IGN USA interviewed Hasan Kahraman, founder of Blue Box Game Studios, the team working on Abandoned, a PS5 exclusive adventure.
They talk about the storyline, the conspiracy theories behind the game, and development issues.
Kahraman says that gamers don't understand what is behind the development of a game.
He states that he is not sure whether to show a development version of Abandoned or wait for a full announcement.
Kahraman talk about the game's marketing management mistakes, once again blamed on Blue Box's lack of experience in managing large projects and interacting with a large audience.
The developer of Abandoned says however that he wants to be open and clear and for this reason he decided to release this interview.
He explains the past problems Blue Box has had, starting with games that never came to life, through mobile video games that didn't pan out, and a Steam game - The Haunting - put in early access to gather feedback but then taken off the platform because the project was still too immature.
Abandoned has been in development since 2017 and the team, while working on The Haunting, wanted to work on Abandoned as well. However, The Haunting has become a project run by a separate group from Blue Box, working on it as a sort of hobby and will eventually be released for free. As we already knew, moreover, players who have purchased The Haunting on PC in the past will be able to request Abandoned (both Prologue and the full version) for free.
IGN then asks why Blue Box created a series of tweets referencing Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
Kahraman states that it was a coincidence, that the purpose was to start suggesting to the public the name of the game (Abandoned is not the real name, remember) and the "S" and "L" that are part of the game's name should make up the word "Survival". Next, the team was supposed to unveil the full name of Abandoned.
Kahraman then states that the rumors about Kojima's involvement continued longer than he thought. In the end, the team clarified that there was no connection with Kojima and Konami. It also explains that even the image with the man with the blindfold is just a teaser of one of the game's characters and is not related to Metal Gear Solid.
It is explained that the man with the blindfold is the brother of the main character. The latter does not remember having a brother because he was separated from it when he was very young, after his parents died. The brother, however, remembers our protagonist and, now, is part of a cult and wants the protagonist to become part of it.
Kahraman repeats several times that it is all a coincidence and that it is also a consequence of the lack of experience in handling the marketing of a game. Moreover, he states that all this has not been fun for him at all.
It is also mentioned that the deleted Abandoned tweets are related to details of the game that changed during development, so the team wanted to delete the information that was no longer correct and, later, share new ones. However, this was also a mistake because it drew attention and made people think that the game had been cancelled.
It is confirmed that Abandoned Prologue will be a complete game and independent from the real Abandoned. It will last a couple of hours, it will be paid but it will cost little. The profits will be used to continue the development of the full game. The Prologue will be used to test the gameplay, discover the first details of the story and see what is the graphic level to which the full game aims (the goal is realism). There will also be a set of trophies, including a platinum.
As for the full game, Blue Box wants to hire more people and is organizing a collaboration with a company that scans actors to make faces for the game. Currently, the characters are made with Epic Games' Metahuman: however, the base models are being customized by the team. Blue Box is using Unreal Engine 5, it is confirmed.