to mock you? That’s right: this grinning bastard, laughing at your failure, taunting you into clicking “New Run” at 2 AM when you told yourself you’d go to bed four hours ago.

Jimbo is the Joker as perfectly embodied Trickster archetype. He giveth modest multipliers, and he taketh away your sleep schedule.

Legendary Jokers

Effect: Various
Rarity: Legendary (duh)
Cost: N/A

There are five Legendary Jokers in Balatro, and they’re special for two reasons:

First, they’re absurdly powerful—game breaking and run-defining, the kind of cards that make you laugh maniacally as you blow past Boss Blinds that should have curb-stomped you into starting a new run.

Second, you can’t buy them in shops. The only way to obtain a Legendary Joker is through the “Soul” Spectral card.

The five Legendaries are:

• Triboulet (Kings and Queens give 2X Mult each),

• Canio (gains 1X Mult when a face card is destroyed),

• Chicot (disables Boss Blind effects entirely),

• Perkeo (Creates a Negative copy of 1 random consumable card each round), and

• Yorick (gains 1X Mult for every 23 cards discarded).

These cards represent magic at its most reality-warping. Calling them “buffs” is severely underselling them; it feels more like they fundamentally alter the rules of the game. Chicot, for instance, literally removes obstacles from your path, turning what might otherwise have been an impossible challenge into an utter triviality. That’s high-level magic: don’t want to fight the system? Then just rewrite it entirely!

Business Card

Effect: Played face cards have a 1 in 2 chance to give $2 when scored
Rarity: Common
Cost: $4

In our mundane, non-magical world, business cards are pretty prosaic: little rectangles of cardstock with your name and phone number, that you hand out at networking events you’d rather not attend. But in Balatro, the Business Card transforms your face cards into a probabilistic money-making venture!

Each time you score a face card (Jack, Queen, or King), there’s a 50-50 chance it’ll generate $2. And like everything else in Balatro, this effect stacks. So, if you play a Full House with three Kings and two Jacks? That’s five chances to make money, averaging around $5 per hand if your luck holds. The Business Card thus turns your royal court into a recurring revenue stream.

The Business Card Joker is an example of prosperity magic, but with a gambling twist. You’re not guaranteed anything (it’s a coin flip every time), but over the course of a run, those $2 payouts accumulate. It’s also sympathetic magic in action: cards of status and power (face cards, symbolizing nobility) generating material wealth.

Plus, I just love that this is a Business Card that literally does what business cards are supposed to do: make you money. It performs its real-world function (generating income through strategic deployment), albeit in card form.

Trading Card

Effect: If first discard of round has only 1 card, destroy it and earn $3
Rarity: Uncommon
Cost: $6

Trading Card Games (TCGs) like Magic: The Gathering have their own kind of meta-magic baked into them: the alchemy of transforming cardboard into cash. Rare cards can sell for thousands of dollars,14 which means that entire secondary markets have propped up around buying, selling, and trading pieces of printed paper.

The Trading Card Joker literalizes this transaction: discard a single card, and it transforms into money. This is transmutation, plain and simple: the alchemical dream of turning base materials into gold (except here you’re turning playing cards into currency).

And like all good magical bargains, it requires sacrifice. You must discard exactly one card, no more, no less (thus, you’re burning a discard, which you’d otherwise use to discard up to five cards at once). Specificity is key to magic: rituals have precise requirements, and spells need exact components. The Trading Card respects this tradition, demanding intentionality in exchange for its bounty.

Baseball Card

Effect: Uncommon Jokers each give 1.5X Mult
Rarity: Rare
Cost: $8

Baseball cards aren’t typically associated with mysticism (unless you count the Curse of the Bambino), but they are similar to magical talismans, in that they derive power from rarity and collectibility.

In Balatro, the Baseball Card takes this concept and runs with it, specifically boosting Uncommon Jokers. This card cares about categories and classifications, much like how Hermetic magic operates through correspondences and hierarchies. It has a simple, but powerful effect: every Uncommon Joker in your lineup gets a 1.5X Mult boost.

Besides, is the baseball card not a form of talisman, in and of itself? Both baseball cards and magical amulets are ordinary objects that we’ve imbued with meaning beyond their material composition. A Honus Wagner card is just paper and ink, yet it can sell for millions. Similarly, a protective sigil is just a drawing, yet practitioners believe it can ward off harm. The power is in the belief itself, in the system of meaning we construct around the object.

Gift Card

Effect: Add $1 of sell value to every Joker and Consumable card at end of round
Rarity: Uncommon
Cost: $6

Gift cards in real life are a weird sort of liminal money—not quite cash, not quite goods, but something in between. They’re potential spending, prosperity waiting to be actualized.

The Gift Card Joker captures this liminality. It gives you the potential for modest passive income that grows first subtly, then significantly as you overcome more challenges. This card is another example of sympathetic magic at work: victories in one realm (winning rounds) produce rewards in another (increased value for inventory cards, which you can always sell for cash money). And like all good magic, manifesting it requires sacrifice (you know, actually selling your consumables).

There’s also a kind of beauty in its mundane banality. Amidst all of Balatro’s cosmic forces and reality-bending powers, the Gift Card is just… a gift card. It gives you the potential for a few extra bucks each round, making it the magical equivalent of finding a $20 bill in your coat pocket; not flashy, but undeniably useful.

Red Card

Effect: This Joker gains +3 Mult when any Booster Pack is skipped
Rarity: Common
Cost: $5

The Red Card is Balatro’s way of rewarding restraint: skip a Booster Pack, and this Joker grows stronger. In a game that constantly tempts you with new cards, new Jokers, and new possibilities, the Red Card asks you to practice discipline. This card reveals the ascetic path: the way of the monk who gains power through denial.

In magical traditions, this concept is called sacrifice or voluntary restriction. You give something up (immediate gratification, in this case) to gain power elsewhere. It’s why magicians fast, take vows of celibacy, or undergo ritual purification. The temporary loss creates space for something greater to enter.

The name “Red Card” also evokes penalties and warnings—in soccer, a red card means ejection from the game. But here, the penalty becomes a boon. By “red-carding” Booster Packs (rejecting them), you become more powerful, turning refusal into a strategy. Absence thus becomes presence.

To-Do List

Effect: Earn $4 if poker hand is a [Required Poker Hand], required poker hand changes at end of round
Rarity: Common
Cost: $3

A to-do list is among the most boring and mundane of objects, a humdrum reminder of tasks to complete. Yet in Balatro, it becomes a self-consuming mission: play a specific hand, collect your reward, and play another hand next time.

So basically, this card is a checkbox-shaped form of ritual magic. You perform the required action (play the hand), you receive the benefit ($4), and the spell consumes itself (or rather, the requirement does). Mission accomplished, contract fulfilled, to-do item checked off.

Besides, the To-Do List doesn’t ask for greatness, only for enough competence to meet the minimum requirements. And sometimes, that’s all the magic we need: showing up, doing the work, and getting it done.

Burnt Joker

Effect: Upgrade the level of the first discarded poker hand each round
Rarity: Rare
Cost: $8

The Burnt Joker is literally a regular joker card that’s been partially incinerated, its edges charred and blackened by the flames. In many magical traditions, fire is the element of transformation. It destroys, yes… but it also purifies, transmutes, and elevates.

The Burnt Joker embodies this dual nature. It takes your discarded hands (read: the ones you rejected, the refuse, the trash) and transforms them into something valuable by leveling them up. It takes garbage and spins it into gold… or more precisely, takes your discarded poker hands and makes them stronger for future use.

This “transformation through destruction” motif is deeply magical. Think of the Phoenix rising from its ashes, or alchemists heating substances to break them down before rebuilding them into something greater. The Burnt Joker, meanwhile, has survived its own immolation and emerged with the power to uplift what others throw away.

Brainstorm

Effect: Copies the ability of the leftmost Joker
Rarity: Rare
Cost: $10

To “brainstorm,” in its mundane sense, means to generate ideas, think creatively, or solve problems through free association. But the Brainstorm Joker does something far more interesting: it mimicks, mirrors, and doubles by copying the effect of the leftmost Joker in your inventory.

In magical parlance, this is sympathetic magic or imitative magic: the principle that like produces like. By copying the leftmost Joker, Brainstorm creates a resonance, or an echo that amplifies power. Unlike a “brainstorm” under the word’s ordinary definition, it’s not quite creating something new. Rather, it’s recognizing what already works and saying “yes, more of that please.”

Its positioning requirement (leftmost) reflects how magic often requires precise spatial arrangements—cardinal directions, specific placements on altars, particular orderings in rituals, and so forth. The Brainstorm respects this positionality, rewarding players who think carefully about Joker arrangement. Thus, this joker intertwines strategy and mysticism.

Blueprint

Effect: Copies the ability of the Joker to its right
Rarity: Rare
Cost: $10

The Blueprint is Brainstorm’s more flexible sibling, copying whatever Joker sits to its right—oh, and you can rearrange Jokers mid-round, meaning Blueprint can shapeshift on the fly, adapting to your needs moment by moment.

Architecturally, a blueprint is a plan, schema, or template for creation. But mystically, Blueprint is a changeling, or a shapeshifter: a magical entity that assumes the properties of whatever it touches. This is the Trickster’s favorite card: fluid and adaptable, it refuses to be pinned down.

Combined with the right Joker, Blueprint becomes game breaking:

• Copy a scaling Joker, and your growth doubles.

• Copy an economy Joker, and your wealth multiplies.

• Copy another copying Joker (yes, you can Blueprint a Brainstorm!), and reality starts to fold in on itself.

Blueprint is high chaos magic—the creative (not destructive) kind that recognizes patterns, replicates them, and uses that replication to exponentially amplify power. It’s the magic of the photocopier, the printer, and the mimeograph: technology that makes magic, and magic that uses technology.

(Ow, my head hurts.)

Driver’s License

Effect: 3X Mult if you have at least 16 Enhanced cards in your full deck
Rarity: Rare
Cost: $7

A driver’s license is a quotidian credential: proof that you’ve met the requirements to legally operate a vehicle. But the Driver’s License Joker transforms this staple bureaucratic document into a seal of mastery.

Meet its conditions (16 Enhanced cards—cards with special bonuses like Lucky, Mult, or Wild), and you’re rewarded with a massive 3X Mult boost. This is an allegory of initiatory magic: you must prove your worthiness before the power is granted. The number 16 is significant too: 4 squared, a doubling of the stable number 4, suggesting completion and wholeness taken to another level.15

This Joker rewards deck specialization and commitment. Its high requirement means that you can’t just stumble into its effect; you have to build your deck deliberately, intentionally enhancing cards over multiple rounds to meet the threshold. This Joker doesn’t dole out its powerful reward freely; you must earn it through consistent effort and resource investment. Very “wizard trials and tests” energy here.

Hallucination

Effect: 1 in 2 chance to create a Tarot card when any Booster Pack is opened (Must have room)
Rarity: Common
Cost: $4

Hallucinations blur the line between objective reality and subjective perception. In altered states (whether induced by meditation, sensory deprivation, psychedelics, or neurological quirks), people perceive things that aren’t “really” there. But are those perceptions meaningless, or do they reveal hidden layers of reality?

The Hallucination Joker leans into this ambiguity, creating Tarot cards from nothing—or rather, from the act of opening Booster Packs. Reality splits, and probability forks. Where there was one thing (a Booster Pack), now there are two (the Pack plus a Tarot card).

You know the phrase “create your own reality” (or maybe should it be “augment your own reality”)? Yeah… Here, the hallucination becomes real, made manifest through belief and chance. Schrödinger’s cat collapses into existence. The quantum waveform crystallizes. Fifty-fifty odds—pure randomness, but randomness that generates order and produces usable magic (in the form of Tarot cards) from chaos.

Mail-In Rebate

Effect: Earn $5 per discarded [rank] card. Rank changes every round
Rarity: Common
Cost: $4

Is there anything more tediously mundane than a mail-in rebate? Fill out forms, cut out UPC codes, wait 6-8 weeks, and receive a check for $5 that barely justifies the effort. Yet Balatro turns this anachronistic ritual of consumer capitalism into a targeted transmutation engine.

Each round, the Mail-In Rebate Joker designates a specific card rank. Discard cards of that rank, and boom: $5 per card. It’s fussy, it’s particular, and it requires attention and planning. Just like real mail-in rebates! And just like real magic.

The constantly changing rank keeps you on your toes, calling on you to constantly adapt. Similarly, Magic isn’t static, requiring your full attention: to shifting conditions, to the movement of celestial bodies, to the phase of the moon, to whatever it needs in that particular moment. The Mail-In Rebate’s persnickety particularity embodies this magical need for the practitioner’s flexibility.

Loyalty Card

Effect: 4X Mult every 6 hands played
Rarity: Uncommon
Cost: $5

Customer loyalty programs are insidious little devils, aren’t they? Buy enough coffee, get a free coffee. Fly enough miles, get a free upgrade. Oh, what exactly are we doing with all your purchase and behavioral data, you ask? Never you mind that! Look, here’s an free cookie to go with your 20th matcha soy latte!

The Loyalty Card brings this logic into Balatro: play enough hands, get a massive Mult boost.

But underneath this hyper-capitalist framing lies the magic of accumulation: of small, repeated actions building into significant results. The magic of habit, and the magic of ritual; of showing up day after day to do the work.

Six hands isn’t that many (you’ll play far more than that in a typical run). But the Loyalty Card is teaching you a valuable lesson: consistency compounds. The drops fill the bucket, and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Every action counts, no matter how small.

Credit Card

Effect: Gain up to -$20 of debt
Rarity: Common
Cost: $1

The Credit Card is Balatro’s very own Faustian bargain: its deal with the devil, its monkey’s paw wish, its immediately self-gratifying bargain that comes to bite you in the tush down the line. This Joker allows you to spend money you don’t have, going into negative dollars to buy critical cards now rather than waiting until you can afford them.

In magical terms, this is dark magic or left-hand path magic—not necessarily evil, but more obviously self-serving, and often involving some form of risk, debt, or obligation in exchange for a highly desired result. Whether in Balatro or IRL, you’re borrowing from the future by making a contract with forces (or in the game’s case, with abstract economic systems) that will demand repayment.

The Credit Card Joker can either save runs or ruin them. Use it wisely, and it lets you snag that perfect Joker when you’re broke, turning an impending loss into a comeback. But use it poorly, and you dig yourself into a debt hole you can’t escape, the interest (metaphorically speaking) crushing and suffocating you.

This card reminds us that magic always has a price. Nothing is free, and the universe demands balance. The Credit Card makes this explicit: here’s power, here’s possibility, and here’s the bill. It’s your choice what to do with it.

Fortune Teller

Effect: +1 Mult per Tarot card used this run
Rarity: Common
Cost: $6

The Fortune Teller is one of Balatro’s most explicitly magical Jokers. It literally gets stronger the more Tarot cards you use, making it a recursively mystical card: a Joker that grows more powerful the more you engage with actual instruments of divination.

This creates a beautiful feedback loop: use Tarot cards to modify your deck, and the Fortune Teller grows stronger. So the more you use magical tools, the more magical you become. It’s a wonderful microcosm of the practitioner’s journey—as you work with the Tarot, you deepen your understanding and increase your power. As you do, you become more yourself.

The Fortune Teller also encourages a playstyle that embraces randomness and transformation. Tarot cards in Balatro modify your deck in unpredictable ways by adding cards, destroying cards, changing suits, creating copies, and more (which we’ll cover in nanoscopic detail later in this article). So to maximize the Fortune Teller, you have to let go of perfect control and trust in the process. You have to, as the saying goes, “trust in the heart of the cards.”

Sixth Sense

Effect: If first hand of round is a single 6, destroy it and create a Spectral card (Must have room)
Rarity: Uncommon
Cost: $6

The “sixth sense” is the cliché term for extrasensory perception—intuition, psychic abilities, and the “mind’s eye” that sees things beyond the normal five senses. The Sixth Sense Joker embodies this through an oddly specific ritual: play a single 6 as your first hand, and it transforms into a Spectral card.

Spectral cards are Balatro’s most powerful and risky consumables. We’ll go over them in more detail in just a bit, but to sum them up: they can add Joker slots, copy Jokers, destroy cards, or grant Legendary Jokers—but they often come with huge risks, downsides, or require sacrifices. They’re the kind of high-level magic that upends or even completely rewrites life’s fundamental rules, in ways that are not always beneficial to you and which are really hard to predict.

The card also has a wonderfully arcane ritual requirement: a lone 6, as the first hand you play of the round. Why a 6? Why alone? The game doesn’t explain,16 and that’s actually, literally perfect. Real magic is often similarly specific, with seemingly arbitrary requirements that the magician must follow to the letter. Roll 3d6 in the name of the divine! Trace the seal with your left hand only! Speak the incantation at midnight under a new moon! And here: play a single 6 as your first hand… why? It doesn’t matter why. Just do it, and the veil between worlds might just grow thin enough to grasp something from beyond.

Séance

Effect: If poker hand is a Straight Flush, create a random Spectral card (Must have room)
Rarity: Uncommon
Cost: $6

A séance is a ritual gathering to communicate with the dead, to pierce the veil between the living world and the spirit realm. Séances generally require highly specific conditions—participants arranged just so, questions asked in the right way, and so on.

The Séance Joker captures this with its own highly specific requirement: play a Straight Flush—one of poker’s rarest and most beautiful hands, five cards in perfect sequential and suit harmony—and you open a channel to the spectral plane, receiving a Spectral card as a gift from beyond.

This is a steep requirement, since Straight Flushes are very hard to get without dedicated deck manipulation. But that’s the point! Great magic isn’t easy. Contacting the dead isn’t a party trick (or at least, it shouldn’t be!). If you want to tear open reality and receive gifts from beyond the veil, you’re going to have to work for it. The Séance respects this. Power demands sacrifice, and miracles require effort.

Ceremonial Dagger

Effect: When Blind is selected, destroy Joker to the right and permanently add double its sell value to this Mult
Rarity: Uncommon
Cost: $6

Ritual sacrifice is one of humanity’s oldest magical practices: offer something valuable to the gods, and receive blessings in return. The Ceremonial Dagger literalizes this ancient exchange.

At the start of each ante, the Dagger destroys the Joker to its right, consuming it and adding double its sell value as permanent Mult. The Joker is gone, but it didn’t disappear: it’s been transmuted, its essence absorbed and made permanent. The expendable has thus become essential, and the act of sacrifice has transformed the temporary into something eternal.

This Joker darkly and deliciously rewards strategic planning. Instead of collecting Jokers to just use them, you’re collecting them to feed to the Dagger. You’re basically building a conveyor belt of sacrificial victims, each one making the Dagger (and thus your deck) stronger.

It’s blood magic, essentially. Or at least economy magic with necromantic overtones. And it can scale infinitely, growing stronger with each sacrifice, in each round, in each ante. By late game, a well-fed Ceremonial Dagger can carry entire runs, its Mult bonus towering far above the Boss Blind, its terrible jagged edge honed on the remains of its consumed (and spiritually consummated) siblings.

8 Ball