I was raised to believe Hell is real. It’s just a place that’s out there waiting for you if you lie or steal or cheat or eat the wrong food or wear the wrong mixture of fabrics. And because I was raised Catholic, I 100 percent knew I was going to Hell after I died. I wasn🐲’t worried about this because the word “worry” would imply that there was the hope or possibility of an alternate outcome. Hell was where I would wake up when I died. Sure, Purgatory was technically an option, but it always felt fishy. It’ll always be funny to me that there’s a DMV waiting room afterlife result. Like getting a C rating after a battle in a game. You didn’t lose, but did you win?

The result of all this was that I thought of Hell as a real place with real demons doing real work torturing people. And, again, this wasn’t because it was scary or a ꦇhorror to be feared. It just was a place. Essentially, Hell was a lot like Tampa, Florida: your sins put you in a place outside of God’s warmth or love. Fortunately, like Tampa, there’s also a good ice hockey team and you’re only a short drive away from some roller coasters. That’s all to say that, to me, Hell has always been less “” and more “MOWING INFINITE LAWNS FOREVER.” Annoying and real. That&r🧔squo;s why I want more non-action games set in Hell.

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Look, I get that Hell is cool as Hell. You got big monster guys with horns and red faces and they can shoot fireballs. Hell is fun because, as a video game environment, essentially anything is justifiable. You can’t have a hook shot in a hospital simulator, but if there’s a hook shot in Hell, sure, why not? Guns? Makes sense in Hell. Glowing collectibles? Sure, it’s Hell! It’s the perfect setting for a game because your parameters are essentially “magic, evil, blood, and ꧋monsters.” Oh, you need to shoehorn in a sexy character, you say? May I introduce you to the name “Lilith”?

Lilith in Diablo 4's launch trailer.

But the Hell we know and love is hugely influenced by Paradise Lost - which, no matter what your nerd brain tells you, is not official Biblical canon. It is, however, a version that provides much more than just “these dudes hated God so they got horns and elꦅectric guitars”. The Fall is about battles and war - 𒊎true - but it’s also about a bunch of cursed angelic losers founding a new country in a strange land. They have to talk to each other and make alliances and figure out how to best be dicks to Heaven.

All of which is to say, it’s politicking. That’s why I loved strategy games like from LucasArts (RIP) and , which is itself in the process of getting a remake. A remake that I want very much. I haven’t had a chance to play the demo, but if the game gives me a minor approximation of being a major demon, I’ll be happy. These ar🐈e games that both treat hell as a place rather than as a level map. It’s the difference between playing SimCity and an urban area in Call of Duty. I don’t want to blow the place up; I want to run the place so other people can blow up.

Hell is a fantastic setting for subterfuge and lies and politicking. But it feels like its two primary uses are “blow things up” or “game on Steam you set on Private to play”. Which are both fine! We all like hot demons here. Nobody is trying to stop your fan art. But there’s so much more fun to wild, uptight monsters making deals with each other while trying to harvest souls they resent. T𒊎here’s much more to work with than fun visuals.

Afterlife, a city-building game set in Hell from LucasArts.

I want to wheel and deal. I w🌌ant to make promises to terrifying 12-foot-tall demons with six wings. I want to exchange souls for building materials. I want to hire spies to take a can of Raid over to Beezlebub’s city and let it rip. I want long diplomatic meetings in haunting throne rooms cre💜ated to mock The Above. I want an abysmal version of Michael Clayton. Constant lust and violence are great and everything - but long, moody conversations punctuated by shocking results? The best!

In fairness, there are some great Hell games and games that approximate Hell. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons’ take on demons and devils (and how much they hate one another) has always been fun to me. I also love every game in the series, from 1 through 235. I want more games like them! Almost every video game version of Hell takes on the James Milton-y nobility factor. Barons and Princes and whatnot and so forth. We can do more than shoot them! Through this lens, it’s far more fun to𝔍 see a Hell version of Downton Abbey than it is to see a Hell version of Saving Private Ryan. Wait, actually, I should have picked a better comparison because that sounds awesome.

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