Blue Box Game Studios has been stirring up a lot of attention on its Twitter page over the past couple of months. After Abandoned was first announced in April 2021, further speculation has mounted that the mysterious project is a new Silent Hill game in disguise. Adding further fuel to the fire, Blue Box posted a cryptic tease with a blurred image of a man's face who sports an eye patch, reminiscent of the iconic gaming protagonist Solid Snake. Now, fans are split as to whether it was a Silent Hill game or actually a revival of Metal Gear Solid.
That being said, nothing about the situation surrounding Blue Box or Abandoned has been as it seems, with each new tidbit further confusing the last. One clear thing is that whoever is behind the scenario (with many believing it to be Hideo Kojima) has purposely orchestrated every step to be a mystery. However, while fans ponder what game is exactly being teased, this may be an intentional misdirect to keep gamers from guessing what's truly going on. One other possibility is that the teases are intentional because Abandoned isn't teasing one specific game, but rather something else entirely.
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As of this writing, Abandoned remains a mystery. Blue Box has confirmed that Abandoned is just a code name, and the official title will be revealed at a later date. Furthermore, the brief teaser released in April is apparently not even reflective of what the final product will look or play like, giving players very little concrete information to go off of. However, there is one constant variable that Blue Box have been re-iterating since the beginning.
Regardless of the theories that this is a new Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid, Blue Box has only confirmed that Abandoned will receive its own PS5 exclusive app, available to pre-download as of July 29. According to Blue Box, this app has been advertised as a "real-time experience" allowing players to best enjoy the eventual reveal trailer for whatever Abandoned turns out to be. This possibly implies that real-time gameplay will be running right from the PS5, giving player's a first-hand impression for what eventually playing the game will be like, rather than the usual streaming compression that hinders visual quality.
Considering Blue Box claims to be a small indie studio, this planned app sounds hugely ambitious. This is not to doubt the talents of the developers involved, but something of this caliber and scale, to live broadcast PS5 content in a seemingly interactive fashion, sounds like a challenge even for a large company. The amount of planning, co-ordination, and resources to pull something like this off isn't simple, which should raise a few eyebrows for anyone believing what Blue Box has claimed so far. Adding on the fact that Abandoned and Blue Box seem to have Sony's full support makes this all the more puzzling. It just doesn't seem logical or financially viable to trust a small indie studio with such an ambitious app launch before a more proven studio like Sucker Punch or Insomniac.
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Speaking of Sony and the PlayStation brand at large, the company has been unusually quiet for several months regarding long-term plans for its upcoming content. Although confirming ahead of time that it would not participate during the E3 2021 season, many expected a standalone State of Play event to follow sometime after. While a State of Play did come to pass this month, it was mostly focused on Deathloop among smaller indie titles, with no information at all on bigger PlayStation exclusives like God of War: Ragnarok.
A few months ago, rumors persisted that a proper Sony summer event was coming in either late June or early July. This coincidentally lined up with the initial timeframe for the Abandoned PS5 app to go live, but it was suddenly delayed just as it was nearing its launch day. This could be looked at as pure chance, however it is important to remember that Sony is connected to Abandoned, implying it likely has some knowledge or hand in how the project is developing.
With Sony's public image and services in the mix, the company would not have stayed completely silent during the entire Abandoned Twitter situation unless there was an actual problem. No matter how out of control fan speculation got, Sony didn't interfere, which implies Blue Box may not be just some indie studio pretending to be making Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid purely for more attention.
Putting all of this together could suggest that Abandoned is more than just the announcement of one single game for PS5. It could be a long shot, but maybe this entire fiasco is a ruse to disguise Sony developing an App that would function similarly to PlayStation Home on the PlayStation 3. It is also worth mentioning that recently Sony renewed the PlayStation Home trademark, supporting the theory. Abandoned could be a fully digital hub in which players can view and interact with teasers for upcoming PS5 games, serving as a sort of digital E3 show floor experience. With the app set to go live in August, time will reveal what Abandoned truly is.
Abandoned is in development for PS5.
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