Religious leaders in Malaysia have united against Fight of Gods; a fighting game featuring deities from Christianity, Buddhism, Paganism, Judaism, and Hinduism. The condemnation comes from how the game treats these religious icons, which the leaders say is degrading towards religions as a whole.
Fight of Gods recently entered into Early Access on Steam, and is available for the low price of RM11.40. It features deities like Odin, Amaterasu, Moses, and Guan Gong; although it’s the recent additions of Gautama Buddha and Jesus that have caught the attention of local religious bodies.
To make matters worse, fans of the game are already asking for the developers to include Prophet Muhammad as a playable character. Which could be problematic to say the least.
Perlis Mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin has called on the government to ban the game to avoid creating religious tension in the country. A similar call was made by the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism.
Council of Churches Malaysia general-secretary Rev Dr Hermen Shastri called the game the height of insensitivity, while MCA religious harmony bureau chief Ti Lian Ker said that it would “contaminate the religious harmony” in Malaysia.
Fight of Gods looks to be a very bare bones fighting game that bank on being extremely tongue-in-cheek with how it treats religious icons. It doesn’t actually look like a serious AAA game, and would have easily escaped noticed if not for its theme. Despite this, it has managed to garner very positive reviews on Steam.
Curiously, another game using more or less the same religious icons has managed to slip under the radar. Smite, a MOBA similar to Dota 2, also features deities battling each other and has existed since 2014.
[Source: The Sun]
