1. Church Of The Children Of Atom, Fallout 3 (2008)
When society crumbles, and its remaining few citizens are clawing for a meager pile of dirt on which to subsist, there will still be religion. It’s kept humans in line for thousands of years; it sure as hell isn’t going to let nuclear fallout get in its way now. Radioactive or not, people are people, and even the most flimsy or fleeting of beliefs brings them comfort. We catch a glimpse of this post-apocalyptic future in Fallout 3’s Megaton, the first town you encounter when finally exiting the vault in which you spent your entire life. It’s a ramshackle series of tin huts surrounding an atomic bomb that’s one poke away from exploding entirely, an unpredictable factor in an already unpredictable world. So, naturally, there are people who worship it and have built a church in close proximity. The Children Of Atom, in a desperate attempt to make sense of the Great War that started it all, have founded a belief system based on the splitting of the atom. When things are destroyed by this particular piece of human ingenuity, they say, entire universes are created. The war didn’t lay waste to everything; it allowed society to start fresh, imbuing its holiest of citizens with “The Glow”—totally not toxic waste or anything. After all, the only thing more unsettling than nuclear war in Fallout 3 is a lack of faith that it was all worth something.
2. Children Of The Firehawk, Borderlands 2 (2012)
The manic humor of the Borderlands series tends to rely on the juxtaposition of Southern-fried redneck caricatures found on an alien planet, coupled with oodles of random pop-culture references. But one tonally jarring side quest in the new game introduces a suicide cult just for laughs. You are sent by Lillith—one of the four heroes from the first game—to play undercover cop and infiltrate the “Children Of The Firehawk.” They’re a group of flame-obsessed bandits who worship the Siren as a god, and you’re supposed to find out “if they’re doing anything shady.” Turns out, plenty of what they’re doing easily qualifies. Over a series of four missions, you’re asked by the cult’s leader, Incinerator Clayton, to burn a few disciples alive, slay some rebels praying to a false god, and bring some ashy remains back with you for proof. Lillith, meanwhile, finds all of the self-immolation on her behalf flattering and relatively harmless until the cult opts to kidnap innocent “heathens” from Sanctuary with plans to murder them during a ritual. “I tell ya, being a God sucks,” she later sighs. Not as much as being a follower, lady.
3. Los Illuminados, Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Forget about your puny gods; Los Illuminados, the cult from the horror classic Resident Evil 4, worshipped only a virulent mind-controlling parasite that their local leaders wielded as a weapon. Federal agent and veteran zombie-fighting hero Leon Kennedy spends a lot of time roundhouse-kicking these guys in the head. But think about it from their side. It’s really a case where joining the club is the best solution in a bad situation—look, you could sign up voluntarily, or you could be infected with the plaga brain worm and compelled to sign up that way. Your choice. Except in this case “choice” means “you’re getting infected anyway, because that’s the only way the boss’ plan of kidnapping the president’s daughter to take over the world makes any sense to you.”
4. The Echidna Empire, Sonic Adventure (1998)
Sonic Adventure’s story wasn’t quite hard enough to follow, so Sonic Team went and added an ancient civilization of echidnas, who worship a giant green rock. They built an ornate floating island temple to house both the Master Emerald and their civilization, but as legends about the gem’s power spread, everyone from Dr. Robotnik to Tails started taking the holy emeralds away from their homeland for their own selfish purposes. The Emerald manifested its own natural guardian, Chaos, to restore some sense of balance, and—rather than embrace Chaos as their messiah—the chief’s daughter travels thousands of years into the future to help Sonic beat him up. Of course, none of the playable characters are told this whole story, so they see Chaos the way most of us would see Jesus if he showed up today: as a freaky magic zombie.
5. Templar Order, Assassin’s Creed series (2007-2011)
Assassin’s Creed is actually about not one but two secret groups engaged in a deadlocked power struggle that rages across the history of civilization. The good guys are the Assassins, noble killers of oppressors and despots whose first members were the rebellious Adam and Eve that freed mankind from Eden. Eden was controlled by “The First Civilization,” a non-human, technologically advanced race that lived on Earth way back when. (Assassin’s Creed pulls a Stargate and casts ye olde gods as aliens, but it’s Greek deities like Jupiter and Minerva that pop up rather than Egyptians.) They fight against the Templar Order, who throughout time have worked to seize the technology of the gods—weapons called Pieces of Eden—to make themselves the new omnipotent rulers of everything. Their sinister tendrils cover the world, infiltrating the institutions behind widespread religions. The Templar final boss of Assassin’s Creed II is actually Rodrigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI. The Templars are an especially dastardly cult because they worship themselves, and they have the power to realize their goals. Fighting them feels justified, enough so to make you almost okay with playing as a hired killer. After all, you’re only doing all that stabbing to expose the hidden beasts keeping folks down. Noble work.
6. Templar Order, Broken Sword: The Shadow Of The Templars (1996)
Those Knights Of The Templar Order get around almost enough to strip them of their “fringe” status. The Templars of Broken Sword are a little bit more traditional as a cult than those in Assassin’s Creed. They’re not so much about controlling all of civilization as they are about gaining power by exploiting mysterious supernatural artifacts given to them by demons. Broken Sword’s Templars are also pretty good at weaving a globe-spanning conspiracy, obscuring their quest for power behind a veil of murders and item-based puzzles. By the time journalist Nico and her adventurous boyfriend George encounter the modern-day Templars, the shadowy group has acquired a pagan sword with legendary evil powers. Which is why the unraveling of the Templar mystery is such a ripper: The past may be gone, but its secrets survive, and that group of nutters questing for power might just find it. Nico and George do put the order down, of course, and then celebrate by making out, because post-cult-dismantling sex is the best sex of all.
7. Mythic Dawn, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s film The Master might as well have been about Mankar Camoran, author of the influential work “Commentarium On The Mysterium Xarxes” and leader of Tamriel’s Mythic Dawn cult. Under Camoran’s visionary, insane leadership, the Mythic Dawn went from your standard daedra-worshipping celebrity fringe cult to major political player when it orchestrated the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII. Not content to rest on acclaim from its high-profile stabbing, the Dawn immediately enacted phase two of its plot to unleash the daedric prince of destruction, Mehrunes Dagon, onto an unsuspecting world. Without the Emperor or a solidly humanistic social basis with which to counter Mythic Dawn, these deranged zealots opened gates linking Tamriel to the demonic realm of Oblivion. It remains to be seen whether consigning the populace to an eternity of infernal slavery will result in more mainstream appeal.
8. Angel Worshippers, El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron (2011)
The zealots you fight in El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron take their reclusiveness very seriously. They live in an enormous tower built by seven fallen angels, a spire that is literally cut off from all of Yahweh’s reality. Now that’s devotion. El Shaddai is a weird little slice of religious-text-inspired storytelling. You play as Enoch, the great-grandpappy of ark building drunkard Noah, sent by the Lord to take out the fallen angels that have made their own creation so as to avoid flooding Earth. The angel-worshipping zealots you fight are distinct amongst video game cults: They’re engaged in direct combat between dueling omnipotent forces. It’s a case of “Our God can beat up your God.” This turns out to be an empty threat. Enoch cuts them down by the dozen, all while wearing skinny jeans.
9. The Church Of Inktology, de Blob 2 (2011)
The raydians of Prisma City were so happy before they started questioning things—before they sought spiritual fulfillment beyond their brightly colored lifestyle and street corner funk quartets. Their forced ink baptisms at the Church Of Inktology taught them a thing or two about self-exploration, turning them into “Blancs”—mindless drones that go wild and attack when they see color, like versions of the hyper zombies from 28 Days Later. Inktology is more of a brainwashing cult than a religion—this much becomes clear once the supposed spiritual leader Papa Blanc is revealed to be the first game—s military dictator, Comrade Black, in disguise. Bad enough that you’re getting L. Ron Hubbard, and then, boom, he goes all Stalin on you. Not cool, man.
10. The Order, Silent Hill (1999)
The doomsday cultists behind the evil doings in Silent Hill sure do give matriarchal religions a bad name. Feminists might rejoice at first to learn that The Order, an organization that appears throughout the long-running horror series, believes in a female supreme deity and employs women in leadership positions. But the part about them secretly impregnating young girls with demon spawn certainly puts a damper on the gender politics. The original Silent Hill borrows from the playbook of classic horror flick Rosemary’s Baby. It focuses on a plan to force a woman into birthing a monster so that this hellspawn might speed along the apocalypse. The Order’s philosophy, apparently, is that it takes a village to raise a demon child.
11. Orange Clan, Indigo Prophecy (2005)
A bizarre murder in the bathroom of a New York City diner initially sets up Indigo Prophecy as a psychological thriller about an ordinary man’s surreal descent into madness. But the game plunges down a bizarre science-fiction rabbit hole after protagonist Lucas Kane learns he was mind-controlled by a priest of the long-extinct Mayan civilization, now part of a so-called “Orange Clan” attempting to learn the secret of the Indigo Child. Meanwhile, the Terminators—oops, that is, the Purple Clan—is a rival group of artificial intelligence beings who are also trying to find the child, in order to make human beings their eternal slaves. A third group, made up mostly of homeless guys called The Invisibles, make it their job to keep tabs on both clans to ensure that the Indigo Child keeps its secrets. It’s like you almost need An Idiot’s Guide To Secret Cults to keep track of who’s who.
12. The Shomonkai, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (2011)
Lots of cults preach that the world is ending and judgment is coming, but the Shomonkai have plenty of evidence to back up their claims. It helps that they’re partially responsible for unleashing demons on Tokyo in service to their dark god. Their machinations continue throughout the game as they recruit followers and equip them with the ability to summon still more demons. When the primary alternative for Tokyo’s citizens is to flee in terror from murderous monsters, joining an evil cult is a pretty appealing pitch.
13. Unitologists, Dead Space (2008)
Building an entire religion around an evil alien artifact is never a good idea. (Xenu be praised!) Yet that hasn’t stopped the Unitologists of Dead Space from cooking up their own wacky, extraterrestrial-lovin’ cult. On the surface, Unitology preaches acceptance, peace, and universal harmony—a message that might account for its increasing appeal. Yet its obsession with the creepy alien relics known as the Markers means most Unitologists end up with a nasty case of necromorph plague (think, “zombie space herpes”). Of course, like all religions, being a Unitologist has an upside to balance the down. Sure, there’s a reasonably good chance you’ll get your face ripped off by a reanimated corpse-monster. On the other hand, you can’t argue with their sweet-looking robes, not to mention all the free Sun Cola you can handle.
14-16. Ironheade, Tainted Coil, and Drowning Doom, Brütal Legend (2009)
According to the lore of Brütal Legend, heavy metal music passes down the stories of the ancient demigod Ormagöden and the Titans, much as every other religious tome tells the stories of its gods and disciples. Also, guitars and hot rods are forged from the flesh of Ormagöden, making them the most badass wafers in communion history. Rival factions—the ultra-traditional Tainted Coil and the repentant, ceremonial Drowning Doom—have their own customs of worship, but the three camps are spun out of the same Ormagöden myth, in much the same way that Judaism, Christianty, and Islam spring from essentially the same well.
17-plus. Various, Star Control II (1992)
More than two dozen alien races play a part in Star Control II’s enormous world, and the religious beliefs underlying said races play a significant role in negotiating with each of the aliens—talking happens to be a big part of the game. As you explore the game’s massive space, you’ll discover a wealth of detail about what makes those beings tick. You learn about Dogar and Kazon, terrifying twin gods of the spider-like Ilwrathi. You discover the role of a cult called Homo Deus, founded by a former used car salesman, in the rebellion of the human-clone based Androsynth. The Pkunk will tell you of their creation myth, which involves a Mystical Egg Of Icelike Temperature. Nearly everywhere you go, the religious beliefs of the aliens are on display. Sometimes that knowledge helps you discover the best way to deal with an alien; more often it just lends context and verisimilitude to your interactions with the bizarre beings that populate the galaxy.