🎮 Back in May, Konami posted its third straight year of record profits and then set a modest forecast for the year ahead. On October 29, 2026, we got the answer. Revenue for April to September rose 37.0% and operating profit jumped 73.1%, both records for a first half. The full-year operating profit forecast went from 143 billion yen to 193 billion yen.

In the same six months, the big releases Konami had promised all arrived: Metal Gear, Silent Hill and Castlevania. Critics gave all three scores in the 80s. On Steam, two of them opened as "Mixed."

The cautious forecast was too cautious, again

For the six months through September, Konami booked revenue of 308 billion yen (about $1.95 billion), operating profit of 111.3 billion yen (about $704 million) and net profit of 79.2 billion yen (about $502 million), up 70.5%. The full-year revenue forecast was raised from 505 billion yen to 583 billion yen (about $3.69 billion), and operating profit from 143 billion yen to 193 billion yen (about $1.22 billion). The annual dividend forecast went from 224 yen to 299 yen per share. (Conversions at 158 yen to the dollar.)

In our May article, we guessed that the modest forecast would be raised during the year. It was. The same thing happened last fiscal year: Konami started with an operating profit forecast of 106 billion yen, raised it to 123 billion yen in January, and finished at 135.9 billion yen.

The new number still leaves room. Subtract first-half operating profit from the 193 billion yen target and you get about 81.7 billion yen for October through March. That beats last year's second half (about 71.6 billion yen) but is nearly 30% below this year's first half, so Konami is not assuming the first-half pace will hold.

The money still comes from eFootball and Yu-Gi-Oh!

About 80% of revenue, 243.5 billion yen, came from the Digital Entertainment segment, which is mostly games. Of the group's 112.1 billion yen in business profit, that segment alone earned 107.5 billion yen. The 78 billion yen added to the revenue forecast comes entirely from it too.

New releases were not the main engine. Soccer game eFootball grew on campaigns tied to the year's big international football tournament and a large update in August. The card-game app Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel reached 100 million downloads.

Metal Gear Solid Delta (August 2025) and Silent Hill f (September 2025) both launched in the prior-year period and each shipped over 1 million copies within days. So this year's 37% growth is measured against a half that already contained two blockbusters. This year's big console releases came in August and September. The new Castlevania launched on October 15, after the period closed, so none of its sales are in these numbers.

Checking the three big releases

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 (August 27, 2026). The headline is the first port of Metal Gear Solid 4, a PS3 game from 2008. It also includes Peace Walker and the Game Boy Color title Ghost Babel from 2000. Our May article guessed MGSV-era games; instead, Vol. 2 includes Ghost Babel, so consider this a correction. OpenCritic average: 84.

Silent Hill: Townfall (September 24, 2026, PS5 and PC). It was made by Screen Burn, a roughly 30-person studio in Glasgow, with Annapurna Interactive co-publishing. The setting is a fictional island town in Scotland. OpenCritic: 80.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse (October 15, 2026). This is the 40th-anniversary game, developed by the French studio Evil Empire, with Dead Cells creator Motion Twin as an adviser. You play as Rose, Trevor Belmont's daughter, in Paris in 1499. It is the first brand-new console entry since Lords of Shadow 2 in 2014, and it sells for $29.99. OpenCritic: 84 (as of October 30).

Critics vs. Steam: one gap closed, one did not

The two games critics rated in the 80s both opened on Steam as "Mixed."

On launch night, Belmont's Curse stood at 59% of 670 reviews positive. Complaints centered on a bug with high-refresh-rate monitors, difficulty that leans closer to a soulslike than older entries, and a lot of whip-based puzzles. Three days later, on October 18, it had climbed to 71% positive, which moved it up to "Mostly Positive." Its concurrent player peak passed 21,000, a record for any Castlevania game on Steam.

Townfall was still at 69% positive, "Mixed," on October 21, nearly a month after release. Players point to weak optimization and too much stealth. Its peak Steam player count was only about a third of what the Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f drew at launch.

For Belmont's Curse, the gap looks like it came mostly from a rough PC launch. Townfall's complaints are about the game itself, mainly the amount of stealth, and a patch will not easily fix that.

Yu-Gi-Oh! and Suikoden are next

Belmont's Curse sales will land in the second half. As of October 2026, Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force GX is scheduled for February 16, 2027, on Switch 2, Switch and Steam. It remakes the 2008 PSP game Tag Force 3, adds online play, and brings the card pool to about 3,900 by adding roughly 200 cards.

The mobile game Suikoden Star Leap launched in Japan on August 7 as a free-to-play title. It is the series' first new game in 14 years, but as of October 2026, Konami has not set dates for the global or Steam versions.

So, is Konami back?

In December 2015, Hideo Kojima, the creator of Metal Gear, left Konami. That same year Konami turned its focus to mobile games, and its reputation among overseas fans fell hard. About ten years later, new Metal Gear, Silent Hill and Castlevania games have arrived within roughly a year of each other, and the company keeps setting records.

Still, the profits come from eFootball and Yu-Gi-Oh!, not from the classic series. The new Metal Gear and Silent Hill games are doing a different job: winning back fans who left. Critics like them, but Steam players are split game by game, so it is too early to call this a full comeback.

What does Konami mean to you: Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or Winning Eleven and eFootball? Where you live, do people feel Konami has really returned?

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