The upcoming Art of Video Games exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum plans to debut with guns blazing, which includes industry big gun Hideo Kojima speaking as a part of their three-day GameFest kickoff for the exhibition in March.

The museum officially confirmed via press release on Tuesday that the noted Metal Gear Solid series director will be speaking on March 17 in his own “A Conversation With Hideo Kojima” panel. The panel will be free to attend but registration will be limited.

Coordinators for the event are also giving fans an opportunity to submit questions for Kojima to answer himself during the panel. For those who have passionate queries for the Policenauts creator can send them to AmericanArtGames@si.edu by Feb. 23rd for consideration.

The addition of Mr. Kojima already adds to the impressive list of guests for the GameFest event programming, which includes the likes of Nolan Bushnell (creator of Atari), Paul Barnett (senior creative director for Bioware-Mythic), Rand Miller (CEO of Cyan Worlds), Kellee Santiago (president of thatgamecompany), and many more.

Even if you don’t have any plans for visiting the D.C. area anytime soon, the panel (amongst others) will be shown online as a webcast on the Smithsonian website.

The Art of Video Games exhibition will officially open on March 16 and run all the way through to September 30. The exhibit  itself is a long-running effort by numerous gaming communities and contributors finally coming to fruition. To get a better idea about the Art of Video Games exhibition, check out this explanation on the Smithsonian magazine website.

Christen Bejar writes for the local gamer blog The Pause Button and tweets as IncreaseBlue on Twitter.