Japanese video games publisher Konami has taken a bit of a back seat in recent years, shifting its focus away from anything but its football games away from consoles. The formerly iconic PES series, now branded as eFootball, isn’t doing the company any favours, so perhaps the news that some of the publisher’s most iconic games are turning will generate some love for them.
At least, that’s the rumour. Games website Video Games Chronicle reports that “publishing sources” have said that several of the company’s most popular properties are on their way back, and not as Pachinko machines.
Hurry it up, Konami
Konami, according to these anonymous insiders, will apparently announce a new Castlevania game first, which will apparently reimagine the game series and will be built by an internal Konami team.
An external studio, Virtuos, is said to be trying its hand at a new Metal Gear Solid, based around MGS 3: Snake Eater. The publisher is also supposedly working on remastered versions of the original Metal Gear Solid titles — something Capcom has show could be very popular with its recent Resident Evil revamps. If the remasters are indeed in the works, they’ll turn up before an original MGS game does. How that’s received without longtime producer and director Hideo Kojima is another story.
The Silent Hill series of games is also supposed to have several games in the works, developed by external studios — a sharp deviation from Konami’s usual practice of trying to keep everything in-house. But internal conflict over the past few years and recent flops, in the shape of Metal Gear Survive, Contra: Rogue Corps and now eFootball, might have made the Japanese publisher a little more amenable to letting its IP out to play a little.
Konami was supposed to show off something (apparently “a number of key projects”) this year, though it bailed on events in 2021 citing timing issues. It’s thought that the publisher will make a new batch of titles official at major gaming events in 2022. Here’s hoping.
Source: Video Games Chronicle
