In alchemy, it is said that “to create gold, an individual must first use base metals.” The same principle applies in Fear & Hunger (2018). Although it is not about changing material, it is about dealing with despair. Forcefully, players face their most basic instincts, their biggest fears, and uncomfortable truths come to light when survival is the only goal. Like an alchemist works through a melting pot, the game strips away comfort and pretenses. Ultimately, it leaves behind the raw essence of humanity—resilient, desperate, and fragile.
In the game, transmutation is more than just surviving physically. Moral alchemy forces players to make choices that highlight the darker sides of human nature: the destruction of innocence, betrayal, despair, and sacrifice. “Gold” turns into literal wealth and an understanding of surviving in an unfriendly world; human weakness becomes both a tool for navigation and a curse.
Video games often dive into deep stuff like philosophy or theology. Take Bioshock Infinite—it is all about free will vs. determinism, with moral choices that make you question your control. Then there is Journey, where you silently wander a desert, connecting with other players without words, reflecting on the human experience. Games like these offer more than just fun—they make you think.
On the other hand, people can understand what Fear & Hunger is getting at when it talks about beauty or even digital torment just for a momentary thrill. However, the game started becoming a hot topic online. Suddenly, more and more people flooded in, offering different and varied interpretations.
The game is packed with references, nodding to Bloodborne with its cryptic item names and occult vibes. It also borrows Dead Cells‘ tough-as-nails gameplay and draws heavy inspiration from Berserk, with characters like Casca and Griffith resembling Cahara, D’arce, and Enki Ankarian.
The driving force behind all the recommendations is not just that Fear & Hunger borrows concepts and themes from other series. It is that it dives deep into those sources and blends their ideas into something unique, creating its fascinating folklore. The game does not just combine stories and themes from other games in a way that feels original and brilliant—it also pays respectful homage to those themes and stories.
The themes and story stand out because they are ideally in sync with the game’s punishing gameplay. However, the best part is the game’s philosophical take on suffering. Many of its ideas are communicated through subtle symbolism rooted in religious imagery and concepts.
The game’s timeline starts with the creation of the universe, featuring a group of gods called the Old Gods. The most relevant and prominent are Vinushka, Gro-goroth, and Sylvian, whose real-world counterparts are the Hindu Trimurti. Considering Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world—if not the oldest—it makes sense for the Old Gods to parallel it.
Other gods in the Old God pantheon, like the God of the Depths and Rher, do not play a role in the first game. As the Creator, Vinushka is equivalent to Brahma and is associated with fertility and creation. However, Vinushka’s version of creation is far more chaotic and bizarre. Instead of divine, orderly creation, Vinushka’s domain revolves around uncontrolled natural growth. Both represent generative aspects of existence, but Vinushka embodies the wild side of nature, while Brahma represents divine, orderly creation. Such reference parrots the roots of life, merging plain unpredictability with essence’s hazards.
Gro-goroth, as the Destroyer, parallels Shiva, representing roughness, extinction, and descent in the Trimurti. Regardless, Shiva’s doom is invariably visited as integral to the rotation of revival and outcome. In the different writing, Gro-goroth tilts into rampant brutality and disarray. While Shiva’s malignant influence is repeatedly caught as transformative, paving the course for revived fronts, Gro-goroth’s ruin is more fatalistic than regenerative.
As the Preserver, Sylvian is identical to Vishnu, illustrating the conservation of life, replica, and adoration. Nevertheless, in the game, Sylvian’s conservancy continues in a shadier, better indulgent manner, concentrating on fertility, eros, and flesh in a nearly serpentine form. Vishnu’s protection is embedded in the dharma (cosmic law), charge, and mercy, while Sylvian’s conservancy is affixed to earthly and physical ideals, oftentimes directing to awful results.
The Trimurti and the Old Gods portray the cosmic collapse, conserving, and output process. However, the game presents these concepts with more ambiguity and moral strangeness.
Even so, one more Old God is the Ascended God, Alll-mer, who parallels Jesus Christ. As the Ascended God, Alll-mer reflects Jesus Christ’s ascension to Heaven after His crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus is believed to have sacrificed Himself for the salvation of humanity, bearing the sins of the world to bring redemption and eternal life.
Alll-mer’s ascension symbolizes his rise to godhood, but Fear & Hunger subverts the redemptive aspect of this act. His ascension reflects a twisted and grim form of divinity in the game’s universe. His godhood does not bring salvation or peace; instead, it creates a flawed and indifferent higher power.
While Jesus is viewed as a savior of humanity, inspiring moral guidance and hope, Alll-mer is also worshiped as a god of light. His followers, including the members of the Church of Alll-mer, see him as a figure of salvation and high morality. His glorification is tarnished by depravity and fanaticism, with his pedagogy hollowed, avoided, and contorted.
On the further arrow, Jesus’ crucifixion means a supreme action of enduring misery for humankind. Torment is foremost to Christian belief, conjoined to deliverance and dawn. In disparity, Alll-mer’s anecdote lacks any explanation. His connection to suffering reflects the apathy of the universe, where pain does not lead to salvation but instead highlights the futility of existence.
Often associated with moral guidance, purity, and light, Jesus is called the Light of the World and is a beacon of hope in times of darkness. Alll-mer is also linked to light, but his representation is twisted. His light is cold, distant, and forever out of reach for humanity, feeling more like a false promise or an unattainable ideal than a source of salvation or comfort.
While Jesus is fully human and divine, acting as a bridge between God and humanity, Alll-mer’s ascension shows that he was once human, too. Nonetheless, unlike Jesus, Alll-mer evolves solely and nonnatively behind his ascension. His deity does not bridge the interval but rather forms an unbridgeable abyss.
As a faith, Christianity has encountered fuss for its associations, which periodically roam from Jesus’ instructions. Besides, the Church of Alll-mer describes such commentary as a stern and dogmatic establishment that aims to ameliorate the world’s anguish.
The game drives all-in on its Jesus parallels. Alll-mer in Fear & Hunger is a direct Christ figure—virgin birth, twelve apostles, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Christ symbolism in Blade Runner, The Green Mile, and Children of Men feel subtle compared to this.
But the twist? He did not just stick around for a few days and ascend to heaven like Jesus did. Instead, he went full “Passion of the Christ” on everyone involved in his execution, including all the known sultans and kings of that time.
At first glance, it is all about revenge. However, his goal was to establish a New World Order where the old gods were left behind, and Alll-mer became the one God worshipped by everyone. There is another interpretation of Alll-mer’s origin story written by one of the characters, Enki. The difference here is that instead of being born to a virgin mother, Alll-mer was created by a master architect under Sylvian’s orders to craft the perfect human. Either way, both versions end with Alll-mer ascending to the status of an Old God.
For the next eight centuries, Alll-mer continued to be worshiped. However, people started noticing that his influence and presence were fading over time, just like the Old Gods before him. It seemed like both Alll-mer and the Old Gods had forgotten their promises of salvation. The world’s kingdoms collapsed, and the people gave in to all kinds of sinful behavior.
Not content to let things fall apart, a legendary group of five decided to take matters into their own hands. They set out to find Alll-mer and the Old Gods, hoping they could become gods and create a new world order. Eventually, they discovered a rift in the earth as a portal to different planes of existence. After traveling through it, they found a realm outside of time and space, where they came across a city called Ma’habre.
When they arrived, the Old Gods deemed them worthy and offered them the chance to transcend their mortal forms and become the New Gods. Four of them agreed, but one, named Nosramus, refused. There is a clear pattern here: gods appear, promise salvation to humanity, then gradually fade away, leaving people in misery. Then, new gods emerge and make the same promises, and their influence fades, too. Even the four New Gods who replaced Alll-mer and the Old Gods were not immune to this. Their power and influence also started to wane.
By 1590, the setting of Fear & Hunger, humanity had again fallen into poverty and war. At this point, what is the new approach or alternative? It relates to a recurring theme in Bloodborne, Dead Cells, and Berserk. The new approach is about humanity rising above the gods through the use of the occult, especially alchemy. By following the spiritual path laid out in alchemical teachings, humans could elevate themselves to a level beyond the gods—both in morality and power.
Alchemy is about two big goals: the Philosopher’s Stone (eternal life) and metaphorical gold (spiritual enlightenment). The idea is that if you get one, the other will follow.
Alchemists loved to personify their concepts as human figures. The most important personification is the union of their Masculine God, called “Sol,” and their Feminine God, called “Luna.” When these two forces unite, they create a single being called “Rebis.” The merging of the feminine and masculine into a hermaphroditic, androgynous being is a recurring symbol in many religions and alchemical traditions.
Bloodborne thrives on opposites—physical vs. cosmic, humanity vs. beast, reason vs. madness. The Hunter’s Dream and Waking World are connected opposites, too. The Sun is barely there, but the Moon dominates, symbolizing transformation, mystery, and the eerie influence of the Great Ones.
Masculine aspects show up in pursuits of domination, control, and rationality, as seen in Gehrman, the First Hunter, and the Healing Church. The Church seeks to impose order on the unknown or cosmic forces through experiments. On the other hand, characters like Queen Yharnam, Arianna, and Lady Maria align with feminine archetypes. For example, Queen Yharnam is linked to blood that’s both corruptive and life-giving, echoing the feminine association with renewal and fertility cycles.
In the manga Berserk, the God Hand represents a transformation of this concept. After reaching a higher state through sacrifice and manipulating cosmic forces, each member embodies the dark side of spiritual transcendence. Their existence is also perilous, creating an imbalance where ambition, power, and intellect are severed from human morality.
When it comes to Fear & Hunger, the connection between occultism, hermaphroditism, and androgyny pops up multiple times. A clear example is Sylvian’s “marriage” magic. With this spell, two humans can merge into one entity called the Marriage. This results in the strongest base stats of any character in the game. This idea was inspired by the same alchemical logic behind creating the Rebis.
Another relevant example is Nosramus, the “forgotten one” who refused to become a New God. Nosramus is a mystic practitioner clarified in the game’s text as retaining conspicuous androgynous markers. What makes Nosramus and their androgyny so influential is their effect on the four people journeying with them. Their androgyny conveys a being that has surpassed absolute mortal ends, aligning with the alchemist’s dream of material and spiritual exemplar via the reconciliation of contraries.
Nosramus is the classic alchemical philosopher—wise, balanced, and in tune with the universe. Their calm and impartial vibe shows the ideal alchemist: enlightened and at peace with the world.
Another character, François, achieves a golden body, symbolizing the group’s “gold” form. Once they reach this state, the group has a choice: ascend to heaven, become gods, gain access to all life’s secrets, or refuse. Those who refuse must merge with the Void, leaving their original bodies behind. Just as gods are said to exist everywhere and govern all aspects of life, the Void also binds and penetrates everything.
In the seven-step alchemical process, “gold” is the final goal. Once you reach that level, there is nowhere else to go except back to the beginning—either to life itself or the Void. To create the external Philosopher’s Stone and the internal spiritual gold, you are essentially transforming part of the Void into perfection. Once you accomplish that, you practically evolve the something that constructs and controls all life—including the Void itself.
The four-party fellows took the proposal despite Nosramus’s denial. In the last beats, Nosramus discovered that the best method to preserve humankind was by understanding how to protect themselves. His task in life was not about fleeing the annals and wishing for holy intervention. Instead, his pilgrimage was observing how sophistication spread departure in alchemical schoolings. Nosramus signified the flattering qualities symbolically coupled to the feminine and the masculine. By doing so, he converted himself into body, sense, and spirit, disclosing the unknown of immortality and weathering for centuries.
Ultimately, it is clear that Nosramus intends to abandon the godhead. One of the four playable characters can travel through an underground path built along the same route that brought the New Gods to Ma’habre. They can reach Ma’habre and even defeat the gods. By doing so, the characters prove one thing mortals have that no eternal god can match: the will to stay moral, courageous, and strong in the face of endless suffering.
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