The Metal Gear Solid Series: Critical Essays and New Perspectives

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PhD Steven Kielich (University of Rochester, USA) Dr. Chris Hall (University of the Ozarks, USA)

The Metal Gear Solid Series

Critical Essays and New Perspectives

PhD Steven Kielich (University of Rochester, USA), Dr. Chris Hall (University of the Ozarks, USA)

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English

Bloomsbury Publishing USA
20 February 2025

Media studies; Games development & programming

This collection, arriving in the wake of the 25th anniversary of 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, provides scholars and fans alike with a wide-ranging selection of critical essays on the franchise from diverse disciplinary and thematic perspectives.

With the conclusion of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid video game series only recently behind us, it is now both possible and essential to study this critically, commercially, and culturally resonant series as a whole. The essays contained in this volume, which are all new contributions from both established and emerging scholars, take up this crucial opportunity to consider and reconsider the cultural, historical, political, philosophical, and aesthetic impact of the Metal Gear Solid games in analyses spanning the series’ canonical entries, adding to the understanding of both well-studied installments and under- examined ones.

These contributions connect themes that emerge from the games—such as sexuality and queerness, rhetoric and ethics, and subjectivity and embodiment—while also demonstrating how the series opens up broader questions about ecology, race, gender, militarization, pedagogy, and game design, that demand continued analysis and application. Each essay develops new avenues for theoretical, rhetorical, and political exploration of the Metal Gear Solid series, for Game Studies, and for the study of Popular Culture writ large. As the first collection of critical inquiries into the Metal Gear Solid series, this volume serves as crucial exegesis of and critical companion to any future study of the series by celebrating, critiquing, and critically interrogating its entries’ rich cultural and disciplinary import.

Edited by: PhD Steven Kielich (University of Rochester USA), Dr. Chris Hall (University of the Ozarks, USA)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 150mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 600g
ISBN: 9798765123577
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 20 February 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Steven Kielich is pursuing a PhD in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester, USA. He has published in Games and Culture and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. Chris Hall is Assistant Professor of English at the University of the Ozarks, USA. He works in media studies, literary studies, and critical theory and has published on immigration, COVID, and fascism, as well as on the Metal Gear Solid series and other works of popular culture.

Reviews for The Metal Gear Solid Series: Critical Essays and New Perspectives

This diverse collection of scholarly work on the Metal Gear series represents a critical area of video game studies. Hideo Kojima’s games, exemplified by the Metal Gear games, lend themselves to multiple lenses of analysis, and ask players to consider compelling and timely issues such as the impact of war, PTSD, and cyclical violence. Further still, the Metal Gear series invites consideration of video game aesthetics and a blurring of the line between video games and film. This volume covers all of these areas and more and is a compelling read. * Amy M. Green, Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA *