Abandoned, a PlayStation-exclusive horror game Sony featured back in April, has been the root of many internet conspiracy theories over the past few months. Some believe the studio behind the title, Blue Box, is a front for renowned game director Hideo Kojima’s next project. Others believe Blue Box made the mistake of fueling a hype train it can’t slow down, and the outfit is nothing more than a small company that is about to disappoint a lot of people.
The real truth is still very much up in the air, despite Blue Box’s “attempts” to set the record straight. And if Blue Box is indeed being honest with us, and Abandoned is not some long con being pulled off by Kojima before he unveils some awesome new game, the studio is not doing itself any favors. Like with this recent delay of the game’s reveal.
As Game Informer reports, Abandoned game director Hasan Kahraman recently took to Twitter to announce that his game’s reveal app, which was originally set to launch today, will instead come sometime in August. It should go without saying that the absolute worst time to delay something is on the day people are expecting it.
This is almost certainly going to generate more conspiracies around Abandoned, with some speculating about how Kojima might be pulling the strings here, leading us on, letting this master class in deception continue. If this project is not what so many believe, I’m not entirely sure words will even help at this point. So there’s perhaps another tactic Blue Box could use.
If Blue Box genuinely wants to get out of this storm of rumors and hype, it needs to just go away for a little while. Say nothing. Do not talk about your “reveal app.” Do not pour gasoline on the fire. Do not, under any circumstances, drop cryptic tweets. Take the Twitter away from whoever is running it and shut up, basically. Shut up and do not speak of your game until you are ready to show enough to the world that’ll make it crystal clear this is not a Hideo Kojima production and is not related to Silent Hill.
Sony, on the other hand, bears some of the responsibility for all of this. It gave a purportedly small game and small studio a platform on the PlayStation Blog, and it has sat by as all of this ridiculousness has played out. Sony should put out a statement to head this hype train off at the pass. Say Abandoned has nothing to do with Kojima. Say you can’t wait until the studio shows off more. And then, also, shut up about it.
For now, this remains a mess that doesn’t reflect well on anyone involved. If Abandoned isn’t part of some elaborate Kojima plot, Blue Box made the mistake of its young life by allowing anyone to believe it is, and also made itself look like a poorly managed company with its missed deadlines and its focus on extraneous game-adjacent material. Sony looks bad for enabling all of this. Whose idea was it to feature a game from a studio with no track record and no big names attached to it?
Until this August reveal rolls around — if that even happens — I hope Blue Box follows the above advice. Just disappear for a while. Maybe you’ll get lucky, Hideo Kojima will announce the actual thing he’s working on, and you’ll be saved. But even if he doesn’t do that, you’d help yourself out quite a lot by introducing less Abandoned into the world over the next few months.
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