Post-apocalypse as a Mirror Walking Along the Road? Religious and Social Themes in Horizon Series Games

Marta Błaszkowska-Nawrocka

doi:10.21697/kmt.2025.61.04

Published: 2025-04-26

Vol. 61 No. 1 (2025)

Post-apocalypse as a Mirror Walking Along the Road? Religious and Social Themes in Horizon Series Games

Marta Błaszkowska-Nawrocka

Kultura Media Teologia

Section: Artykuły i rozprawy

https://doi.org/10.21697/kmt.2025.61.04

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the games Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, along with their DLCs through the lens of the religious and social themes. The author explores how the post-apocalyptic setting portrays the collapse of old communities and the emergence of new ones, incorporating specific patterns and motifs.

Keywords:

Horizon, post-apocalypse, community

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Błaszkowska-Nawrocka, Marta. “Post-Apocalypse As a Mirror Walking Along the Road? Religious and Social Themes in Horizon Series Games”. Kultura Media Teologia, vol. 61, no. 1, Apr. 2025, pp. 50–63, doi:10.21697/kmt.2025.61.04.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Marta Błaszkowska-Nawrocka

mblaszkowska-nawrocka@swps.edu.pl
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7678-5399

Affiliation:

SWPS University Poland

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

dr, SWPS University, the Tischner Branch in Kraków, Interdisciplinary Faculty, specializes in world-building in literature and games, as well as the analysis of fantastic texts using tools from literary and cultural theory and philosophy. Her research focuses on 19th–21st-century culture, with particular emphasis on popular culture, especially literature and games (both analog and digital). Her work also encompasses narratology—including transmedial narratology—game scriptwriting, and shaping audience experience through narrative techniques. She is a member of the Games and Literary Theory Association and the Center for Game Studies at Jagiellonian University. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Teksty Drugie, Ruch Literacki, E(r)rgo, and Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich.