FOX Engine – Why One of Gaming’s Best Engines Was Abandoned

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When we recently revisited Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain while covering Delta: Snake Eater, it was a great reminder of how special the game felt when Konami and Kojima Productions were working together. The game’s engine still makes it look and play incredibly well, even compared to many modern titles.

The Fox engine was created with the aim of being a top-tier game engine, and it almost achieved that. However, it hasn’t been used much recently. Now that Konami is using Unreal Engine for new games, what’s become of the Fox Engine?

Was Konami wrong to stop supporting such a successful product? Did they truly lose interest in the Fox Engine, or were there other, more realistic reasons behind the decision? Let’s explore a story that could have had a much better outcome.

Built With Ambition

The Fox Engine demonstrates how much Konami aimed to achieve after releasing Metal Gear Solid IV. Hideo Kojima and his team created it to speed up game development for multiple platforms. The goal was to move away from focusing on just one platform while also improving the game’s graphics and how well it ran.

The Fox Engine faced a tough challenge from the start. However, early demonstrations – where Hideo Kojima smartly presented it separately from the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V – showed people were impressed, confirming its potential. Even the engine’s E3 2011 demo stood out for how well it created a believable and immersive jungle setting for the Metal Gear series.

The engine designed to be world-class wasn’t limited to just the Metal Gear Solid series. Surprisingly, the Fox Engine first debuted in the 2014 version of Pro Evolution Soccer, before appearing in a Metal Gear Solid game.

This development happened when many game studios were building their own unique engines, like MT Framework and Luminous, which were strong competitors. Konami’s Fox Engine was created to help them compete with the leading developers – and potentially surpass them. The goal wasn’t just to create Metal Gear Solid V; it was to build a powerful tool for many future games as well.

The game performed exactly as planned, running smoothly at 60 frames per second on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with visuals that looked nearly identical across all three platforms. Surprisingly, it also ran very well on the older PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The graphics were so realistic that players were even challenged to distinguish between photos of a Konami staff room and images rendered by the game engine.

The engine excelled at creating large outdoor environments and offered impressive lighting, along with realistic weather and day-night cycles. It also featured well-implemented stealth mechanics, making it a highly adaptable tool for game developers. It simplified the development process, proving useful throughout the entire lifecycle of a video game. This capability was demonstrated by its success with popular franchises like PES and Metal Gear, solidifying its strong reputation.

There were ambitious ideas to open up the game engine so anyone could use it – something modders of Metal Gear Solid V would have loved. Unfortunately, those plans didn’t materialize, and now we’re seeing the beginning of the end for the Fox Engine as it fades into relative obscurity.

The Price of Dreams

The Fox engine was created with the ambitious goal of being the best gaming engine ever made. However, achieving that dream was very expensive. Developing such a high-performing engine needed significant upfront investment in research and development, and keeping it running smoothly with new gaming technology required ongoing maintenance and a dedicated team of people.

Considering the costs of supporting new gaming consoles and potentially assisting other developers using the engine, maintaining a unique, in-house engine and keeping it competitive can be incredibly expensive. However, with Kojima Productions as a partner, Konami might have been able to successfully develop and improve their own engine, potentially leading to long-term success.

Konami and director Hideo Kojima had a history of disagreements, which eventually led to both him and many members of his team leaving the company. This created a problem for the Fox engine, as the departing staff were the key people who knew how to maintain it. Without them, keeping the engine up-to-date and functional would have been very costly for Konami.

Okay, so when Hideo Kojima left Konami, a lot of us fans were worried about the future of the Fox Engine. At first, it didn’t seem disastrous, because losing the people who really knew how to use it wouldn’t instantly break everything. But looking back, it was definitely the beginning of the end. The engine basically ended up powering the Pro Evolution Soccer series for almost seven years, and that was…pretty much it. It really showed how things slowed down after Kojima left, and it was sad to see such a powerful engine used for so little else.

Being the engine behind the popular PES series is still a significant achievement, but it highlights how its use has become limited. It’s surprising that the success with PES didn’t lead to updates for modern gaming consoles. The engine consistently delivered impressive visuals for PES and even powered technologies like Fluidity, proving its ability to handle detailed animations in both sports and action games. It was a flexible and useful tool, and Konami might have benefited from continuing to develop it.

Unfortunately, that’s not how things turned out. But why would a company abandon a project it had invested so much in? Was the conflict with Kojima Productions the reason Konami decided to move on? Or was it simply a more practical decision?

Unreal Numbers

Two major games demonstrate a shift away from the Fox engine, opting for Unreal instead. The first is eFootball 2022, which completely rebuilt the classic PES series and switched to Unreal during development. This was a risky move, but it clearly showed that the Fox engine was becoming outdated.

Was the issue with the game engine itself? It was proven technology that consistently delivered good results. So why did Konami choose Unreal Engine? Simply put, it was easier to create a new game using Unreal instead of trying to update the existing engine for modern consoles. Updating the old engine would have meant hiring specialists to work with outdated technology, while Unreal Engine would attract developers already skilled in its use.

Despite a history of success, Konami’s developers faced a huge challenge: building a new game with updated technology, a constantly evolving live-service format, and a completely new animation system. The pressure to meet high expectations and create a game for modern consoles led them to abandon their dependable existing engine. Unfortunately, this resulted in a game plagued by awkward animations, poorly designed character models, and numerous bugs, leading to significant criticism from players.

It’s quite ironic that updating to a new engine actually caused problems. However, Konami needed to go through that experience to improve. Another interesting point is Konami’s remake of Snake Eater, built with Unreal Engine – this reveals a second layer of irony.

Originally built on the Fox engine, the latest installment successfully transitioned to Unreal Engine and delivered a fantastic gaming experience. While the improved graphics were appreciated, it was Konami’s thoughtful updates and enhancements that truly modernized the game, solidifying its place as a classic title. This achievement is a testament to the talent of Kojima and his team, even as they’ve embarked on new projects.

The Fox engine represented the final spark of a previously strong partnership, and could have powered exciting new games – potentially a continuation of the Metal Gear Solid series, improved sports games, or even a fully developed Silent Hill title, given its powerful capabilities. It’s a shame such impressive technology was ultimately overshadowed by solutions that were cheaper and easier to implement.

The Fox engine wasn’t deliberately abandoned due to any bad feelings about its creator leaving Konami. It simply became outdated and couldn’t keep up with the rapid changes in the gaming industry. Now that it’s no longer actively used, Konami could potentially release it as open-source software – though that might just be wishful thinking.

Although the original team has moved on, their legacy continues. Kojima Productions is forging ahead, and Guerrilla Games is now building on the foundation they laid with the Decima engine. This shows what an incredibly skilled team can accomplish when pursuing an ambitious vision. The engine that began it all will be remembered as a symbol of exceptional talent.

Just so you know, the opinions in this article are the author’s own and don’t reflect the official stance of GamingBolt.

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2026-01-02 22:13