Things are looking progressively more dire for Konami. After Hideo Kojima's departure from the company and the cancellation of Silent Hills earlier this year, French site Gameblog has now reported two delicate stories.
The first one mentions the imminent departure of Julien Merceron, Worldwide Technical Director and caretaker of Fox Engine. Merceron has more than 20 years of experience in the gaming industry and has been Technical Director at Ubisoft, Crystal Dynamics, IO Interactive and Square Enix before being hired by Konami in October 2013. Apparently, this is tied to the second story: Konami would be focused on mobile games first and foremost from now on, with the only exception of PES 2017; there would be no other AAA games in development.
Moreover, these reports have been since confirmed by Eurogamer. At this point, it is inevitable to wonder whether Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will remain the last great game made by Konami. Granted, Metal Gear Online would be technically the last one since it's releasing next month for consoles and in January 2016 for PC, but it was developed jointly with MGSV: The Phantom Pain.
Konami is one of the historic Japanese video games companies. It was founded over 40 years ago, and it went on to become extremely popular thanks to the creation of franchises like Metal Gear, Castlevania, Pro Evolution Soccer and Silent Hill. Let's just hope that they decide to sell the IPs they don't intend to use anymore, as it would be a sad day for gaming if those were shelved indefinitely.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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