Blaze News original: Game industry veteran canceled for pro-life views helping Christian developer launch biblical blockbuster

Game developer Bible X, an Oslo-based game studio founded in 2020 as part of BCC media, is developing a semi-open world video game set in ancient Israel that is sure to generate major waves in an industry valued at over $240 billion.

While Gate Zero has multiple distinguishing features, what primarily sets it apart from other titles in the historical adventure genre is that it centers on the most important story worth telling: that of a certain Nazarene whose life, death, and resurrection forever changed the fate of mankind and serve as a reference point by which all nations still mark the years of lesser events.

'I truly believe this game can and likely will be one of the biggest things for spreading the gospel — maybe not just only this game, but the start of what this game is doing — since the printing press.'

Gate Zero is hardly the first faith-based game. However, its developers are set on making it the first proper Christian blockbuster — accomplishing for the medium what "The Chosen" and "The Passion of the Christ" managed for TV and film, respectively.

Blaze News discussed the project with Bible X's head of studio and game designer Arve Solli last year and previewed a compelling prototype of the game, which was then touted as an opportunity to "travel back in time to explore ancient Israel, interact with Gospel stories, and examine the deeper meaning of Jesus' words."

In the months since, Bible X has made several bold moves to maximize quality and impact, including the onboarding of John Gibson, an industry veteran who stepped down as CEO of Tripwire Interactive after radicals targeted him for ruin and exile in 2021 over his support for the unborn.

Solli and Gibson spoke to Blaze News this week about mainstreaming the Bible in the video game industry, the current state of the game, Bible X's fundraising efforts stateside, and remaining obstacles.

From exile to Bible X

Bible X announced in January that Gibson had joined the team as executive game consultant.

Gibson indicated that while the opportunity was providential, his path to accept it was anything but smooth or direct.

"It was kind of funny. Every time I opened social media, I was seeing ads for the game Gate Zero. It was like God was tapping me on the shoulder saying, 'You should check this out.' And I kept ignoring it and ignoring it," said Gibson.

Finally, he relented and messaged the company, noting, "I'm John Gibson. I've been developing games for a while. If any of my experience is valuable, I'd be happy to contribute."

Gibson boasts decades of experience, having worn many hats while leading Tripwire, a Georgia-based video game company he co-founded in 2005, which has sold tens of millions of games. He brought multiple well-received titles to market, including Maneater, Chivalry 2, and Rising Storm, as well as the Red Orchestra and Killing Floor franchises.

Gibson recalled that "Arve responded and said, 'I hope you don't mind me saying this: we've been praying for someone like you to come along.'"

Tragedy and misfortune had evidently primed Gibson to lean into the moment.

"I took a break from games for a while," he told Blaze News. "Just to be candid, it was a very difficult thing that I went through. … One of the things I haven't said on Tucker Carlson or some of those interviews, I don't believe, is that almost five family members — right after that whole crisis happened — including my mother at 66 years old, and my little sister at 44, just back to back to back every couple of weeks, somebody died, and it was traumatic."

Blaze News previously reported that after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block Texas’ pro-life heartbeat law, Gibson tweeted, "Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat. As an entertainer I don't get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer."

Gibson told Blaze News that he had seen many of his peers in the industry condemning the law but no one daring to laud it.

"I wasn't trying to go on a big crusade," said Gibson. "But apparently I properly combined uranium to create a nuclear explosion on Twitter."

Not only was he viciously attacked online, but at least one company that conducted business with Tripwire — Shipwright — announced it was canceling all existing contracts with his company.

Various other outfits piled on, making sure to let everyone else know they disagreed with the gaming veteran's opinion and that they supported abortion.

In a statement indicating that Gibson had stepped down as CEO just over two days later, the company he co-founded even apologized on his behalf.

When asked whether he felt a little bit like Job — whether this bout of misfortune was a test of his faith — Gibson told Blaze News, "It was a crisis for me because I’m a fighter and a person of action. And when this all went down, and I get a lot of pushback from other conservatives and believers on this, but my initial reaction was to fight."

Gibson indicated that after his unceremonious exit from Tripwire, he hired one of President Donald Trump's former attorneys, intending to go on the legal warpath.

"I'm like, 'Let’s go. You want to fight? You're going to have one,'" said Gibson. "And I had absolutely no peace at all. I felt in those first few days that God was telling me to take the path of peace. I could fight and I could probably win, but the end result would be better if I just followed what He wanted to do."

Gibson indicated that it was a "battle every single day." Then came the decision to sell Tripwire to Saber Interactive.

"This was 20 years of blood, sweat, and tears," said Gibson, noting that to first get the company going, he borrowed against everything he owned, missed time with his family, and sank months of 100-hour work weeks.

After some soul-searching and counsel from a mentor, Gibson signed the contract, parting ways with his company.

Months later, he heeded the apparent tap of the divine on his shoulder, got in touch with Solli, and met the team in Norway. Shortly thereafter, he joined Bible X on a project he now figures could very well be "one of the biggest things for spreading the gospel" — something Solli noted is critical at a time of dismal Bible illiteracy.

Pulling out all the stops

Solli previously told Blaze News, "We want to create something great because we believe it's the greatest message ever told," adding that "the Christian message deserves to have the same amount of effort, if not more" than other works of entertainment.

This was a factor not only in seeking greater investment but also in adding Gibson to a team that includes individuals who previously worked at Rockstar Games on the Grand Theft Auto franchise and on Red Dead Redemption 2, as well as on the Thief and Assassin's Creed series.

"That's been the goal all the time: to bring on the best people with the best experience and the burning heart for this type of project," said Solli.

Blaze News previously asked Dr. Kevin Schut, a professor of media and communication at Trinity Western University and the author of "Of Games & God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games," about Christian video games and their apparent inability to break into the mainstream.

While the industry's aggressive and transgressive culture has long been a factor, Schut noted that "few developers of explicitly Christian games have either the experience or resources to make really high-quality games."

Bible X appears to be breaking the pattern.

Gate Zero - Screenshot from early demo

Solli noted that Gibson has brought 20-plus years of experience as a founder CEO, game developer, designer, and programmer, as well as his industry network.

"As a startup and as an indie developer — there's a lot of small challenges every day," said Solli. "The more we can shorten the decision time and shorten the time it takes to go from the wrong direction in the right direction, the more effective[ly] we can spend all the money we're using to create this game."

Gibson indicated that there were two preconditions for his involvement in the project.

First, he had to know that the team he would be working with had "the skills and the desire to make an undeniably great game, because not everybody has the skills and not everybody has the drive to do something that successful."

Second, he said Bible X would have to double its budget on Gate Zero to maximize quality and ensure that the game was a knockout.

Bible X had already satisfied the first condition and agreed to satisfy the second. However, the increased budget meant finding new ways to raise funds.

Previously, Bible X successfully crowdfunded several hundred thousand dollars in campaigns for the game on Indiegogo and Kickstarter.

"Since we talked last time, we have started an organization in the U.S. called NextGen Bible Media. The goal there is to first and foremost fund-raise for [Gate Zero], but later on, possibly for other games," Solli told Blaze News.

Bible X appears to be crafting a game that satisfies the expectations of conventional gamers while also delivering biblical content they will never have seen before.

NextGen Bible Media is a nonprofit registered through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services set up to help fund the Gate Zero project in BCC Media. According to the NextGen Bible Media page, which has an option for tax-deductible donations, the project is already 49% funded.

"This is marking great progress, but we need additional support to reach the full target and bring this vision to life," said Solli.

Gibson noted that he is among the donors.

"I am a significant backer of Gate Zero. I'm putting my money where my mouth is," said Gibson. "I'm not just asking people to donate. I'm saying, 'Come alongside me and also donate because — and Arve talks about this a lot — Bible literacy is going down."

According to the American Bible Society's State of the Bible 2024 report, the percentage of American adult Bible users (defined as those who interact with scripture at least three or four times a year outside church or faith services) bounced around 50% for several years but then plunged to 40% in 2022. That downward trend has continued, falling to 39% last year and 38% this year.

Of Millennials, 12% are scripture-engaged, whereas 65% are Bible disengaged. While slightly less Bible-disengaged than the older cohort (61%), Gen Z adults are the least scripture engaged at 11%.

"We have an entire generation that's not engaging with the Bible," said Gibson, noting that such a game would constitute a massive evangelizing opportunity.

"I truly believe this game can and likely will be one of the biggest things for spreading the gospel — maybe not just only this game, but the start of what this game is doing — since the printing press," continued the gaming veteran. "This is how the next generation interfaces with media. Video games are bigger than all of professional sports combined. Video games make more revenue than all of movies and television. So it’s a shame that no one has gotten there yet, but it's time."

When asked whether Bible X has partnered with religious organizations and churches stateside, Solli said, "We haven’t done that yet, but it's definitely an opportunity."

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, previously told Blaze News that "any medium that offers an accurate account of the biblical story and encourages young people to grow in the Christian faith should be welcomed by Christians. With proper parental guidance, it can serve as a platform for more serious study. Gate Zero promises to do just that."

Although Donohue admitted to a limited exposure to Gate Zero, he indicated that it "would be an important cultural marker" should it break into the mainstream. "Young people, especially boys, are being inundated with morally debased videos, so wholesome alternatives are badly needed."

"Some parents may carp that this is not a blue-chip medium, but if a video game presents a realistic opportunity to evangelize the young, its unconventional approach should not be a factor," added Donohue.

The game — and how it has evolved

The version of the game previewed by Blaze News late last year kicks off in a cyberpunk dystopia in the year 2072. Current trends were clearly left unchecked because the soulless society of the 2070s appears to be bereft of Christianity.

Max, the playable teen protagonist, uses his time machine, Gate Zero, to travel back to the first century as part of a resistance group, keen on challenging a corrupted version of history. There, Max explores ancient Israel and follows Christ's ministry in ancient Judea and Galilee.

The sci-fi framing not only coheres the game but permits Bible X to avoid dragging two millennia of social and political baggage into the game.

"The intent behind the time machine is to bring the player back to Year Zero, back to Jesus, and to talk to the Author, basically," said Solli. "The game takes players back to the source, back to Jesus, because we believe that connecting with Jesus is what people really need today. This journey allows players to explore their own questions and find help for their current challenges."

Gate Zero - Screenshot from early demo

"We tried to weave together the story of our player character with the stories from Jesus," Solli previously told Blaze News. "They have certain meeting points where they connect, and then you can explore."

The player is free to explore an intricately detailed world that clerics, archeologists, historians, and other scholars have worked with the Bible X team to ensure is both historically and biblically accurate.

Gate Zero is not, however, a mere virtual museum. The player has agency, is met with both purpose and danger, and is rewarded for curiosity.

'We just have to do our job and be humble every day. Be humble and work hard. That's our secret ingredient.'

Since Blaze News last spoke to him in November, Solli indicated that he and his team at Bible X have been working on the core of the game and strengthening the game loop to ensure that "it's an undeniably great experience."

When pressed on specifics, Solli noted they have been working on action, stealth, and traversal mechanics, as well as on conducting further research to incorporate additional stories into the game.

Gibson said early iterations may have come across as high-quality walking simulators, but the game has radically evolved.

"We want the action parts of the game to be amazing, making it on par or better than other games in these genres," said Gibson, citing Assassin's Creed and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as two examples. "We want the action parts to be on par with that, so that when players play it, they might come into the game going, 'I don't care about the stories, but I hear the game plays really good.'"

"One of the big improvements from what people have seen in the Kickstarter demo is the abilities that Max has to traverse the world," said Gibson. "He's climbing, jumping, and balancing on beams and has some really cool special abilities that we're not quite ready to reveal yet."

Bible X appears to be crafting a game that satisfies the expectations of conventional gamers while also delivering biblical content they will never have seen before — certainly not in a game.

Solli indicated that the primary market the company aims to target is the U.S. and English-speaking countries. However, owing to the committed and ever-growing community, he suspects that the game will be localized and translated into roughly 12 languages on day one.

As for immediate next steps, Solli said, "We just have to do our job and be humble every day. Be humble and work hard. That's our secret ingredient."

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