Crazed and Confused

I’m sure most of you weren’t expecting to see a Kirby game on this list. It’s one of the most family-friendly franchises in gaming, after all, and it’s hard to imagine how a cult could possibly play a role in the series. Against all odds, the Jambastion faction from Kirby: Star Allies is one of the most dangerous organizations on this countdown. At the game’s onset, we see an arcane figure named Hyness performing a mysterious ritual that causes shadowy hearts to rain down across the galaxy. These dark hearts have a corrupting influence over anyone they touch, but the main purpose of the ritual was to awaken a demonic deity known as Void Termina. It turns out that Hyness was out for revenge, since his cult had been unfairly maligned in the past. After successfully stopping a galactic crisis in ancient times, Hyness and his fellow mages were banished to the edge of the universe and had their names erased from history. The concern was that their magic was too powerful to remain left unchecked. They weren’t especially pleased with this arrangement, so the Jamastion cult began to worship the “True Destroyer of Worlds” in the hopes of enacting revenge upon their enemies. With the fate of the galaxy held in balance, Kirby managed to defeat the Void and cleanse Hyness from any inner darkness. Satisfied with how things ended, Hyness decided to hit the beach with his mage allies. There aren’t many happy endings on this countdown, so the Jambastion faction adds some much needed variety.

Dead Rising follows the exploits of a photojournalist named Frank West who becomes trapped in a zombie-infested shopping mall. As he scavenges for supplies, he’s able to make improvised weapons to use against the mindless zombie hoard. Unfortunately, he also has to contend with a bunch of weirdos in raincoats. It seems like every zombie story has a religious zealot with a cockamamie theory about what’s causing everything. A deranged man named Sean Keanan fills this role in Dead Rising, and he leads an organized cult called the True Eye. For some reason, Sean and his followers believe that they can spare themselves from the ravenous undead by murdering other survivors. To that end, they kidnap other shoppers, take them to the movie theater, and gear up for a sacrificial ritual. The True Eye believes that death itself has overflowed upon the world, so they think it’s perfectly reasonable to purge the “tainted blood” from the other survivors. Conveniently, this also gives them justification to attack anyone who isn’t part of their organization. They demonstrate a willingness to commit violence against anyone, and they’re quick to label their detractors as heretics. Even though they’ve lost their minds, you have to give them some level of credit for their sensible wardrobe choices. Raincoats are a surprisingly practical option if you plan on killing a lot of people.

And now for something completely different… Happy Happyism is an organized cult situated in the outskirts of Peaceful Rest Valley. You can tell something’s wrong from the moment you step foot into Happy Happy Village. The cult members are completely obsessed with the color blue, and this fixation informs every aspect of their lives. They’re decked out in blue hoods, for instance, and they literally chant “blue” ad nauseam. Their stated objective is to paint everything in the world blue, and they demonstrate this on everything from houses to farm animals! (Seriously, who paints a cow!?) The Happy Happyists seem relatively harmless, but they still engage in menacing behavior. They attack children on sight, they harass people who won’t donate to their cause, and they even kidnap a young girl with the intent of turning into a high priestess. The cult members take instructions from a deranged man named Mr. Carpainter, who has tremendous psychic abilities. It turns out that Carpainter had been under the influence of an ominous alien force, and this explains most of his peculiarities. Even taking the alien influences into consideration, who paints a cow!?

After becoming the wealthiest man in America, Andrew Ryan became disillusioned by social parasites who aimed to rob him of his hard work. He dreamed of a place where a great man could still prosper, so he founded a vast underwater city where he could escape the social, political, and religious constraints of modern society. Rapture promised total freedom to its citizens, and the city attracted denizens of like-minded individuals with a belief in individualism. Unfortunately, Rapture had no safety net for it’s less-fortunate citizens, and the growing distrust between classes led to a complete societal breakdown. Crime and corruption were ubiquitous to the would-be utopia, and the city was overwhelmed by chaos. This paved the way for new political ideologies to be implemented. Andrew Ryan envisioned Rapture as a refuge for human ambition, but Dr. Sofia Lamb believed in serving the common interest. These collectivist ideals were appealing to the city’s hapless citizens, and her Rapture Family quickly grew in numbers. Predictably, their system of beliefs led to a total disregard for human life. Sofia’s ultimate goal was to remove free will at the genetic level, and its members were happy to sacrifice themselves to “the greater good.” The Family performed all kinds of creepy “ascension ceremonies” in the hopes of being reborn, and they proudly wore butterfly insignias in recognition of the impending metamorphosis. They were all expendable in the eyes of their leader, of course, and she was happy to dispose of them if it was in pursuit of her personal goals. Their vision of a collectivist paradise never came to pass, and they ultimately doomed themselves to a watery grave by casting aside their individuality.

Michael Altman was a geophysicist who discovered an alien artifact in the 23rd century. It was concluded that this “Black Marker” landed in the Yucatán Peninsula approximately 65 million years earlier, causing the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. Despite the governments best efforts to bury the story, Altman’s discovery spawned a new religion called Unitology. Unitologists believe that humanity had been created by aliens, and they worshipped the Black Marker as a holy artifact. They thought inscriptions on the Marker would reveal the true meaning of life, and they adopted an evangelical approach to spread their simple message of unity and harmony. It sounds good on paper, but the organization was fertile soil for fanatics who wanted to push humanity into mass suicide. They saw the Marker as an indication that death was not the end, and believed that adopting a necromorphic state was a step toward immortality. As such, they actively welcomed extraterrestrial infections that would transform their mutated corpses into aggressive monsters. These necromorphic beings would then somehow converge into a moon-size being with vast telepathic powers, and Unitologists actually wanted to become part of the singularity. Remarkably, members actually paid huge sums of money in order to rise through the ranks! Unitology’s history had been fabricated and their theology was glorified propaganda, but that’s pretty much par for the course on this list.

The Covenant is comprised of various alien races who are looking to embark on a “Great Journey” that the Forerunners had prophesized. Led by Prophets who act as both political and spiritual leaders, it’s their belief that the Halo Array had been used to propel the Forerunners into godhood. The Covenant wields tremendous economic influence across the galaxy, and they’re able to maintain their power through force. When they come across a new species, they typically occupy their planet and force the inhabitants to join their ranks. Detractors are routinely killed or enslaved, and the planets themselves are ravaged in the name of uncovering “holy” Forerunner artifacts. Since humans are believed to be unfit for the aforementioned Great Journey, the Covenant leads a genocidal war against them. Although they vastly outnumber their adversaries, their blind adherence to the Forerunners prevents the Covenant from improving their technology in any meaningful way. They’re also hindered by political infighting, and this ultimately allows the United Nations Space Command to gain an upper hand. It’s too bad that the High Council lacked the clairvoyance to see that omnipresent civil wars would lead to their downfall. It’s debatable whether the Covenant is a cult or a proper religion, but I see no reason to mince words in order to protect the feelings of a genocidal (and quite fictional) theocracy.

Far Cry 5 is set in the fictional Hope County, Montana, where a fanatical preacher named Joseph Seed leads a religious cult called the Project at Eden’s Gate. Seed believes he was chosen by God to protect his congregation from a global catastrophe, and his followers forcibly convert the residents of Hope County to their cause. If the gospel of their charismatic leader falls on deaf ears, a drug called bliss is used to brainwash the residents into compliance. (Naturally, those who resist the drug’s influence are likely to be killed.) Help from the outside world is minimal, as the Project uses violence, intimidation, and coercion to isolate the county from the rest of the country. This allows the group to break the law with impunity, and the local police are willing to look the other way since they’re on the payroll. Taking down a doomsday cult in the middle of nowhere is more difficult than it seems, since they’ve managed to cut off all roads to the county. The followers seem like a bunch of rednecks, but they’re armed with military grade weaponry. They’re also able to maintain air supremacy with helicopters, mortars, and WW2-era warplanes. The ending reveals that Joseph’s predictions about the impending Apocalypse were actually correct, but that doesn’t excuse all of the kidnapping, torture, and tomfoolery.

Resident Evil 4 was a significant departure for the series. The mechanics had been completely revamped, for instance, and more emphasis was placed on visceral action-oriented gameplay. The most shocking change was that the main story was no longer centered around zombies. Instead, it dealt with mind-controlling parasites called Plagas that transformed their hosts into mindless, zombie-like beings. (It’s completely different!) Plagas are apparently found in the mountainous regions of Spain, and they are held in high regard by the locals. The entire Los Iluminados cult is built on the premise of Plagas-worship, and they view themselves as a continuation of an ancient religion that dates back thousands of years. In reality, the cult was founded in the 1990s by a bio-weapons researcher named Osmund Saddler. Saddler required a steady supply of loyal test subjects for the Plagas parasites, and he realized the best way to achieve this goal would be to invent a religion. Although its members are mostly used as pawns, Los Iluminados are surprisingly organized and effective. (They even have their own paramilitary group that keeps their research hidden from prying eyes!) The cult members spend an inordinate amount of time chanting nonsense and congregating in houses of worship, but they still managed to kidnap the daughter of the President. Incidentally, they had hoped to infect her with the Plagas parasite and expand their sphere of influence into the White House. Although their plans were unsuccessful, they deserve some credit for their ambitiousness.

Silent Hill is a quaint rural town nestled in the New England countryside. Although it maintains the visage of a scenic tourist resort, the town is linked with an alternate nightmare world that’s inhabited by all sorts of terrifying creatures. The area was known as a place of unexplained powers even before Europeans arrived, and immigrants adopted the doctrines of local Native American tribes before shaping them to their own whims. This is essentially how the Order was founded. The doomsday cult dates as far back as the Salem Witch Trials, but they started to become more organized sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. Since they were rightfully despised by most of the populace, they had to operate from the shadows. At the same time, they were secretly infiltrating public institutions and expanding their influence. Like most cults, the Order believes that they are the “one true faith” and that every other belief system is based on lies. They have their own scriptures and system of beliefs which are said to have been written through the process of divine inspiration. The members of the Order are expected to show steadfast commitment to these beliefs, and the cult will employ tactics like brainwashing or even torture in order to maintain (or increase) their numbers. The Order is not especially friendly to outsiders, and they’ve been responsible for atrocities ranging from kidnapping to mass murder and everything in between. I’m not comfortable discussing all the horrible things they’ve done, so let’s just say that the Order are a bunch of jerks!

Cults often prophesize about the destruction of the planet. In the case of the Fallout series, this apocalyptic event has already happened. Since the series takes place in the wake of a nuclear war, the characters have a legitimate reason to fear for their future. They’ve lived through Armageddon, however, so their doomsday cults tend to be a little more creative than the ones we have in the real world. There are literally dozens of cults and religious factions in the series, and they worship everything from mutant trees to mythical mothmen. Naturally, many of the cults revolve around radiation. The Apostles of The Eternal Light believe that ghouls are the next stage of human evolution, so they intentionally irradiate themselves in the hopes of forcing a transformation. Children of the Atom take things to the next level by dumping people into chemical vats in an effort to turn them into super mutants. The group resides in the town of Megaton, where they worship an undetonated nuclear bomb. They believe that every time an atomic mass is split, an entirely new universe is created. As such, they view the Great War as a divine event that led to an untold number of new universes being created in an instant. They aren’t held in high regard by their neighbors, and there are signs in Megaton that explicitly refer to them as the “Local Cult.” Although their ideas are somewhat outlandish, Children of the Atom might be on to something. The Fallout series wouldn’t exist without a fictional nuclear war to act as an inciting force, after all. In this capacity, the Great War was indeed the progenitor of their entire universe.