Surprisingly, Konami actually seems to be aware of this and plans to do what it can to mend fences – or at least one guy there wants to, anyway.
Speaking on Reddit, Ben (who handles social media for Konami in the US) discussed the current bad vibes that are often leveled at the company.
He wrote:
We respect that you are/get salty about the way things have gone at points, it goes with the territory, but we still love & respect this community. Things have not always gone as smooth as we would like, but we are always doing our best to assemble your views (good, bad and ugly) and present them.
Ben also discussed the future of the Metal Gear franchise, something that many fans have been worried about since the departure of series creator Hideo Kojima and the arrival of Metal Gear 3 pachinko slot machines in Japan.
Thankfully, Ben took steps to reassure the fans that popular franchises like Castlevania and Metal Gear are far from over:
Within the industry, many projects are slow burns, slow starts or even none starts. While I understand your frustrations/desires (as a long time Castlevania fan I totally want more) after LOS2, Konami needs to take the time necessary to review the IP and find a good fit. METAL GEAR is important to a lot of people here and as has been stated publicly, will be supported in the future in a console market.
He then goes on to express his wish that Konami might one day ‘earn you back and surprise you’ – though it’s not yet clear how they’re gonna travel back in time to un-cancel Silent Hills.
Given that Konami is a massive company with a storied history of making dick moves, and this is just one guy speaking for that dickish company, I’ll be taking these comments with a pinch of salt.
Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and Castlevania are some of the best franchises in gaming, and they deserve to be done justice – We can only hope that there are more than a few Bens over at Konami.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.