Abandoned has faced controversy since it was first announced, but according to director Hasan Kahraman, the game is far from cancelled.
Rumours speculate that the controversial indie game Abandoned has been cancelled. However, these were all proven to be false, as explained by the game director, Hasan Kahraman, in an interview with IGN’s Destin Legarie. He has reiterated that the game’s prologue is under development and will be paid access in order to fund the main game.
In the interview, he stated that the reason for the deletion of numerous tweets concerning Abandoned’s development plans was a failed attempt to keep information on the game relevant and up to date. Instead, it led to rumours that the horror game was cancelled.
“I did not see that coming,” Kahraman explained. “I didn’t think that the community would respond that way. Basically, the tweets were deleted because some of the concept has changed, and I figured maybe just deleting the tweet and then tweeting more relevant information would be a better idea – which was actually not a good idea. I have learned now just to keep them. Even if the information or concept changed, just keep the older information because people eventually will see for themselves what the difference is and then see what’s more actual.”
Along with his statement, Kahraman’s studio, Blue Box, has posted a statement on Twitter in response to the rumour. Their tweet says that the game is still under development and they sincerely apologies to the community for leaving them in the dark. The team had communicated that they had “underestimated our development roadmap” and had revealed that the promised prologue to the game would be delayed.
Kahraman also stated in the interview that the prologue will be its own standalone game with a price tag in order to support the funding of the main game, and it will be planned for this year. “So, we’re actually self-funding the game with the revenue collected from the Prologue. So, that’s why we want to release the Prologue first” he explained, “It’s not an early access, but it’s more like an… It’s actually more like an opportunity for gamers to get introduced to the story of the game, to the gameplay”
In addition to his statement, Kahraman also said that the team has plans to add further content in their Abandoned Real Time Experience app throughout 2022, and that once the prologue is completed, they will start releasing more trailers of the main game.
However, he is in a dilemma about how to reveal his content and said that he was afraid of what his community wanted to see. “It’s something personal. And the development progress, not everyone might get it because gamers don’t see, don’t understand what ‘in development’ means. Gamers don’t care about that.” Kahraman said as he struggled to come up with a way to present the game is currently holding him off from revealing any trailers.
Prior to this, Abandoned was speculated to be an addition to the Silent Hill franchise and, although rather laughable, there was one incident where Kahraman was forced to prove his existence by posting a video of himself to show that he wasn’t a made-up character to disguise the famously known Hideo Kojima.
Despite the many doubts circulating around Blue Box and Abandoned, the team are eagerly working towards pushing out the prologue as soon as possible to their fans. Hopefully their game project succeeds in the future and comes out as promised. Until then, we will have to wait.
