CCRB RECORD No. 0085
Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht
Determination: Implied — Blasphemy 2
The central artefact is named the Zohar, the enemies are the Gnosis, and the vocabulary runs through Kabbalah and Gnosticism.
Episode I establishes the vocabulary the trilogy runs on, and it is taken wholesale from real religious literature. The object every faction is fighting over is the Zohar, which shares its name with the foundational text of Kabbalah; the enemy species are the Gnosis; the U.M.N. and the Encephalon are approached in language borrowed from mysticism. Character and installation names follow the same pattern — Nephilim, Merkabah, and the alchemical stages Albedo, Rubedo and Nigredo used for the three U.R.T.V. brothers. The specifically Christian revelations land later in the trilogy, so this entry is rated on density of borrowed vocabulary rather than on any claim the game makes.