Apocalypse at Home; Apocalypse in the Homeland: Biblical Apocalypticism in "The Binding of Isaac" and "Far Cry 5"

This paper examines how recent video games reinterpret American evangelical apocalyptic discourse across different cultural registers. Focusing on the 2011 independent game The Binding of Isaac and the major studio release Far Cry 5, it argues that these games mobilize biblical apocalyptic imagery to critique two distinct cultural afterlives of dispensationalist eschatology: the intimate psychological world of the evangelical family unit, and the broader political landscape shaped by militant Christian nationalist doomsday prophesizing. In The Binding of Isaac, the apocalyptic imagery of fire-and-brimstone evangelical programming becomes the symbolic language through which a child interprets the collapse of his family unit, and expresses feelings of responsibility for his parents' separation. Far Cry 5 projects the same discourse outward into narratives of militia culture, political violence, and national catastrophe. Together, these games demonstrate how video games have become an indispensable medium for reinterpreting American evangelical biblical discourses of apocalypticism for wider publics.