Monster Slayer: The Birth and Mutation of Video Game Monsters

In video games, "monster-slaying" is one of the most common activities and a core way for players to interact with the virtual world. From the dragons of Dungeons & Dragons to the Daughter of the Cosmos in Bloodborne, from the pixelated aliens of Space Invaders to the hordes of zombies in The Last of Us Part II, monsters have always been an indispensable "other" in game narratives.

This book is not only a cultural history of video game monsters but also a cultural reflection on virtual "others," which will redefine your understanding of "monster-slaying" and reveal the "antinomies" behind game monster design – the need to present monsters as sublime and mysterious to ignite players' desire for exploration, while also "taming" them through programming into "playthings" that can be defeated and quantified. The author analyzes this from multiple perspectives, including cultural history, design studies, and media criticism: tracing how Dungeons & Dragons encoded monsters as "enemies in a database," analyzing how God of War and Bloodborne used AAA technology to create stunning colossal beasts only to ultimately confine them under the player's sword, and revealing the hidden rules of the mainstream gaming industry: no matter how powerful monsters are, they must submit to user experience and commercial logic. It further uses subversive cases – such as Shadow of the Colossus questioning the nature of violence through the death of colossi, and Metal Gear Solid extending the war to reality by breaking the fourth wall – to prove that when monsters break free from the shackles of being "defeatable," games become a "philosophical arena" for reflecting on humanity, power, and technology.