Magical rationalism and genetic prophecy in science fiction games

The hero of prophecy is a construction that seems more at home in fantasy than science fiction. And yet, many of digital gaming’s most popular sci-fi gameworlds cannot escape it. Interestingly, however, they try to hide the fact. Convoluted explanations, usually involving genetics, are deployed to maintain the pretence of reason in a decidedly fantastical heroic construction. I explore how and why this occurs through two examples: the allohistorical Assassin’s Creed (2007–2025) and Horizon series (2017–2024). Both series’ science-fiction settings find themselves at pains to rationally explain how their central heroes are not incidental but fated, one through genetic lineage the other through cloning. This is a trend observed in videogames more broadly (Jennings, 2022). I analyse these series heroes through mytholudics (Ford, 2025), a method for understanding games as and through contemporary myth: both how they are influenced by myth, but also operate as mythic gameworlds themselves. Through this, I argue that we can understand these examples as fundamentally fantastical heroes in a ‘scientised’ setting. I ask what we can learn from this tension between the magical and the rational and the role of heroism in supposedly disenchanted settings.