A far-right video game allows people to play as the man charged with 51 murders over the Christchurch mosque massacre.
PC shooter Jesus Strikes Back: Judgement Day allows players to act out mass murders while playing a character modelled on Brenton Tarrant, who was arrested in April after mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Tarrant is in custody pending trial on terrorism and murder charges.
Other playable characters are based on Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Players target minorities
The game allows players to slaughter feminists, gay people and migrants, with levels set in gay nightclubs, news studios and mosques as well as at the US-Mexico border.
The premise of the game is apparently based on Jesus rising from the dead to free people from “the grasp of the tyrannical Jew World Order,” with the game’s website listing enemies as “Social Justice Warriors, Feminazis, Rainbow Militants, Alien Invaders, Fake News Journalists, and Baby Killers.”
Several bosses in the game appear to have been modelled on Democratic politicians including Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
On the game’s official discussion forum, players joked about raping feminists and shooting “every fucking f**got,” while several openly praised the actions of Tarrant.
However, the game’s developer insists that it is a “satirical parody” and “makes no comments whatsoever on political affairs, race, religion, sexuality, gender or real-world individuals.”
Still for sale
Online payments service PayPal removed the game’s unidentified creator in December ahead of its release, but the developer is now selling the game in exchange for Bitcoin and direct credit card payments.
The game is on sale for $14.88, an apparent reference to neo-Nazi numerical symbols.
A petition to ban the “sick” game has attracted 4,000 signatures.
One response said: “This is absolutely disgusting. I don’t understand people who think and see the world like this.
“It must be such a sad existence, so afraid of ‘different’ that you feel the need to marginalise, hate, and threaten violence against others.”
Another added: “It’s a disgrace to see people joking about the killing of LGBT+ folks. It’s not funny nor should it be turned into a game. This kind of behaviour is dangerous.”