Finally, religion can fight against its true enemy in Civilization 6: Rock bands

Look, Civilization 6 is a cool videogame and all, but it's no Footloose. It may span the breadth of human history, but it's not epic on the scale of a battle between a religious dad and a city boy who just wants to dance to rock 'n' roll. Civilization is tragically lacking in Kevin Bacon. But at least this new mod, "To Hell With The Devil: Religious units fight Rock Bands," is putting us on the right track.

Recent Civ 6 expansion Gathering Storm introduced rock bands as a type of unit. Rock bands pump up the local tourism, can go on tour, and even have a "religious rock" promotion that "Performs a concert that converts the majority religion of that city to the religion founded by the player." But because rock 'n' roll is obviously the devil's work, it seems only fair that religious units could fight back against music's corrupting influence. That's where the mod comes in.

Here's what it does:

"Allows Religious units (Apostles and Inquisitors) to fight against Rock Bands, by giving Rock Bands a religious strength level. Rock Bands have a religious strength of 125 -- stronger than an Apostle with no bonuses, but able to be overcome by fervent prayer, fasting, and proper use of wonders and policies. Rock Bands cannot initiate combat. The point of this mod is to give players an optional line of defence against rock bands."

That's right: fervent praying can now save your soul from the sinful sounds of rock. The mod's few commenters seem eager to see whether Civ's AI leaders will now use their missionaries to slaughter rock bands. Or, in the words of Steam user nut9931: "finally kill fucking rock star. very nice." This guy's seen Footloose.

Kidding, kidding. I love that the mod's creator felt it important to clarify that he's totally cool with rock. "Before you flood the comments below, I didn't choose the name because I think rock & roll is 'of the Devil' or something." The mod is named after a song by—wait for it—a Christian heavy metal band.

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).