No company has garnered as much scrutiny and negative publicity regarding its future in the AAA market as Konami has. Which means that the first question that we would ask Konami, were we to get the chance to, would be if they were still interested in making games for the high end console market. So when we got the chance to talk to Steve Merrett, who works at Voltage PR, the firm handling PR for Konami in the UK, that was the question we sprung on him- are Konami still interested in AAA game development?
“Well, PES 2017 is coming,” Merrett said. “If that’s not enough indication that Konami is still interested in the market, then I don’t know what is,” Merrett told us at E3.
That’s all well and good, of course, but while PES is definitely AAA, that’s not the kind of game most fans have in mind when they discuss Konami’s future. So we decided to get a bit explicit, and ask him the question that’s probably on most of our minds- are Konami going to be working on a new Metal Gear game? Merrett wouldn’t answer that question, but we did bring up the FOX engine- I suppose Konami’s commitment to that engine is, in a sense, proof that they do plan on putting out more AAA games.
“FOX engine is a constantly evolving beast,” Merrett said. “It’s one where it’s been adapted perfectly for PES now. So what it allows us to do is, it’s just giving us ever more accuracy in terms of it handles the animation, and the faces, and stuff like that. It does it all in real time. So it means that we can focus on the animation and the gameplay. Making sure everything is smooth and the FOX engine handles everything else. One of the reasons why PES is so fast is because of that engine.”
I suppose that’s true, and the FOX engine is an exceptionally good one- I just wish it was being used for more than PES every year, I guess.