Analysis of the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft (WoW) shows that it contains a plethora of religious content and themes (Geraci 2014; Vallikatt 2014; Gálik 2017; Schaap and Aupers 2014, 2017), despite the game’s secular disposition without any intention to proselytize particular theological or philosophical worldviews to its audiences.

WoW has spawned a large body of academic literature. Controversial representations of gender (Braithwaite 2013; Brehm 2013; Boeshart 2014) and cultural and racial essentialisms (Ritter 2010; Poor 2012; Packer 2013; Vlisides 2013) in WoW’s universe have been well studied, as have cyberbullying (Valanne 2020), colonial features (Langer 2008; Pressnell 2013), and avatar/character creation (Pace 2008), among other topics. The representation of religion and user engagement with religious content and themes in WoW are also of interest (Bernauer 2009).

Research shows that some users consider WoW’s religious features seriously (Vallikatt 2014) and want to learn how a specific religious biography fits a character/avatar, race, culture, class, and the universe’s wider lore. Julian Schaap’s and Stef Aupers’s (2017) research discovered several ways religious themes and content are engaged by users,

• (1) Religious performance, an acting out of offline experiences with religion through online role-playing;
  
• (2) Religious relativism, a shift from dogmatic atheism to a tolerant attitude towards religion;
  
• (3) Religious quests, an increased interest in religion, and the active ‘bricolage’ of online religion and official religion to create personal systems of meaning.

Their interviews with devoted WoW users are informative. One user, Janick, says that he plays as the Paladin class because of “the Holy Light and the culture behind it” (2017, 11). Religious content and themes inform his interests, and the Paladin certainly contains content drawn from religion.

The Church of Holy Light is WoW’s predominant religion. Its members worship the Light, which, according to lore, is a shimmering sea of energy situated outside the barriers of reality. The development team’s inspiration for this conceptual development and inclusion is clear, which no doubt has to do with the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the Johannine discourses in which Jesus Christ, a first-century messianic figure, used the term “light” as a self-description (John 8:12, 9:5, etc.) and as John’s author uses the term elsewhere (John 1:5, 3:19–21, 1:7, etc.). The idea of an active “energy” existing beyond reality is a common new-age concept.

WoW’s religious features lead users to extend beyond the game itself by engaging other sources of information, such as literature, online fandom content, game wikis, forums, social media pages and groups, and diverse literary sources, to obtain a clearer understanding of WoW’s religious features and lore. Analyses of this broader content demonstrate that religious content and themes in WoW’s universe are developed and were of considerable thought on behalf the development team and concept artists. 

Some users mention that WoW has inspired subjective quests for “ultimate meaning” (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 16). This is reminiscent of a phrase theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965) used to define religion, such as the attempt to answer questions of “ultimate concern”. Few would deny that this is part and parcel of the religious pursuit.

Religious inspiration encourages users to combine various theological beliefs, assumptions, and traditions. As Berndt explains, WoW both inspired and accompanied him during transitions through phases of Buddhism and Shamanism. His views of Buddhism are inspired by the lore of the Pandarians, one of the universe’s many fantastical races. They are humanoid beings resembling pandas with lore drawn from Chinese history and mythology, which include Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist aspects.

Further, Berndt’s shamanistic perspective draws on WoW’s “elementals”, the powers of elemental spirits based on the four elements of the world: earth, fire, wind, and water. For example, fire, not only having survival value for pre-historic humans, has always had religious ritualistic use, such as sacrificing animals to supreme deities, spirits, and gods. In ancient Hebrew and Israelite history, the smoke of the sacrifice would rise to the heavens and present Yahweh with a pleasing aroma. The sacrifice would bear the sins of the people and therefore propitiate the supreme deity. 

Many other lesser-known religious traditions, including eco-paganism and esoteric groups, affirm a close relationship and connection with the natural and animal worlds, which are considered divine in one way or another. This parallels another WoW racial group, the Taurens, who are intimately connected with the surrounding natural world, which is perceived with much reverence. The Tauren worship the Earth Mother, a transcendent and immortal being. In addition, there is an ancestral dimension to Tauren belief, not unlike what one finds among African traditional religions, Shinto, the ancient Shang of China, and many more, all of whom venerate long-dead ancestral figures (kings, heroes, etc.) who continue to live on in an ancestral realm.

Another user explains that the Tauren motivated him to study religious traditions, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism, in detail. Tauren beliefs and practices “looked a lot like Hinduism and Buddhism. So I Googled a lot about that too and watched quite a few movies about it… It had a big impact on my life and it changed the way of looking at things” (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 17).

In what many describe as post-modern behavior, Berndt combined and developed aspects drawn from WoW into a subjective religious outlook. Such is a bricolage structure in which preferred religious content and themes are placed within that are drawn from diverse traditions and innovatively combined into a singular metaphysical and ontological worldview. This bricolage invention extends beyond fandom into a religious and metaphysical worldview the individual embraces and practices, however he wishes to, in daily life and lived experience.

Non-religious users also find WoW’s religious features to invite further reflection on relevant theological and philosophical topics. Colin, a materialist, says that he encounters religions in the game’s universe and that such encounters make him “always open to things” (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 15). Several users find comfort in WoW’s supernatural beings being visible and tangible entities (in the game itself, such as in the ability to combat them), which is unlike the offline experiences they have with religious people when discussing theological concepts. 

WoW also serves to change users attitudes toward religion. Schaap and Aupers explain that they “report a more open-minded attitude towards religious diversity in the real world – crediting the game for expanding their empathetic abilities” (2017, 14). Tom, an atheist, says that his Paladin avatar, a devotee of the Holy Light, caused him to adopt a milder view of religion. Janick, also an atheist, considers ideas about magic and the supernatural fascinating. These atheists enjoy creating and role-playing religious avatars like priests in the WoW universe.

Religious users also choose to play opposites by having their avatars represent worldviews partly or fully in opposition to their personal beliefs. This is possible because Wow allows users to creatively experiment with deviant, controversial, marginalized, or even immoral behaviors (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 12).

Users who are Christians report experimenting with atheism in the game “by creating stories in which belief in god(s) and supernatural influence is denied and by focusing a character’s powers on nature’s potential or physical strength” (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 12). A Catholic user experiments with an atheist identity as a “guilty pleasure”, which might be the manifestation “of the self that they [users] have found necessary to suppress or efface in the offline world” (Robinson 2007, 98).

Much of this is due to avatar/character creation, in which users can represent themselves and their religious or irreligious views in their game characters. Characters are very customizable through a user’s eclectic equipping of diverse objects ranging from swords and boots to various necklaces, rings, and much more. Users are therefore able to create their characters within the general framework of the game itself and will subsequently form a strong bond over hundreds or thousands of hours of gameplay.

Olivia, who comes from a very religious background, represents her atheistic worldview through her avatar/character (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 13). Denise uses her avatars/characters to re-enact the religious struggles she experienced when she was a teenager, and Lance, who has trauma from a bad experience with religion during his youth years, commands an avatar/character who has an intense hatred for the gods. Referring to his avatar/character, he explains that,

“He hates god, because he had a really bad experience with a god. […] He was told all his life ‘hey, you know, do what you need to do, do your duty, protect the forest, worship, be a good person, and your god will look after you. You’ll be fine and the stuff that you have lives for will carry on. And if you die, all that stuff is gonna carry on because you’re part of something greater. Don’t worry, kid’. And then it was like: ‘no actually, your god couldn’t protect you when the whole world pretty much ended’ (Schaap and Aupers 2017, 14).

References

Bernauer, Lauren. 2009. “Elune be praised!” World of Warcraft, its People and Religions, and Their Real World Inspiration.” Literature & Aesthetics 19(2):307–325.

Boeshart, Megan. 2014. “Female Gamers, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Sexism: Gender Politics in World of Warcraft.” Master’s dissertation, Texas State University.

Braithwaite, Andrea. 2013. “‘Seriously, get out’: feminists on the forums and the War(craft) on women.” New Media Society 16(5):703–718.

Brehm, Audrey L. 2013. “Navigating the feminine in massively multiplayer online games: Gender in World of Warcraft.” Frontiers in Psychology 4 (903):1–12.

Gálik, Slavomír. 2017. “World of Warcraft as a New Form of Religion?” Perspectives on Culture 18:23–35.

Geraci, Robert M. 2014. Virtually Sacred. Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Langer, Jessica. 2008. “Playing (Post)colonialism in World of Warcraft.” In Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader, edited by Hilde Corneliussen and Jill W. Rettberg, 87–108. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Pace, Tylor. 2008. “Can an Orc Catch a Cab in Stormwind? Cybertype Preference in the World of Warcraft Character Creation Interface.” Conference: Extended Abstracts Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Packer, Joseph. 2013. “What Makes an Orc? Racial Cosmos and Emergent Narrative in World of Warcraft.” Games and Culture 9(2):83–101.

Poor, Nathaniel. 2012. “Digital Elves as a Racial Other in Video Games: Acknowledgment and Avoidance.” Games and Culture 7(5):375–396.

Pressnell, Levi. 2013. “Building a World of Warcraft: Cyber-Colonialism Through “Othering” Strategies.” Master’s dissertation, University of Alabama.

Ritter, Christopher. 2010. “Why the Humans are White: Fantasy, Modernity, and the Rhetorics of Racism in World of Warcraft.” PhD dissertation, Washington State University.

Robinson, Laura. 2007. “The cyberself: the self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age.” New Media & Society 9(1):93–110.

Schaap, Julian., and Aupers, Stef. 2014. “Beyond Belief: Playing with Pagan Spirituality in World of Warcraft.” In Religion in Digital Games: Multiperspective & Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Simone Heidbrink and Tobias Knoll, 190-206. Heidelberg Journal of Religions.

Schaap, Julian., and Aupers, Stef. 2017. “Gods in World of Warcraft exist’: Religious reflexivity and the quest for meaning in online computer games.” New Media & Society 19(11): 1744–1760.

Valanne, Ville. 2020. “Cyberbullying on World of Warcraft: Experiences of Finnish Gamers.” Master’s dissertation, University of Oulu.

Vallikatt, Jose. 2014. “Virtually Religious: Myth, Ritual and Community in World of Warcraft.” PhD dissertation, RMIT University. 

Vlisides, James C. 2013. “Rendering the Other: Ideologies of the Neo-Oriental in World of Warcraft.” Master’s dissertation, Graduate College of Bowling Green State University.