Video game publisher Templar Media has acquired Norway-based development studio Bible X, securing the future of “Gate Zero,” a forthcoming Bible-based, time-travel video game aimed at a global audience of younger players.
Announced in a Dec. 17 press release, the acquisition brings Bible X — founded in 2020 under the nonprofit Christian media organization BCC Media — under the umbrella of the Atlanta-based publisher. Templar Media said the deal ensures long-term ownership of the Gate Zero intellectual property while providing expanded resources for development, marketing and distribution, including confirmed plans to launch the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a particular focus on reaching Generation Z and Generation Alpha.
“Gate Zero is a historical, semi open-world action-adventure with sci-fi elements, set in a dystopian future where a ruthless global regime is the sole arbiter of truth,” according to Templar Media.
“From the moment we saw Gate Zero, we knew it had enormous potential as a high quality game that was being created for a massive, yet underserved gaming audience,” added John Gibson, CEO and founder of Templar Media. “With this acquisition we can now apply the full experience, support and resources of Templar Media into creating the incredible ‘Entertainment First’ experience that gamers worldwide have been asking for.”
Gibson, a games industry veteran, saw the acquisition as a cornerstone investment for the new publisher. The business deal complements the company’s “entertainment first” philosophy.
“Templar Media gives us the stability and strategic support to fulfill our original vision and expand on it,” said Arve Solli, studio head of Bible X and based in Moss, a city near Oslo, Norway.
“Our goal from the very beginning of the project has been to take players on a fun and engaging journey back in time, allowing them to experience firsthand the events of the Bible during one of the most pivotal and significant moments in history. Now, we have even greater tools and resources to bring this vision to life in an even more powerful, immersive, and high-quality way.
"As proven by the commercial success of TV and movies like The Chosen and The King of Kings, there’s a massive audience seeking top-tier content that explores their values. With Gate Zero, we plan to meet that demand with a full-featured, story-rich video game that allows the player to explore the history and stories found in the Bible, in a grounded and historically accurate way."
The development of Bible X is part of a wider rise in popularity and engagement by players with Christian and gospel genres in the video games space, according to Templar Media.
Solli has been working in Christian media and production since 2011. His involvement has seen him create content for children and he has been working for that target audience for years as a producer and director, mostly for BCC Media.
In late 2019, he began working on an interactive Bible study tool complementing an international youth camp planned for 5,000 young people, creating an imaginative virtual tour inside the temple in Jerusalem. However, the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the project and Solli and his team had to rethink the whole concept and came up with the idea of creating a video game.
All the young people in the youth club were invited to play the prototype of the new video game. They were divided into 900 groups of four to seven people, and played the game together.
“They were [virtually] ‘living’ in Jerusalem celebrating Easter and learning all the stories, and interacting for two months before [physically] returning to the camp two years later,” Solli explained to Christian Daily International in November 2024. The first prototype of the game completed in 2022.
Solli said the project plan had two purposes. Firstly, to put the prototype before a mass Christian youth camp, meeting post-pandemic in Norway but involving youngsters from all over the world. They had a tradition of doing a Bible study project together.
“The first prototype was meant to be that Bible study project,” Solli explained, “for then in groups but also interactive all over the world, competing inside the game and building up towards their youth camp in 2022. The other purpose was to confirm the assumption that a Christian Bible-based video game would be a really good idea.”
The manner of gauging interest happened by analysing the interaction between the youngsters and the game with developers: “studying those results, and we also went specifically to the U.S. and interviewed youth ministries in several different churches with differing denominations to gather insight and validate our reasons was for making this game.
"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.”
More development and changes were made to enhance the game play, storyline and graphics. The quality of the game subsequently improved. The first iteration was for groups playing but an updated version caters for single players with an additional cellphone or tablet application facility to enable more players to join in the game.
The storyline for the game is 100% Bible-based according to Solli, and participants play as “Max,” a teenager from the future within a game narrative created by the Bible X team.
Solli compared the tone of Gate Zero to George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984.” Set in 2072, the game's storyline says a governing power called “DeForce” controls every aspect of life to serve its own self beliefs.
As Max, the game player is not convinced and sets out to learn the truth of history, thanks to his grandmother Charlotte with her Bible. Cousin Hector, with a time scanner, helps and Max becomes something of a “cyber archaeologist,” according to Solli, who wants to “bring back the history of the world.”
“They travel back in time to confirm and find evidence of that world, so they can rediscover the history of it, and by that people can learn about Jesus.”
