A bizarre new game called I Am Jesus Christ has appeared on Steam's store page, advertising itself as a "highly realistic simulation game" where you play as Jesus Christ himself and perform miracles. The game is created by as-of-yet unknown developer SimulaM and published by PlayWay, a publisher known for well-received simulation titles like House Flipper and Car Mechanic Simulator. The game has no clear release date, and is marked as "Coming Soon" on Steam.
Steam is somewhat infamous for featuring wildly bizarre video games; a fact which may become something of a trademark if the digital marketplace continues to have difficulty earning the rights to distribute big-name titles. One example of the kind of game that gets popular on Steam is the infamous dating sim I Love You Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin' Good Dating Simulator which released earlier this year. While that game was simply a humorous, if bizarre, advertisement for KFC, it seems that I Am Jesus Christ is something else entirely.
According to game's the Steam page (via PCGamer), I Am Jesus Christ is a simulation based on the New Testament of the Bible, and covers the period from Jesus's baptizing to his resurrection. The game is a first person experience which simulates some of his most famous miracles, such as curing the blind, walking on water, and conjuring fish to feed the hungry. The Key Features section claims over 30 of these miracles can be performed throughout the game. It also advertises an open world, something called the "super power of Holy Spirit," and a realistic fight with Satan. It is unclear what exactly the gameplay will be; most of the footage in the trailer amounted to the player (as Jesus) waving their hands to perform miracles.
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/256768249/movie480.webm?t=1575641378
Christianity has had a complicated relationship with video games in the past. Numerous Christian video games have been produced over the years, and many of them are regarded as either wildly bizarre, deeply terrible, or, in the case of the PC game Secret of Jesus, both. The 1995 NES game Bible Adventures is a particularly notorious example, having been called one of the worst video games of all time by sources like GamesRadar and Electronic Gaming Monthly. Many Christian games seem to have the misfortune of following in Bible Adventures' footsteps.
I Am Jesus Christ certainly seems to run a high risk of following suit. The gameplay presented in the trailer looks repetitive where present, and one of the key features listed is simply called "special skills." It could also well be argued that making a flashy simulation game to depict the life of Jesus Christ is a move made in poor taste, no matter how realistic its fights with Satan are. Still, there have certainly been strange video games on Steam in the past that have done considerably well for themselves. The internet is a deeply strange place, and as a deeply strange game, I Am Jesus Christ is well poised to earn an audience from morbid curiosity alone.