If you were to sit and play any fantasy video game inspirations from medieval history would be obvious from the outset. Medieval fantasy games today and their interactions with religion have a long history. As in almost all things fantasy related, this is partly a reaction to JRR Tolkien's works. While much more prominent in his materials such as the Unfinished Tales and the Silmarillion Tolkien's work is infused with religious ideas, but in his most famous and popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings religions features rather sparingly. Despite his reputation as a master world builder, religion and religious expression in the cultures of Middle Earth is nearly non-existent in his two most popular works, instead being reserved for his own mythologies, where it still takes a back seat in many of the stories. However Tolkien is not the only influence on modern fantasy. The modern fantasy video games got their start as essentially D&D simulators, and the influence of Dungeons and Dragons is still felt. Religion in D&D is far more of a fact of life that barely warrants intellectual debate or dispute. The gods just simply are, and followers of them align themselves based on the forces/ideas that these indisputably existing figures embody.

These past influences are easily seen in modern fantasy games today, which draw both from historical examples as well as incorporating or reacting against prior entries into fantasy canon. The Norse and Roman art styles at work in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, the Slavic folklore and monsters of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, or the Gothic architecture of the Dark Souls series. Many game series borrow heavily from historical styles of art, architecture, armor, clothing, and folklore for their own purposes, and fantasy video games are no exception. Many these games and series have become adept at using history for artistic and narrative inspiration, often incorporating historically inspired events as a part of the games plot or backstory. For example, Skyrim references both the First World War and the collapse of the Roman Empire in its own “Great War” and The Witcher 3 draws upon the witch hunts of the early modern period. However, there is one area of medieval history and life has been neglected by most medieval fantasy games, religion. This might seem counter intuitive at first, for no fantasy game would dare not include some form of religion. Dark Souls has a plethora of cathedral locations and its own pantheon, and both the Elder Scrolls and Witcher franchises feature institutional churches, with their own doctrines, practices, and hierarchy, but in many fantasy games the approach to religion is ultimately superficial.

For example, in The Witcher 3 the Church of the Eternal Fire is set up purely as an antagonistic element to the player. There is no nuance in the game’s depiction of this organization. The members of its hierarchy are at best cynical manipulators using their position within the church as a means for greater power and wealth, or more often, the figures of the church are zealots using their authority as a cudgel against marginal groups who are violently persecuted. In other game series such as the Elder Scrolls, deities such as the Aedra and Daedra are utterly mundane features of the world, and this is equally unnuanced. The Daedra in particular are relatively easy to contact, and they are ingrained into the setting, with each race and culture having their own particular preferences for worship. Games in The Witcher and Elder Scrolls series have attained critical and commercial acclaim, but they do not help their audience reach a better understanding of medieval religion, instead they perpetuate myths about the Middle Ages that scholars have long struggled against. Despite invoking the effects of medieval religion, such as elaborate vestments, gothic temples, papal stand ins, and so on, the depiction of religion in these games is decidedly non-medieval.

I am not here to deride these games for their lack of “medieval accuracy”, but instead to call attention to a series that I think successfully manages to capture a more accurate depiction of medieval religion, by drawing directly from medieval religious debate. The series that I am referring to is BioWare’s Dragon Age series.

The first game in the franchise, Dragon Age: Origins, centers around fighting off a horde of very Tolkien-esque orcs led by an evil dragon. The second game, Dragon Age 2, is a rags to riches story that combines dungeon crawling with examinations of systemic injustice and persecution. The most recent title, Dragon Age: Inquisition places the player at the head of a multinational organization seeking to root out the sources of chaos and instability across a continent. At first glance it might appear to a casual observer that the series is little better off than many of the other medieval inspired fantasy series. Dragon Age’s nation of Orlais is as unambiguously based off of France as Skyrim is inspired by medieval Scandinavia, and the heavy-handed medieval antecedents do not stop there. The Tevinter Imperium is heavily colored by the Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire being an empire that once spanned the continent now reduced to a much smaller realm dominated by an unconquerable city, its slave economy and names such as Calpernia, Livius, and Danarius, the Kingdom of Ferelden is derived from England with its own proto-parliament and conflicts with Orlais, the Anderfells region contains German names such as Weisshaupt and Hossberg and is extremely de-centralized in rule, mimicking the Holy Roman Empire, and the list goes on.

However, I am most interested in the history of the Chantry, the main religious institution of the Dragon Age world. Now the important distinction that separates the Chantry from other medieval fantasy churches is the clear inspiration from medieval history that permeates much of the lore and history surrounding the Chantry within the universe and how this is reflected in the games themselves. Any series can have an organization with vestmented clerics, Curia politics, knightly religious orders, and Dragon Age has all of these as well, but few other medieval fantasy games engage with medieval religious history on such a deep level as Dragon Age does. Not all game series can get away with adapting rather esoteric arguments about theology into their lore as seamlessly as Dragon Age can. Inside the Dragon Age universe real-life theological debate is the inspiration for the religious division between the southern nations, such as Orlais and Ferelden, inspired by medieval western Europe, and the northern, Byzantine inspired, Tevinter Imperium. Within the game’s lore for The Chant, the central text for the Chantry as an institution, there is the line “Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him”, and this is a flashpoint for tensions between the two spheres of the Andrastian world. The Tevinter Imperium is far friendlier to magic users wielding power, having historically been dominated by them, whereas the South interprets the line as a need to lock magic away from positions of political power. Consequently, the people of Tevinter take this to mean that magic should serve to the benefit of all, and thus mage rule is on theologically safe grounds. Whereas in the south, mages are restricted from participating in public life and often subject to persecution by the Chantry.

Now why is this a particularly noteworthy addition to the game? Plenty of games borrow historical events for inspiration as a part of their world building. However, in the majority of cases these historical examples are skin deep. In Dragon Age this one example of inspiration, this one line of scripture, forms the basis not only for background lore, but conflicts that the player has to engage with over the course of several games and consequently there is an understanding of medieval religion in Dragon Age that is not present in other series; an experience that is deeply rooted in both medieval history and the history of the games themselves.

The Dragon Age series rises above its competition in depicting how medieval religion both shaped the world around it and was shaped by the world in turn. Through these moments our characters, and thus the players themselves, see the effect that religion and religious debates had in the Middle Ages through the lens of the issues raised by magic in Dragon Age. Perhaps more importantly, players see that religious issues in the Middle Ages were not simple with single causes and single solutions. We see that there were many causes behind conflicts including different beliefs between members of the same religion. The Dragon Age series breaks down the monolithic conception of the Medieval Church and challenges the player to see the nuances that Medieval religion contained. We see in the various Dragon Age games many different characters who are shaped by their understanding of what seems a simple line of scripture.

The characters within the world attempt to impart their own understanding of scripture on the world around them, and players see these efforts play out. We see hardliners for the words as written in the Chant, such as Knight Commander Meredith in Dragon Age 2, whose paranoia about mages drives her to insanity and murder. Issues such as the impropriety of spreading religion through violence and syncretism are raised by characters like Mother Giselle and Inquisitor Ameridan. We see other characters attempt to forge a better future for mages and non-mages alike through Chantry figures campaigning for the clergy to be extended to elves and dwarves. In Dragon Age: Inquisition the mages of Southern Thedas rise up in rebellion against the Chantry and the templars. The player character can choose to ally with them, bring them into a new religious movement, or ignore their plight and ally with the templars instead. Our characters hear how the Tevinter system sidesteps the issue of mage rule in theory but ignores it in practice. In Dragon Age: Origins we see a mother try to hide her son’s magical talent, knowing that if his ability is found out her son will be taken from her. Players see and play out these scenarios that combine religious belief, politics, warfare, and culture in a way that no other game series is able to. These are the moments of the game that are the most exciting to me, showing that religion and the broader world do not exist independently of each other. None of these moments in the series that I mentioned would be possible without the grounding in medieval history that the series has. These moments allow the player to experience medieval religion in a way that is more authentic than other gaming series, and you get to kill a few dragons along the way.