Paper short abstract:

The purpose of the paper is to present the recurring ways that technology appears in video games. The way it is presented is not random but consistent with the motifs of the diffused new religiosity.

Paper long abstract:

A contemporary mythology is developing in today’s diffused new religiosity. The neomythological schemata are influenced by the mythology of the New Religions and diffused religiosity and reproduce their basic distinctive features. This neomythology, as it is portrayed through comics, video games, fantasy movies, etc., presents beings and worlds that have supernatural and imaginary characteristics, and attempts to present their qualities as logical and scientific. In particular, in video games, which constitute the most contemporary and popular expression of neomythology, technology – in terms of weapons, machines and devices – is incorporated into their various plots in the typical and usual way of discovery and use of such tools, while at the same time taking on characteristics that were once attributed to magic and religion. In an imaginary yet convincing way, within the limits of virtual realities, a new version of technology is being presented: a divine or magical technology emerging as a super-technology. Being presented as a divine, miraculous, magical act, as the technology of alien beings and as a secret science of superhuman beings, technology takes on a supernatural dimension and is featured in the ‘scientificated’ magic and religion of these new digital worlds.