Two sides of game studies: Hideo Kojima auteurist approach

Abstract

The thesis provides a basic understanding of present game studies theories and looks at Hideo Kojima’s game series Metal Gear Solid. As the series found huge success with the audience, it makes the impression of a reference point for the whole stealth genre. In the first chapter of the paper we are going to talk about the nature of videogames, the new theory field called game studies and it’s two major branches narratology and ludology. In order to explore narratology’s main idea, we will compare an undoubtful piece of art such as the painting of Jan Matejko’s Stanczyk during a Ball at the Court of Queen Bona after the Loss of Smolensk, and for the ludology we will take closer look for Jesper Juul’s paper titled “A Clash between Game and Narrative”. At the end we will see if the coexistence of the two theories is possible or not, which will lead us to game designer input in work as he is the one to decide which way the whole project would stick to. In the second chapter of the paper, we will look at game design and Hideo Kojima’s approach to it by analysing his main title Metal Gear and the upcoming work called Death Stranding. The analysis concentrates on technical innovations in games and game design technics. As for the conclusion, there is a judgement about the series according to the Jesper Juul’s critique which stated that there cannot be any doable combination of narrative and ludic parts since he denies such attempts as they lead to a “zigzag