Oxford. APGRD. I could probably end the post here and consider the quest complete.
Except that I am at Oxford to talk about a gacha game. In Italy, uttering Fate/Grand Order in a university classroom can still feel faintly indecent; here, I get to put it on a slide and discuss it seriously.
I leave the reader to draw the appropriate conclusions.
Back home, or
into the footnotes?
The Event
- Conference
- Antiquity in Simulation: Global Receptions of the Classical World in Video Games
- Hosted by
- * University of Oxford - APGGRD;
- Where & when
- Where — 13 June 2026
- Official Links
-
* Conference
* University of Oxford - APGGRD
* Bristol Digital Game Lab
Research summary - Gods of the Command System: Machinic Sovereignty and Divine Infrastructure in Fate/Grand Order’s Lostbelt No.5
In Fate/Grand Order’s Lostbelt No. 5, the Greek gods are more than familiar figures dressed up as machines. Within the story, the Olympians are alien technological beings whose power is bound to spacecraft, weapons, and command systems. This vision of divinity brings together two forms central to Japanese popular media: the game’s gacha structure, which organises characters and lore for collection and ranking, and mecha science fiction, with its immense machines and blurred line between technology and living beings.
Together, these forms change how divine power is experienced. Fate/Grand Order breaks Greek antiquity into elements that can be collected, compared, and rearranged, even when particular gods remain beyond the player’s reach. Zeus and the Olympian command structure reveal another side of that logic: power so vast and seemingly autonomous that it inspires awe through boss battles, towering scale, and the layout of Olympus itself. Where a game such as Hades largely portrays gods through their personalities and relationships, Lostbelt No. 5 presents them as an inescapable system of machine rule. Here, turning divinity into infrastructure makes it feel more overwhelming, not less.