Most Americans, especially young people, spend far more time playing video games than reading the Bible. The innovative new game GateZero will immerse players in scripture by transporting them back to the time of Christ.
Mette Kronstad Johnsen, Art Director at Bible X.
“The bottom line is that we want to make the Bible accessible to the next generation,” art director Mette Kronstad Johnsen told “Metro Voice.” “Statistics show a huge decline in the numbers of people reading the Bible, and among the younger ones even more. We believe that young Christians want to get to know Jesus, but picking up and reading a Bible is hard. We also believe that by playing a video game about the Bible, you get to know the stories, connect with the people and understand the culture and historical references. You will understand more of what Israel was, the meaning of the temple, the political situation and so on.”
For the past three years, the team of developers (who previously contributed to such popular games as “Assassin’s Creed” and “Battlefield”) have been busy creating a prototype that already has been tested by thousands of young people. They interviewed dozens of youth ministry workers and gaming enthusiasts before building the prototype version using Unreal Engine 5, one of the latest and most advanced gaming engines available.
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“The making of Gate Zero started in 2020, when we created a 3D model of the second temple as part of a huge live show for a Christian youth camp,” Johnsen said. “We were going to give them an interactive experience, learning more about the temple in reference to the letters to the Hebrews. The camp was cancelled due to COVID, so we grabbed the opportunity to start on something we’d been dreaming of for a long time — making a video game.”
Two years later, the developers tested a prototype with more than 5,000 young people from all over the world over a six-week period, affirming their assumption that the game was needed. The plan now is to create a four-part game that includes all of the events of the life of Jesus that are recorded in the gospels.
The team behind GateZero.
Developing GateZero has been a labor of love for the creative team.
“The biggest challenges so far is probably how much time, effort, money and talent are needed to create something that the young will want to play,” he said. “It needs to be a great game, not just a great Christian game. Also, the amount of research that goes into it to make the game biblical, historical and culturally correct is a lot. We work on these things every day, and luckily, these are challenges we love.”
BCC Media, a non-profit organization, is behind the Gate Zero project, and all proceeds will be reinvested in development. A Kickstarter funding campaign earlier this month raised the targeted amount for the first version in just 79 hours.
“Now we aim toward stretch goals, such as porting the game to Xbox and PlayStation, which is something we know there is a huge desire for among our followers,” Johnsen said. “We get hundreds of questions about it every day.”
Anyone interested in contributing to ongoing development expenses can learn more at their Kickstarter campaign page. The first version of GateZero is on track for a late 2024 release.
“We believe many young people want to get to know who Jesus really is, but reading the Bible is challenging,” Johnsen said. “By playing our game, they are immersed in these historical events in a way that highlights just how applicable Jesus’ message is to their own personal lives. Consequently, it will then be easier to pick up the Bible.
“Our dream is to relate the events of Jesus’ life through four game releases. We invite you to be a part of this journey, to share the project with your friends and family, and to participate in an adventure that helps bridge the distance between past and present in the most groundbreaking way.”
–Anita Widaman | Metro Voice