Soon after the first teaser for Abandoned was released in 2021, fans on the internet began to suspect that the project was more than it appeared. Commentators noted the game’s aesthetic similarity to PT, a short but memorable horror game from Kojima Productions that was meant to act as a teaser for Silent Hills, a project that was later canceled. Fans also noted the scarcity of public information about Blue Box Game Studios, theorizing it to be a fake company in the same vein as Moby Dick Studio, a made-up studio used by Kojima in 2012 to tease the release of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

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Speaking about these rumors in an episode of his podcast Brain Structure, Hideo Kojima directly refuted the claims of his involvement with Abandoned, calling the barrage of questions and theories he has received about the matter “really quite a nuisance.” The renowned game designer did acknowledge that he had been behind a similar ruse with Moby Dick Studio and The Phantom Pain, but he said that fans “should know that I wouldn’t do the same thing twice.”

Kojima confirmed that he has yet to speak with Hasan Kahraman, the actual director behind Abandoned, but he offered some advice to the newer developer: take advantage of the hype. Now that the false rumors have caused the game to go viral, Kojima suggested to Kahraman that he “should take advantage of it. If you create something good and share it with everyone, they will learn the truth.” Rumors about Abandoned continue to surge online, but Kojima expressed his hope that “once they (Blue Box) have made something, the users who play it will understand it’s not Silent Hill and I’m not involved, but they will still grow to love their game.”

Given Kojima Productions’ history with sneaky game teasers like PT and The Phantom Pain, it is not all that surprising that many fans suspected the same to be happening with Abandoned. However, now that both the game’s director and Kojima himself have directly denied the latter’s involvement with the project, the ongoing rumors labeling the whole thing an elaborate Silent Hill teaser are no longer credible in the slightest. As exciting as any hint of a new Hideo Kojima project may be for many fans, it seems undeniable at this point that whatever else it may be, Abandoned simply isn’t such a project.

Abandoned is currently in development for PC and PS5.

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Source: IGN