Play and the Player: Metroid Series
For this first project I aim to explore the ways the player inhabits the subjectivity of bounty hunter Samus Aran. Throughout the series, a balance of action and exploration form the basis for gameplay. Super Metroid is the quintessential example of this, allowing the player to explore a vast interconnected subterranean world, shoot aliens, and discover weapons upgrades which improve your in game abilities. Metroid Fusion, while staying true to its base gameplay tropes, feels almost entirely different. The world is more linear, Samus is more stripped down than ever, and your in game progression is more narrative based. This has huge implications on the way one plays Fusion. After expanding on how these differences change the space of play, and thus how the player experiences play, I will also explore how these differences found their way into the newest addition to the series, Samus Returns. To help me, I will incorporate the Ideas of Sebastien Genvo from Chapter 7 of the Video Game Theory Reader, titled, Understanding Digital Playability.
