“YOU SHALL BE AS GODS”: XENOGEARS, GNOSTICISM, AND GAMING ON THE MYSTICAL MARKETPLACE AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM

This thesis explores the role of Christian Gnosticism in the Japanese role-playing video game (JRPG) Xenogears, developed by Square Co. Ltd. and released in Japan and the United States in 1998. In tracing its historical context, development, and localization I argue that Xenogears is an important text in the history of mediated religion in global popular culture. In comparing the game’s narrative against ancient Christian Gnostic texts such as The Apocryphon of John, The Reality of the Rulers, and the Gospel of Judas, I show how the game harmonized, mediated, and reproduced ancient Gnostic mysticism for its players to emulate. These factors combine to make Xenogears a mystical commodity. Xenogears functioned as a commodity on the mystical marketplace through its aesthetic and narrative use of real-world religion.