I talked with a scholar and he says Video games which are involving magic are not halal to play.
Interesting because it comes from an actual muslim scholar, but I do have a few bones to pick:
- What about a game which has magic, but that magic is clearly and unambiguously depicted as evil, corrupting and against the wishes of God, and where the good guys have no access to it? (Which is pretty much like the Sword & Sorcery genre.)
- What about a game which has no "arcane" magic, but where praying to God can help you, if you're good enough (according to Islamic values)? (Kind of like Darklands.) As a subset of this, what about a game where being good and praying does not actual result in a genuine miracle, but you become braver, stronger or whatever in a completely mundane way, because the act of praying strengthens your faith and resolve?
- What about a game which has jinn in it, and possibly "magic" or "supernatural abilities" that belong to them? The existence of Jinn is confirmed by the Quran.
- What about a game set in a fictional world that has no magic, but does have mythological monsters like dragons, pegasi, roc birds or whatever, with the explanation that they are completely mundane creatures which evolved normally in that world but not on real Earth?
I think these are interesting details.
Also, as a completely unrelated and hypothetical point, why should a non-Muslim game designer care whether or not his faux-Islamic game is accurate/inaccurate/offensive/inoffensive from a Muslim viewpoint? We certainly have a shitload of games, films and comics that feature Odin, Thor and the other Norse god, and nobody ever asks if those depictions would have been found offensive by the Norse. Or, for that matter, by modern Ásatru believers. I'm also pretty sure that jRPGs or mangas or whatever that have Christian priests and "magic" don't give a shittu about accuracy or offensiveness, either.