Fox Engine?

[StopItStepBro]

I’m super super super late (4 years?) with this question but why did the Fox Engine get canned? I remember when this game came out, it was one of the biggest highlights of its release like it’s very own “RE Engine”. Even playing the game these days, it’s aged incredibly well. I’m not super well versed on what it didn’t do well besides high character volumes and water but was it really that bad to jump ship to UE5 and completely bury it?

[Defective Soul]

because of Kojima incedent, MGSTPP is unfinished while konami does mostly casual ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for japan market for wich other engines are better suited
If you ain't know - MGSTPP was awardewd some awards (GOTY ?) but kojima wheren't on fest to recive since konami ain't allowed him to visit game awards, so Kojima gone to sony and does games in their company with proper budged and etc
It all startet from the fact that konami wished to release MGS faster for the sake of profit, while Kojima where asking for more funds to make game better and etc

[[ACPL] Jon]

You need developers to be able to develop the game.

In-house engine not only need people for engine upkeep (so it doesn't break over the years as Operating Systems and System Drivers get updated), but also people who know how to develop stuff for it. Your own engine means your own tools and your own know-how.

In other words, every developer you train, will be able to develop games mostly for this engine\tools combo - and today, diversification of skills is important, so people don't want to learn niche stuff, as sacrificing few years of your life for something that may be sh!tcanned (and in effect causing you to loose job and few years of engine experience will be worthless).

You can opt into becoming K company's developer and be able to use half of the valuable dev experience only in the K company's project(s). Perhaps it can be easier to get a job, but if that job falls through, you're f*@#d.
OR
You can opt into becoming another faceless Unreal developer, harder to get a job, but instead of one job listing at K company, you have hundreds of companies to choose from.

That's why people go with what's popular. Developers choose Unreal because it's versatile, powerful, wide-spread. And companies, esp. ones with bad press, choose Unreal because that's where they can still find people who'll crunch develop games for them.

Also if you loose main engine techs keeping the engine alive & kicking, let alone adjusting it to do new stuff, is painful - also the costs of it are on you. CDPR faced the same issue and thus opted for Unreal simply because of all above (losing main engine techs, saving money on engine adjustments & techs and needing steadily-available developers for crunching).

[Death Approaches]

the HK "incident" as Defective called it, caused a lot more than the premature demise of Fox; Konami corporate learned the hard way when your primadonna dev "goes Western" that one talented charismatic person can tank an entire division.

think about it, Jon bringing up CDPR being a good example we all know... do you want to make a game, or the framework of what supports the game, simultaneously while making game content? and when you need something customized, a new way to do this cool game mechanic no one has thought of before, do you want already-overworked coders re-tasked for implementation and testing? or a 15 minute phone call with the engine developer who only works on the engine and creation tools, who then sets up a virtual meeting with the programmers and PMs who will actually do it for you, for money?

since, let's face it, it's a business. if your game isn't successful, it isn't profitable, and if it isn't profitable, that might be your last game, and your content creation staff are already spiffing up their curriculum vitae. and when you want to subcontract projects to other dev shops, as long as everyone is on "the same page" your contracted guys hit a roadblock in implementation, they can confer with anyone on any other project, even borrow staff if needed. it's a modular and efficient system, where talent is talent, but minimizes those single points of failure, people moving on, retiring, dying, or becoming greedy egomaniacs who hold your company hostage to their whims.

your own engine is one of those new-kid-on-the-block or mega-successful ends of the bell curve things; those in the middle, licence commercial engines these days. it's just the world we find ourselves in.

Konami doesn't even use it for their casino gaming machines anymore, apparently, but a variant of their phone game engine.