Death of a Wish is a moody, visually distinctive action RPG with a story to tell about the authoritarian dangers of religious oppression. The game's hero, Christian, vows to destroy the power structure of a fanatical religious institution led by the Faiths. While the indie game features flashy, seemingly supernatural combat and nightmarish creatures, it is set in a familiar world and the narrative is more grounded than players may imagine.
The Best War Games recently spoke with Death of a Wish's creator melessthanthree and publisher Kevin Wong about the game's ambitious narrative and how a single word can occlude the intended mood and themes of a title.
Editorial Team
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Editorial Team
In the context of most thriller video games, the word 'cult' conjures images of hooded cabalists performing dark deeds for dead gods and other eldritch horrors. It immediately tips the scales of the game's world toward the occult and arcane, and the player may assume they are inhabiting a supernatural world with stakes and means that exceed or eclipse the constraints of reality.
Cult is also a convenient word for summing up an "evil religion." However, it's also an inherently judgmental word. Cultists, like aliens and robots, are considered "safe" bad guys. Using 'cult' as a shorthand made Death of a Wish easy to explain and, in certain contexts, potentially more palatable. But if Death of a Wish were to replace the word "Cult" with "Sect," "Religion," or "Church," a different picture comes into focus—one closer to the thematic vision melessthanthree originally intended for the title:
"The way we summed it up when we were pitching it to people, and on our Steam page, is that we used 'cult' as a kind of shorthand, and I think that acted as a kind of double-edged sword, as 'cult' is a very loaded word."
Cults are considered aberrations or exceptions to established conventions. In contrast, Christian's ultra-authoritarian foes draw their power from normalcy. They write the rules rather than defying them.
Instead of maintaining peace, Christian's journey in Death of a Wish is an emotionally raw quest to defy theocratic law and change his world for the better. In terms of themes, it is a more realistic and relevant struggle than trying to stop a doomsday cult. Still, it is potentially more controversial territory for a game to cover.
Editorial Team
Death of a Wish is a violent metaphor for a real issue that many people wrestle with daily. It transforms the abuse of religious authority, the strain of maintaining selfhood in the face of supposedly divine law, into a stylish and visceral life-and-death battle. It's a topic some might find distasteful or even blasphemous and melessthanthree acknowledged that the title could be fairly considered "edgy," but the story is coming from a place of honesty and experience:
"I want people to know it’s a very sincere game, even in its intensity. We are not trying to shock and offend people for the purpose of shocking and offending."
Death of a Wish's Steam page has a lengthy content warning describing the game's potentially traumatic content in detail as the Death of a Wish team takes the game's narrative extremely seriously.
Editorial Team
Wong stated that he would love to see players analyzing the game's social commentary, but also fears that using the word "cult" might have misled players. The supernatural connotations of cults, paired with the game's abstract world of Paradiso—rendered in slashed-in sprites and lines against negative space—may bury the game's thematic lead, which is a shame.
The ultimate truth behind Death of a Wish's "cult" is that it is actually a religion standing in for any religion that is actively oppressing people. Christian, whose name is clearly no oversight, is an avatar for anybody with the courage to defy those faiths.
Death of a Wish is out now for Linux, Mac, PC, and Switch.