Konami needs to remember that there’s way more to Hudson than Bomberman

If you’ve been playing games since the ’80s, you realize that Konami was once one of the giants of the industry. They were responsible for some of the most popular arcade games in the ’80s, carried that success over to the NES and home computers with series like Castlevania, Gradius, and Contra, and then spread their games across a wide variety of hardware as the home console market exploded in the late ’80s and ’90s. Konami made the transition into the 21st century more successfully than many other early game companies, with the increasingly complex and filmic Metal Gear Solid games setting new cinematic standards for the medium, and Silent Hill establishing itself as Resident Evil’s biggest rival in the world of survival horror. Along the way it bought a controlling stake in competitor Hudson Soft in 2005, before acquiring it entirely six years later, and rolling it into Konami proper the following year. With the Hudson acquisition Konami added a number of notable series to its portfolio, including Bonk, Star Soldier, Adventure Island, Nectaris, and, most popular of them all, Bomberman. And, in the 14 years since, they’ve done almost nothing with any of them, other than Bomberman.

The last Star Soldier game arrived in 2008. Adventure Island has been dormant since a mobile game released in 2010. Bonk, probably the best-known Hudson series in America after Bomberman, had an entire game that was basically finished and preparing a release on the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 when Konami fully acquired Hudson in 2011; Bonk: Brink of Extinction was cancelled not long after, and remains unreleased. 

Of course Konami also hasn’t done much with its own popular franchises lately. Castlevania periodically returns in a kind of undeath, with frequent collections and reissues, but its first new game in over a decade was just announced last month. The Gradius family of shooters saw a retro-minded new game last year, but essentially as a bonus feature in a collection of old games. And outside of remakes and remasters, Metal Gear has largely lain dormant since creator Hideo Kojima left the company in 2015. Of Konami’s biggest franchises, only Silent Hill could be called healthy today, with a successful remake in 2024 and an acclaimed new game last year. Konami, the Castlevania people, can’t figure out how to make Castlevania work; it’s no surprise, then, that they aren’t prioritizing games they didn’t originally release, like Bonk or Star Soldier.

They should consider it, though, if they haven’t already. There might not be a critical mass of old Hudson heads starving for new Bonk adventures, but in a world where middling ’90s mascot games like Bubsy and Gex can somehow get revived, Hudson’s superior caveman platformers are ripe for rediscovery. Gradius Origins was critically well-received, and the shoot-’em-up cult is a particularly loyal fanbase; a collection of Hudson’s Star Soldier games would be greatly welcome in that scene, with or without a new title. Nectaris (released in the states as Military Madness) is a deeper cut, but Nintendo’s Fire Emblem has become legitimately popular in the west over the last decade, and targeting that audience with a similar game with a sci-fi theme doesn’t sound like the riskiest bet. Hudson’s legacy is rich and deep, and so much of it remains to be rediscovered by modern audiences.

Super Bomberman Collection might signal a new willingness from Konami to dive into the Hudson vault. But then it could also mean nothing; Konami has made Bomberman a priority over the last decade, even while letting its own franchises languish. The fact that it’s gotten an American release, and isn’t exclusive to Japan, is encouraging, though; perhaps the next thing Bomberman will blow up is Konami’s interest in other Hudson games.