Abandoned, the PS5 survival horror game from Blue Box Game Studios, is once again making the rounds online but it has nothing to do with Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid or Hideo Kojima. Instead, a recent massive report published by GameSpot unravels some interesting things about the game, including it not actually existing beyond the reveal trailer and sketchy PS5 app.
The rabbit hole runs quite deep for Abandoned, which first gained traction in the gaming industry thanks to its secretive marketing and coincidental connections to Silent Hill and Konami. As it turns out, this was all allegedly orchestrated by Blue Box founder Hasan Kahraman to drum up hype for Abandoned, though full-scale development on the project hadn’t even began at that point – and likely never will.
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GameSpot managed to speak to several sources close to Blue Box Game Studios, Kahraman and Abandoned‘s development, revealing some startling information. Apparently, Kahraman lied about Abandoned on multiple occasions, not only to onlookers but to his own employees.
The project started in earnest as a survival horror focused on a cult, but it quickly evolved into a story about a rogue, fourth-wall breaking AI and government conspiracies. This was likely due to fans mistakenly assuming that Abandoned was a ruse for a new Metal Gear Solid game following an image showing an eye-patched, blurry figure in a poster. Kahraman reportedly revamped the game’s concept to coincide with online conspiracies.
According to these sources, when the PS5 app was published, Kahraman intentionally designed the short teaser with music that sounded similar to Silent Hill, once again implying a connection to Konami’s horror franchise that wasn’t actually there. Another leak uncovered earlier this year revealed that Blue Box Game Studios had created a faux Silent Hill 5 poster to, yet again, try to get people talking about Abandoned.
Kahraman previously went on record to state that all connections to Silent Hill, Konami and Kojima were purely coincidental and that the lead developer was under immense pressure as a result. Despite these comments, claims made by GameSpot’s sources indicate that Kahraman had deliberately fabricated these conspiracies and continued to do so well after debunking them.
The report goes into much more detail about the confusing nature of Abandoned‘s development. Everything from compulsive lies to deceitful marketing and even those employed to work on a game that, by all means, doesn’t actually exist in any concrete form yet. Group members who had direct contact with Kahraman claimed that he’s “duplicitous and prone to mood swings”, and would constantly get argumentative when asked about the status of Abandoned.
The work place culture was also described as toxic, with Kahraman even going as far as making group members sign an NDA form that made it impossible for them to report his erratic behaviour.
Abandoned has now changed its identity multiple times, going from a cult-based survival horror to an action game and back, with one source even describing it as a vampire-themed Resident Evil rip-off at one point. This was likely due to the popularity of Resident Evil Village, which also included vampiric foes but it was once again chalked up to Blue Box simply latching onto trends at the time.
The report concludes with members saying that they don’t believe Kahraman is actually working on Abandoned or its standalone prologue at all. As some have already discovered, Blue Box Game Studios has a troubling history of abandoning projects which were then erased off the face of the earth. A similar fate awaits Abandoned, by the looks of it.
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Source: GameSpot
