Castlevania began as a video game in 1986, has spawned over 30 games, and sold 20 million copies. Its most recent iterations being Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania (2022), which is an expansion of the Metroidvania-style action game Dead Cells, and Haunted Castle Revisited (2024).[i] While Konami has not released a proper entry in the franchise since 2014, there is talk of another entry due to the popularity of Netflix’s animated Castlevania series and its spin-off Castlevania: Nocturne.[ii]
Castlevania’s influence is undeniable. In 2006, IGN ranked the top 24 gaming franchises of all time and placed Castlevania #4 behind Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Mario Bros.[iii] In 2023, IGN ranked Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as #14 in their top 100 games of all time.[iv] When the series was rebooted with Lords of Shadow (2010) and Lords of Shadow 2 (2014), the game featured significant voice talent such Patrick Stewart.
Christian symbols and iconography permeate the series, often as weapons. For example, crosses and holy water function as sub-weapons for the player. In Symphony of the Night, the Bible became a sub-weapon. When activated, the “good book” encircles the protagonist, smashing enemies to bits and giving new meaning to the phrase “bible-thumper.”
The main weapon in the series is the whip. In the Lords of Shadow series, it became a multi-tool known as “the combat cross.” This cross is rumored to have been made from the nails used against Christian martyrs.[v] As the player moves through the game the combat cross’ abilities increase to include a spike chain for whipping, a hook tip for climbing, and a stake for slaying vampires. Whether it is holy water or a “combat cross,” Castlevania has given gamers religious items to use as weapons to fight the forces of evil.
Violence in video games is not a new issue. Meta-analyses note the tensions over whether violent games increase aggression and how violence may be mediated through various contexts.[vi] The work of Rachel Kowert has contributed much to this discussion, noting the complexity of gaming and violence research and ultimately concluding that violent games do not make people violent.[vii] That does not mean, however, games have no effect.
In terms of religious violence in games, Christian autoethnographies have explored interreligious relationality comprised of “exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, and Trinitarianism.”[viii] Gaming worlds span the spectrum of engagement with religion from being conflict-based to more collaborative and tolerant.
Part of the tension concerns gamers role-playing the religious “other.” Games such as Assassins Creed, have worlds suffused with “religious narratives, symbols, and representations.”[ix] Belief systems are often represented “not only in a stereotypical way but function as a trope to make distinctions between ‘good’…and ‘bad’ characters.”[x] The results always include some form of identification with the role players take on, leading to re-enchantment among some users.
Gaming scholar Rachel Wagner observes an inherently religious nature in worldbuilding. “Games, then, like religions, can posit externalized spaces wherein the rules are discernible, and expectations clear.”[xi] Wagner notes video games “respond to contemporary insecurity by providing temporary algorithmic order, the assurance of whom to hate and to destroy and with whom to create productive alliances.”[xii] The themes of order and chaos are relevant in Castlevania where the castle that provides much of the game space is “a creature of chaos.”[xiii] Castlevania's religious weaponry frees the world from chaos and restores order, potentially shaping players real-world views of religion as a violent, organizing, and liberating force.
Religious analyses of video games often overlooks media effects theories, such as cultivation theory. This theory explores the media’s ability to cultivate an idea about the world that may influence users to behave in certain ways.[xiv] This paper brings cultivation theory into the arsenal of religious research tools to theorize how the religious weapons of Castlevania might affect gamers and their perception of religion. Additionally, gaming transfer phenomena (GTP)[xv] and a gamer-centered qualitative analysis on Let’s Play[xvi] accounts engaged with Castlevania’s religious content contribute to understanding how weaponized religion affects gamers.
[i] James Kennedy, “A Brand New Castlevania Game Just Released and Hardly Anybody Seems To Have Noticed,” The Gamer, Sept. 4, 2024,
https://www.thegamer.com/a-brand-new-castlevania-game-just-released-and….
[ii] Joshua Murphy, “Rumor: A New Castlevania Game Could Be Announced This Year,” Game Rant, February 8, 2025, https://gamerant.com/new-castlevania-game-rumors-2025/.
[iii] “The Top video Game Franchises,” IGN, Accessed March 10, 2025, https://web.archive.org/web/20120617164708/http://pc.ign.com/articles/7….
[iv] IGN Staff, “IGN’s 100 Best Games of All Time,” IGN, May 23, 2024, https://www.ign.come/articles/the-best-100-video-games-of-all-time.
[v] For this piece of lore, see JacqueseVonRIP, “Combat Cross,” Neoseeker, August 27, 2011, https://castlevania.neoseeker.com/wiki/Combat_Cross.
[vi] Tobias Greitemeyer, The Dark and Bright Side of Video Game Consumption: Effects of Violent and Prosocial Video Games,” Current Opinion in Psychology, no. 46 (2022): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101326.
[vii] Rachel Kowert and Thorsten Quandt eds., The Video Game Debate 2: Revisiting the Physical, Social, and Psychological Effects of Video Games (United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2020).
[viii] Gregory D. Jones Jr., "Video Gaming Faith: Playing Out Theologies of Religions," Religions 13, no. 10 (2022): 944, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100944.
[ix] Lars de Wildt and Stef Aupers. "Playing the Other: Role-Playing Religion in Videogames." European Journal of Cultural Studies 22, no. 5-6 (2019): 867-884, https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549418790454.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Rachel Wagner, "God in the Game: Cosmopolitanism and Religious Conflict in Video Games," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 1 (2013): 249-261, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfs102.
[xii] Ibid
[xiii] Toru Hagihara and Koji Igarashi. Symphony of the Night. Konami. PlayStation One, 1997.
[xiv] Mary Beth Oliver, Arthur A. Raney, and Jennings Bryant, eds., Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, 4th ed. (United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2020).
[xv] Angelica B. Ortiz de Gotari and Mark D. Griffiths, "Prevalence and Characteristics of Game Transfer Phenomena: A Descriptive Survey Study," International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 32, no. 6 (2016): 470-480, https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2016.1164430.
[xvi] Kerstyin Radde-Antweiler, Michael Waltmathe, and Xenia Zeller, "Video Gaming, Let's Plays, and Religion: The Relevance of Researching Game Environments." Gamevironments, 1, (2014): 1-36.
The Castlevania franchise has sold more than 20 million games since 1986. It has become popular again due to Netflix’ acclaimed series. The games are full of Christian symbols and icons, some functioning as weapons. For example, in Symphony of the Night, the Bible is a sub-weapon, giving fresh meaning to the term “bible thumper.” In the Lords of Shadow, the main weapon is a multi-tool known as “the combat cross.” Castlevania’s religious weaponry frees the world from chaos and restores order, suggesting to players that religion is a violent, organizing, and liberating force, potentially shaping their real-world view of religion. This paper brings cultivation theory into the arsenal of religious research tools to theorize how Castlevania’s weaponized religion might affect gamers’ perception of religion. Additionally, gaming transfer phenomena (GTP) and a gamer-centered qualitative analysis on Let’s Play accounts contribute to understanding the effects of weaponized religion in games.