''Saints of Virtue'' is a 3D medieval

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

video game developed by Shine Studios and published by Cactus Game Design. Released in 1999, it was one of the first Christian first person shooter games, and led to the release of other medieval/ancient FPS games of the same style.

Plot

The game takes place in a world allegorical to the spiritual aspects of the human heart. The player represents a Christian who enters his own heart to do battle with spiritual forces of temptation and to become a true 'Saint of Virtue.'

Development

Saints of Virtue was first conceived in October 1997 by three people who wanted to tap into the

Christian video game Christian video games are a video game genre and a form of Christian media that focus on the narrative and themes of Christian morals and Christianity. The term can also refer to Christian symbolism, mythology, media franchises, and Christian ...

market, the development wrapped in 16 months and Saints of Virtue was released in July 1999 in Christian bookstores. The game also sold around 15,000 copies. The programmer of the game was Dave Slayback who was also a former programmer at Sierra. Michael Ulrich designed the game and he is currently working on the art team at

2K Sports 2K is an American video game publisher based in Novato, California. The company was founded as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports sub-labels. The nascent label incorporated several developmen ...

. Bud Gillian was a teacher.

Gameplay

The game features four levels, each representing a spiritual obstacle to the player's journey towards becoming a 'Saint of Virtue'. Enemies – floating masks representative of negative moral choices – appear frequently in the game, and must be destroyed using the Sword of the Spirit, which fires blue bolts. Players can pick up power-ups like the Shield of Faith, which reduces the damage taken by enemies, and "Spiritual health", which boosts the player's health bar.

Discontinuation

After an extended period of time supporting the game, Shine Studios decided to discontinue the game in 2014 at the same time that the website (http://www.saintsofvirtue.com/) was set to expire. The game is no longer available for purchase digitally, and finding a CD version of the game is becoming increasingly difficult.https://web.archive.org/web/20141218082838/http://saintsofvirtue.com/ Official website (archived from the original)

References

{{reflist *Lui C, Trollbäck L, Pruzan T. What Would Jesus Play? Print. 2004;58(1):12. Accessed May 3, 2025. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12121697&site=eds-live&scope=site

External links

SaintsX
- A Windows 64-bit patch and runtime environment 1999 video games 3D GameStudio games Christian video games First-person shooters Single-player video games Sprite-based first-person shooters Video games developed in the United States Windows games Windows-only games