“Who Are You? Snake? It’s not You . . . Is It?”: Contradiction and Fragmentation at Game’s End

Abstract

The book’s final chapter considers a set of closing thoughts regarding Metal Gear Solid V’s exploration of trauma and fragmented identity. The game’s plot eventually reveals that the player, who supposedly has been embodying Snake, has really been embodying a doppelganger, while the real Snake has slipped past his enemies with a new identity in hand. This plot point coincides with the game’s own defiance of the standard hallmarks of the military-style shooter genre and its careful consideration of the contradictions of history and the role soldiers play as both those who might perpetrate acts of violence and then suffer lasting trauma as a result.