With the release of Ubisoft’s Far Cry 5, bad guy cults are officially back in style. While we have seen many a video game cult, Joseph Seed’s Project at Eden’s Gate is relatively grounded compared to what we’ve seen in the past. While cults are a horrifyingly real thing that cut people off from the rest of society and warp victims’ perception of the world, video game cults allow players to see these dynamics at work in a fantastical context that strips away much of the real-life horror. In the spirit of taking down villainous religious extremists, here are the five video game cults we’d avoid drinking Kool-Aid with.
Covenant (Halo)
Easily one of the most recognizable and highly-populated Cults in games, The Covenant is an alliance of Alien races who worship a precursor race “The Forerunners”. The first aliens to form the cult, the San’Shyuum, believed themselves to be the natural inheritors of Forerunner technology such as the Halo Arrays. Covenant society is singularly focused on obtaining this ancient tech and activating the Halo installations in order to transcend the physical world and become divine, this was known as the Great Journey. However, this transcendence also meant the extinction of sentient life, but hey, Death Cults aren’t the most reasonable groups out there.
This post was originally authored by Colin Regan.
