Video game fans love a good mystery. Whenever developers and studios tease a new game without giving too much away, fans like to pick apart the teasers for clues and figure out where the game is going before the developers actually reveal the whole thing. Everything from Elden Ring to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 has been subject to surging tides of fan speculation and theory crafting. The latest game to start a video game speculation trend is Abandoned, an upcoming PS5 exclusive survival horror game being made by little-known developer Blue Box Game Studios.
Blue Box hasn't revealed an overwhelming amount of information about Abandoned, but it's revealed just enough to get fans speculating. A lot of fans firmly believe that Abandoned isn't its own game at all, and that Blue Box Game Studios is secretly developing the next Silent Hill game. Blue Box Studios insists that it has nothing to do with SilentHill or Hideo Kojima, but in spite of that, Silent Hill fans are picking apart everything that they know about Abandoned in search of clues that would suggest Hideo Kojima is working on Silent Hill with Konami again. No matter what Blue Box Studios says, the rumor mill keeps turning.
The Longing for Silent Hill
Fans of Silent Hill have been waiting for many years to see a new game. During the early 2000s, there was always Silent Hill content coming out. Konami seemed determined to deliver chilling experiences on the regular after the concept proved successful thanks to the first game, released in 1999. However, everything changed because of PT.Â
Hideo Kojima, the acclaimed former Konami developer responsible for the Metal Gear series, was working on a game called Silent Hills in 2014. PT was a playable trailer for the game; it was a truly horrifying game to experience and it's proven influential in years since. Unfortunately, Kojima and Konami parted ways shortly after PT's release, effectively cancelling Silent Hills. There hasn't been a Silent Hill game since.
This context is crucial to understanding what's going on with Abandoned right now. Silent Hill fans are desperate to see their beloved horror franchise make a comeback. Even though Hideo Kojima wasn't central to Silent Hill before his cancelled project, the falling out with Konami seems to have put Silent Hill on the shelf for now. Now fans are desperate to see the series make a comeback. The hope is that Kojima, who famously likes to play mind games with fans, has a secret plan with Konami to work on Silent Hill again and surprise fans with a new entry. It just so happens that Abandoned looks an awful lot like a Silent Hill game, and so fans are jumping on it.
The Curious Plight of Abandoned
For those who don't know Abandoned, it's an open-world survival horror experience that's apparently meant to be very realistic and push players to find their own creative solutions to problems. Abandoned reportedly has a heavy focus on challenging combat that'll push players to the limit. Jason, the game's protagonist, has been brought to a strange snowy forest for mysterious reasons, and he'll have to contend with both the wilderness and a bloodthirsty cult to survive. The game will draw players into the setting with razor-sharp graphics and use of the DualSense's haptic feedback technology. Overall, Abandoned sounds like a pretty compelling addition to the PS5's library.
Blue Box Studios probably never expected fans to jump on Abandoned for the reason they did. Unfortunately for it, all of these concepts sound in no way out of place in a new Silent Hill game. In fact, Abandoned sounds like it could be a return to Silent Hill games from before PT, which notably lacked any combat. Since Blue Box Studios has been pretty quiet about the game for the most part, fans have been left to sift through what little information there is and draw their own conclusions. Many feel strongly that Abandoned really is a Silent Hill game in spite of Blue Box refuting the claims, on top of lots of evidence to the contrary.
For one thing, Silent Hill is one of Konami's most famous properties. It wouldn't make much sense for Konami to hand Silent Hill off to an indie developer just to surprise fans; that'd be a lot of extra work for not much payoff. For another, there's no reason to believe that Hideo Kojima will be working with Konami against anytime soon, let alone getting a second shot at Silent Hill. He's very focused on his work at Kojima Productions right now. In fact, reports suggest that Kojima isn't even working on a game for Sony right now. On the contrary, Kojima and Microsoft are reportedly in talks to work on a game together. All these signs suggest that the PS5 exclusive Abandoned has nothing to do with Silent Hill or Hideo Kojima's next game.
Abandoned and Silent Hill's Futures
Even as Abandoned's developers release videos of themselves to prove they're not Hideo Kojima, Silent Hill and Kojima fans are remaining skeptical that he's not attached to Abandoned. That's a good sign that, no matter what else happens during Abandoned's life, it'll be remembered as the game that everyone mistook for Silent Hill. It must be a little frustrating for the team at Blue Box Studios to see people insist that Abandoned isn't what Blue Box says it is and that there's a conspiracy afoot. On the bright side, though, the Abandoned kerfuffle translates to a lot of free publicity for an otherwise relatively unknown studio.
On the other side, the newfound fame of Abandoned says a lot about the hole left in the horror game industry by Silent Hill's sudden disappearance. There's a huge market for Silent Hill titles that's still hoping and praying that Konami will return to the series someday. People are jumping on Abandoned because it appears to scratch that Silent Hill itch.
If Silent Hill isn't coming back anytime soon, then games like Abandoned are even more valuable. They keep a certain flavor of horror games alive while one of their biggest contributors is absent from the industry. If there's one thing that all the talk around Abandoned proves, it's that game developers should remember that fans leave no stone unturned.
Abandoned releases for PS5 in 2021.
