Video game publisher Templar Media has acquired Norway-based development studio Bible X, securing the future of Gate Zero, a Bible-based time-travel video game aimed at young players around the world.
The acquisition, announced in a Dec. 17 press release, brings Bible X, which was founded in 2020 under the Christian nonprofit media organization BCC Media, to the Atlanta-based publisher. Templar Media said the deal secures long-term ownership of Gate Zero’s intellectual property while providing expanded resources for development, marketing and distribution, with a particular focus on reaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha, with confirmed plans to launch the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
According to Templar Media, “‘Gate Zero’ is a historical semi-open-world action-adventure with sci-fi elements set in a dystopian future where a ruthless world system is the sole arbiter of truth.”
John Gibson, CEO and Founder of Templar Media, added, “From the moment we saw Gate Zero, we knew it had huge potential as a high-quality game created for a large but underserved gaming audience.” “With this acquisition, we can now leverage all of Templar Media’s experience, support, and resources to create the amazing ‘entertainment-first’ experiences that gamers around the world have been looking for.”
Gibson, a gaming industry veteran, saw the acquisition as a foundational investment for the new publisher. This transaction complements the company’s “Entertainment First” philosophy.
“Templar Media provides us with the stability and strategic support to realize and expand our original vision,” said Arve Soli, head of studio at Bible X, based in Moss, a city near Oslo, Norway.
“Our goal from the beginning of the project has been to take players on a fun and engaging journey back in time, allowing them to experience first-hand the events of the Bible during one of the most important and pivotal moments in history. Now we have even better tools and resources to bring this vision to life in an even more powerful, immersive, and high-quality way.”
“As evidenced by the commercial success of television and movies like ‘The Chosen’ and ‘The King of Kings,’ there is a large audience that demands top-notch content that explores their values. With Gate Zero, we plan to meet that demand with a full-featured, story-rich video game that allows players to explore Biblical history and stories in a grounded and historically accurate way.”
According to Templar Media, the development of Bible X is part of the growing popularity and involvement of players in the Christian and Gospel genre in the video game space.
Solli has been working in Christian media and production since 2011. His involvement has seen him creating content for children and working for that target audience for many years, primarily as a producer and director at BCC Media.
In late 2019, he began working on an interactive Bible study tool to complement an international youth camp planned for 5,000 young people, creating an imaginative virtual tour inside the Jerusalem Temple. However, when the project was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sori and his team rethought the entire concept and came up with the idea of creating a video game.
All the young people in the youth club were invited to play a new video game prototype. They were divided into 900 groups of 4 to 7 people and played the game together.
“They (virtually) lived in Jerusalem, celebrated Easter, learned all the stories, and interacted for two months before (physically) returning to the camp two years later,” Solih explained to Christian Daily International in November 2024. The first prototype of the game was completed in 2022.
Mr Soli said the project plan had two objectives. The first step is to introduce the prototype to a large-scale Christian youth camp that will meet in Norway after the pandemic and will be attended by young people from all over the world. They had a tradition of doing Bible study projects together.
“The first prototype was intended to be a Bible study project, not just in groups, but also interactively and competitively around the world, in-game, and ramped up for youth camps in 2022. Another purpose was to confirm the premise that a video game based on the Christian Bible was a really good idea.”
The way to measure interest was by analyzing the interactions between young people and developers with the game. “To study those results and also gather insights and examine why we created this game, we specifically went to the United States and interviewed youth ministries from several different churches in different denominations.”
“Our goal is that if you read the Bible, you can play the game. It’s basically playing the Bible, so it’s for all denominations.”
Further developments and changes were made to enhance the gameplay, story, and graphics. After that, the quality of the game improved. While the first iteration was geared towards group play, the updated version supports single player with additional mobile phone or tablet application features that allow more players to join the game.
According to Solli, the game’s story is 100% based on the Bible, and participants play as “Max,” a teenager from the future, in the game’s story created by the Bible X team.
Soli compared the tone of “Gate Zero” to George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.” Set in 2072, the game’s storyline states that a ruling force called “DeForce” controls every aspect of life to serve its beliefs.
As Max, the game player is unconvinced and tries to learn the truth of history thanks to his grandmother Charlotte’s Bible. With the help of his cousin Hector, who has a time scanner, Max becomes something of a “cyber archaeologist,” Soli says. Max wants to “recover the history of the world.”
“They can see that world, travel into the past to find evidence of that world, and rediscover the history of that world, so people can know about Jesus.”
