In April, PlayStation unveiled a brand new survival horror shooter, Abandoned. The short trailer was dark and mysterious, announcing its upcoming release on PS5. And just a few weeks later, some internet users noticed some very disturbing coincidences on the development of Abandoned, and several clues showing that the game was actually a Silent Hill. One of those being a developer's name strangely resembling Hideo Kojima.
So, is it truly a Silent Hill reboot? Here's everything we know.
Who is BLUE BOX Game Studios?
Blue Box Game Studios came out of nowhere and got its own PlayStation blog and an exclusive PS5 teaser, with the resources to develop a game in a very short amount of time.
Delving deeper, it seem that a lot of the information we have about the studio and its employees is completely fictitious — like the stock photos on LinkedIn.
And then there's the director of the game, Hasan Kahraman, who seems to have little on his CV other than developing a Personal Training application on smartphones, which appears to be fake. You can download it, but nothing happens when you sign up. The acronym PT is also reminiscent of Silent Hill PT — a game that was, unfortunately, abandoned in 2014. The studio then denied the director's involvement in this application.
Could This be an Official Teaser?
Blue Box posted a rather interesting tweet that implied Abandoned could actually only be the project name of the game in development, and the official release could have a different name:
The tweet has since been deleted and the studio apologized, denying any relationship with Konami, Kojima or Silent Hill.
The Abandoned project could still start with S and end with an L but with no connection to Silent Hill. That being said, this is not the first time that Hideo Kojima used a pseudonym — as was the case of Metal Gear Solid 5, which was first teased as Phantom Pain, and then revealed via Joakim Mogren, an anagram of Kojima.
In a few days, Blue Box Studios will release a new trailer for the game and the mystery may be solved.
It doesn't end there though — Konami recently released new products related to Silent Hill. For his part, Hideo Kojima fueled the rumors with a simple tweet. It may seem he's talking about books, but users quickly jumped at the use of "silent" and "hill".
Who is Hasan Kahraman?
The fact that Hasan Kahraman and Hideo Kojima have the same initials, and knowing that Kojima has always wanted to work on a horror game, has many convinced that it is indeed a Silent Hill production.
So it seems with all the clues and theories out there, it boils down to one of two things:
- Either Abandoned is indeed a Silent Hill project led by Hideo Kojima
- Or Hasan Kahraman is a fan of Hideo Kojima and Silent Hill — meaning that Abandoned is just a tribute to Silent Hill
Abandoned is scheduled for release on the PS5 for the end of 2021. More details will be available from June 22 via a dedicated application.
