Konami will not be present at E3 2021. Although the Japanese video game developer and publisher had previously been on board to participate at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, Konami just announced that it will no longer be a part of the event.
E3 2021 will be an all-digital show, which will bring about new challenges but exciting changes as well. The ESA took on a big task in overhauling the program from a physical program to what it will be in just over a month. But Konami's own projects have apparently become a bit too overwhelming to be a part of this years activities.
According to a release from Konami's official Twitter page, the timing for this year's E3 has made it so that it can't participate. It is "deep in development on a number of key projects," and therefore was unable to pull away and present at E3 this year.
There were a lot of high hopes for Konami at E3 2021, including information about a new Metal Gear game or Silent Hill. However, fans may not have to wait too long to learn what the publisher may have had in store for the event. According to the release, Konami will have updates on some of its projects in the coming months, so it is asking its fans to stay tuned.
Konami also noted that while it will not be at E3, it has a lot of respect for the ESA and will be rooting for it and for E3 2021 to be successful. It looks like Konami will want to be involved in future years, if possible. Perhaps the combination of the difficulties of development over the last year, and attempting to get everything up and running for a digital event in a relatively short period of time, was just too much. E3 will be very different this year – not seeing Konami involved is one thing to get used to – but the digital aspect of the event is what really makes E3 2021 unique.
While Konami will not be directly present, it will be interesting to see if a Konami title sneaks into one of the other press conferences."It seems possible that a game could show up in Nintendo or Xbox show, for example, over one of the digital presentations at E3 2021. Fans shouldn't get their hopes up too high for this, however, as Konami seems to have made it clear that it will not be a part of the event this time around.