This essay analyzes Death Stranding, the 2019 release from contemporary game auteur Hideo Kojima. Here, I discuss the unique potentialities of this game world, detailing the ways in which Death Stranding expresses ecological perspectives. Asynchronous multiplayer serves as a unique metagame, helping to prove that play is a process of action which facilitates ecological thinking. The world of Death Stranding is filled with strange objects. The nonhuman entities that the player encounters throughout the game, for example, seem entirely alien. And yet, when these entities are properly understood, we realize that their inclusion is necessary--and natural. Your "job" in the game is to deliver packages. The player is made aware that here, in this digital world, objects have an unusual weight. What can we learn when we play this game? As the player becomes increasingly immersed in this digital world, Death Stranding motivates deeper thinking about the world outside of the game. Although this is a work of fiction, play helps us to consider our impact on the world at large. Death Stranding affords things their proper power and considers human existence in context with a larger, ecological whole.

Released in 2019, the video game Death Stranding follows the monomythic structure described by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The journey begins with the protagonist, Sam “Porter” Bridges, reluctantly accepting his calls to adventure, and, as he begins to move west, he receives supernatural aid from an increasing number of helpers he encounters along the way. Crossing the thresh-old, into the world of danger and adventure, has him meeting the threshold guardian Higgs, the primary antagonist of the game. During this first stage, the player of the game learns how to control Sam’s movements and how to navigate this world to-gether with the Bridge Baby known as Lou, who helps Sam on his journey. The second stage of the journey has Sam moving through a road of trials, overcoming both the physical obstacles of the terrain and the emotional obstacles of the people he helps along the way. He is at one point tempted to adopt the Bridge Baby Lou, his primary helper, but resists said temptation and continues on his jour-ney, until he is finally reunited with his sister, Amelie, who is threatening to end hu-manity in an extinction event. The lessons he has learnt on his journey – to focus on helping others and only using violence when the situation calls for it – leads him to his apotheosis, which is the realization of the value of other people and the relation-ships between them. With this realization, and Sam’s physical manifestation of it in his embracing of Amelie, convinces her that humanity deserves to live to die another day, and so the world is saved from falling into ruin. The third stage of Sam’s journey has him struggling to return home, aided at long last by the help of the friends he made on his journey. Sam, however, is uninter-ested in the world he helped save, and aims to return to his life of solitude. Upon his atonement with his father, however, he resolves this internal conflict and he is now free to live life as he wishes – as a father to the now freed baby Lou. The use of game mechanics in Death Stranding ultimately provides the player with alternatives to violence, giving way to a narrative that can contain as-pects of the monomythic hero that are not exclusively related to the typical warrior hero seen in most action games. Instead, the game frames the tools of the warrior as the stepping-stone to the hero as lover, who uses more peaceful means to achieve their goals. This exemplifies the potential of the video game medium as a platform for the monomyth, and how games could come to encompass a wider variety of he-roic figures than those currently available. / Tv-spelet Death Stranding, som släpptes 2019, följer den monomytiska strukturen som beskrivs av Joseph Campbell i hans bok från 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Resan börjar med att huvudpersonen Sam "Porter" Bridges motvilligt accepterar hans uppmaningar till äventyr, och när han börjar färdas västerut får han övernaturlig hjälp från ett antal personer han möter på vägen. När han korsar tröskeln, in i en värld av fara och äventyr, möter han tröskelväktaren Higgs, spelets främsta antagonist. Under detta första steg lär sig spelaren hur man kontrollerar Sams rörelser och hur man navigerar i denna värld tillsammans med en Bridge Baby känd som Lou, som hjälper Sam på hans resa. Den andra etappen av resan rör sig Sam genom en väg av prövningar och övervinner både de fysiska hindren i terrängen och de känslomässiga hindren för de människor han hjälper på vägen. Han är vid ett tillfälle frestad att adoptera Lou, hans främsta medhjälpare, men motstår nämnda frestelse och fortsätter på sin resa, tills han slutligen återförenas med sin syster, Amelie, vars förmågor hotar att göra slut på mänskligheten i en utrotningshändelse. Lärdomarna han har fått sig på sin resa – att fokusera på att hjälpa andra och bara använda våld när situationen kräver det – leder honom till hans apoteasis, som är insikten om värdet av andra människor och relationerna mellan dem. Denna insikt, och Sams fysiska manifestation av det i hans omfamning av Amelie, övertygar henne om att mänskligheten förtjänar att leva för att dö en annan dag, och så räddas världen från att falla i ruin. Under den tredje etappen av Sams resa får han kämpa för att återvända hem, äntligen med hjälp av vännerna han fick på sin resa. Sam är dock ointresserad av världen han hjälpte till att rädda och siktar på att återvända till sitt liv i ensamhet. Efter sin försoning med sin far löser han dock denna interna konflikt och han är nu fri att leva livet som han vill – som en far till den nu frigivna babyn Lou. Användningen av spelmekanik i Death Stranding ger i slutändan spelaren alternativ till våld, vilket ger vika för ett narrativ som kan innehålla aspekter av den monomytiska hjälten som inte enbart är relaterade till den typiska krigarhjälten som ses i de flesta actionspel. Istället ramar spelet in krigarens verktyg som språngbrädan till hjälten som älskare, som använder mer fridfulla medel för att uppnå sina mål. Detta exemplifierar potentialen hos videospelsmediet som en plattform för monomyten, och hur spel kan komma att omfatta ett bredare utbud av heroiska figurer än de som finns tillgängliga för närvarande.

Ce mémoire analysera les différents procédés de transmission à l'oeuvre dans Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) et Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014) afin de saisir l'ensemble de la vision auctoriale du réalisateur de la série Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima, ce qui nous permettra dans un second temps de comprendre la signification du réseau communicationnel rhizomatique qui précède et accompagne ces jeux vidéo. Ma recherche sera ainsi divisée en trois sections. La première section s'intéressera à la publicité entourant les deux volets de Metal Gear Solid V, laquelle sera étudiée en tant que signe social. La deuxième section présentera une analyse scénaristique dans laquelle il sera question des inspirations historiques et intermédiales qui contribuent à former l'univers narratif de notre corpus. La troisième section sera une analyse du modèle interactif de Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes et de Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Il y sera question de l'avantage parfois insoupçonné de l'encadrement de systèmes logiques vidéoludiques afin d'influencer le joueur à abandonner ou à adopter de nouvelles perspectives sociopolitiques. Ce mémoire démontrera comment Metal Gear Solid V utilise et unit un maximum de méthodes de transmission afin de convaincre son public de se laisser séduire par son message auctorial, ce qui servira finalement à prouver le potentiel rhétorique d'une union songée du paratexte et du contenu d’une œuvre vidéoludique. / This memoir will analyse the different processes of transmission used in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014) in order to grasp the whole auctorial vision of the Metal Gear Solid series director, Hideo Kojima, which will in turn allow us to understand the meaning of the rhizomatic communicational network that precedes or accompanies these video games. My research will be divided in three sections. The first section will focus on the publicity (and therefore social signs) that surrounds the two parts of Metal Gear Solid V. The second section will present a story analysis where historical and intermedial inspirations of both games will be discussed. The third section will analyse the interactive model of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. That chapter will focus on the often unsuspected advantages of the logical videoludic systems as means to influence the player to abandon or to adopt new sociopolitical perspectives. This memoir will decompose how Metal Gear Solid V uses and unites a maximum of transmission methods to persuade its public to give in to its auctorial message, which will hopefully demonstrate the rhetorical potential of a thoughtful union of paratext and content within videoludic works.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:30:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Karen Pinho Moriya.pdf: 25944621 bytes, checksum: d482bd27efc41ad887d4ee306103cc19 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-06-28 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This work has as its object of analysis the manga japanese comics comic book titled Kozure Ookami, in its literal translation, The Wolf with his Cub, by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, created and published in Japan from 1970 to 1976. The goal of this study was the search for an understanding of the process of penetration and acting that manga does in society and how they are problematizadas different dimensions and social practices, as well as the subject, their collisions and clashes that permeate the narratives and social roles that these represent these. The choice of this manga as source search gave for its uniqueness and richness as a narrative, offering a infinity of possibilities for historical study. Extends the basic comics, this research was to identify and highlight social practices, collisions, aspirations, values and sensitivities that are present in the worldview of Koike and Kojima, while historical subjects who experience their experiences, inserted within the social fabricin a dialogicidade relationship with his own time and everyday life. Contrasting with the font used, the analysis was conducted using various documents, and can thus capture stays, ruptures and resistance that were present in Japanese society of post-World War II, characterized by large-scale process of capitalist development / Este trabalho tem como objeto de análise o mangá revista em quadrinhos japonesa intitulado Kozure Ookami, em sua tradução literal, O Lobo Acompanhado de seu Filhote, de autoria de Kazuo Koike e Goseki Kojima, criado e publicado no Japão, de 1970 a 1976. O objetivo deste estudo foi a busca por um entendimento sobre o processo de penetração e atuação que o mangá realiza na sociedade e como são problematizadas as diferentes dimensões e práticas sociais presentes, assim como os sujeitos, seus embates e os enfrentamentos que permeiam as narrativas e os papéis sociais que estes representam nestas. A escolha deste mangá como fonte de pesquisa se deu por sua singularidade e riqueza como veículo narrativo, oferecendo uma infinidade de possibilidades para o estudo histórico. Partindo dos quadrinhos base desta pesquisa, foi possível identificar e evidenciar práticas sociais diversas, embates, anseios, valores e sensibilidades que estão presentes na visão de mundo de Koike e Kojima, enquanto sujeitos históricos que vivenciam suas experiências, inseridos dentro do tecido social, numa relação de dialogicidade com sua própria época e cotidiano. Contrapondo com a fonte utilizada, a análise foi realizada utilizando documentos diversos, sendo possível assim, captar permanências, rupturas e resistências que estavam presentes na sociedade japonesa do pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial, caracterizada pelo processo em larga escala de desenvolvimento capitalista

Zusammenfassung Diese Arbeit ist ein Versuch, verschiedene klassische und neuere Methodender glatten bzw. nichtglatten Optimierung zu verallgemeinern und in ihrem Zusammenhang darzustellen. Als Hauptinstrument erweist sich dabei die sogenannte verallgemeinerte Kojima-Funktion. Neben reichlichen Beispielen setzen wir einen besonderen Akzent auf die Betrachtung von Variationsungleichungen, Komplementaritaetsaufgaben und der Standartaufgabeder mathematischen Programmierung. Unter natuerlichen Voraussetzungen an diese Probleme kann man u.a. Barriere-, Straf- und SQP-Typ-Methoden, die auf Newton-Verfahrenbasieren, aber auch Modelle, die sogenannte NCP-Funktionen benutzen, mittelsspezieller Stoerungen der Kojima-Funktion exakt modellieren. Daneben werdendurch explizite und natuerliche Wahl der Stoerungsparameter auch neue Methoden dieser Arten vorgeschlagen. Die Vorteile solcher Modellierungsind ueberzeugend vor allem wegen der direkt moeglichen (auf Stabilitaetseigenschaften der Kojima-Gleichung beruhendenden)Loesungsabschaetzungen und weil die entsprechenden Nullstellen ziemlich einfach als Loesungen bekannter Ersatzprobleme interpretiert werden koennen. Ein weiterer Aspekt der Arbeit besteht in der genaueren Untersuchungder "nichtglatten Faelle". Hier wird die Theorie von verschiedenen verallgemeinerten Ableitungen und dadurch entstehenden verallgemeinerten Newton-Verfahren, die im Buch "Nonsmooth Equations in Optimization" von B. Kummer und D. Klatte vorgeschlagen und untersucht wurde, intensiv benutzt. Entscheidend ist dabei, dass die benutzten verallgemeinerten Ableitungen auch praktisch angewandt werden koennen, da man sie exakt ausrechnen kann. / This work attempts to generalize various classical and new methods of smooth or nonsmooth optimization and to show them in their interrelation. The main tool for doing this is the so-called generalized Kojima-function. In addition to numerous examples we specialy emphasize the consideration of variational inequalities, complementarity problems and the standard problem of mathematical programming. Under natural assumptions on these problems we can model e.g. barrier-, penalty-, and SQP-Type-methods basing on Newton methods, and also methods using the so-called NCP-function exactly by means of special perturbations of the Kojima-function. Furthermore, by the explicit and natural choice of the perturbation parameters new methods of these kinds are introduced. The benefit of such a modelling is obvious, first of all due to the direct solution estimation (basing on stability properties of the Kojima-equation) and because the corresponding zeros can easily be interpreted as solutions of known subproblems. A further aspect considered in this paper is the detailed investigation of "nonsmooth cases". The theory of various generalized derivatives and resulting generalized Newton methods, which is introduced and investigated in the book "Nonsmooth Equations in Optimization" of B. Kummer and D. Klatte, is intensely used here. The crucial point is the applicability of the used generalized derivatives in practice, since they can be calculated exactly.