Spectating the Samurai: Performing and Preserving History through Twitch

This paper examines how historical interpretation unfolds during Twitch livestreams in which one host plays a historical video game while co-hosts participate remotely via Discord without playing. Its central argument is that non-playing co-hosts, who sit between the roles of player and spectator, are able to perform and construct historical meaning in real time, and that spectatorship can itself function as a form of historical practice and preservation. The authors build on existing work in historical game studies, particularly Bierstedt's concept of the "streamer-historian," and argue for extending that concept beyond education and outreach toward improvisational, participatory history-making.

The empirical basis is a case study of two two-hour streams of Ghost of Yōtei, an action-adventure game set in Hokkaido in 1603. The streams were conducted one day after release and again two weeks later, with the authors deliberately avoiding prior engagement with the game to capture first-encounter play. Each session featured one player and two remote co-hosts, and all sessions were recorded and uploaded to YouTube as a form of early-stage gameplay documentation. The study is qualitative and limited in scope, drawing on a small number of sessions rather than a broad sample, and it does not report quantitative audience data.

The analysis finds that co-hosts acting as secondary players offered counsel, encouragement, and commentary that produced emergent moments of historical meaning-making alongside the gameplay. These interventions were performative as well as supportive, transforming the stream into a collaborative space for "doing history." The authors conclude that the interplay between performance and spectating generates interpretive value that is distinct from either active play or passive viewing, contributing to game studies by foregrounding the understudied role of non-playing participants in historical engagement.