By Joel Loynds,Olivia Richman
Copyright escapistmagazine
Konami has announced a new title, Wai Wai World Craft, which will focus on allowing players to make their own games within its platform. Sound familiar? Well, it seems that now Konami is either shooting across the bow or shoring up its defences against Roblox and other software within its orbit.
As we’ve discussed elsewhere, Roblox is a potential problem for the industry. There are concerns of a reduction in sales, as players appear not to be buying games as often as they used to. The industry is also trying to figure out how to exist alongside these games-as-platforms, like Roblox and Fortnite, where all the games you could ever want are freely available to you.
Konami’s Wai Wai World Craft will be a free-to-play creation tool that will let you plop in classic characters from the company’s past. In the trailer, you do get to see them drop Simon Belmont and something vaguely Contra-esque, I think.
It’s set to hit the main platforms where something like Roblox resides, with it set for PC, iOS, and Android. Konami is also pitching it as entirely crossplay, as “completed games can be freely played anytime, anywhere, and by anyone on PCs, tablets, and smartphones.”
Wai Wai will also have a very Roblox-looking browser to find different games to play. This, honestly, is my favorite bit of any creative or sandbox game. Making stuff is fun, but digging into the absolute pits of user-generated content is often a joy just to see either how creative someone can be or just how wrong the tools can be used.
It also seems a lot more focused on the game creation side in the trailer than on playing said games. The tools will let you build for 3D or 2D, with one game shown looking like a 4-player multiplayer shooter.
It’s good to see Konami making a game maker
Wai Wai World Craft might have a little trouble toppling anything, but I don’t think it’s for that. This looks like another company trying to follow where the money is, like evidence that they’re working towards a smart business plan for any shareholders. There are currently no plans for a non-Japanese release from the looks of things, as Konami hasn’t uploaded the trailer anywhere but its Japanese YouTube channel.
Outside of the “sky is falling” mentality I have about Roblox, it’s good to see more companies stepping into the “make a game in our game” space. I don’t think the last few goes by major companies ever really got the limelight they deserved.
Sony killed off Dreams and Little Big Planet, Nintendo only barely remembered to update Game Builder Garage for the Switch 2, and if you can cast your mind back, Microsoft took a stab at it in 2013 with Project Spark. Instead, we’ve landed on “bad clones” or “brain rot meme” themed games inside of Roblox, and I don’t get them, and I’m very scared whenever my seven-year-old nephew opens his mouth about it.
