Abandoned, a controversial indie horror game that many believe might not exist, is currently looking at a standalone release somewhere in 2022.
Speaking with IGN in a recent interview, director Hasan Kahraman assured that Abandoned has not been scrapped as its Prologue is currently being finished by developer Blue Box Game Studios for a standalone release.
Kahraman explained that the Prologue will offer a couple of hours of gameplay at best but should not be treated as just a demo. It will support PlayStation trophies while carrying a price tag where all proceeds will help fund the main game.
“The Prologue is not a demo. People keep saying it’s a demo. It’s not a demo. It’s actually a standalone game, right?” said Kahraman. “It has a price tag. It’s low because it’s probably about an hour, two hours of gameplay. But yeah, it’s a reasonable price tag. It’s not really that much.
“But the revenue collected from the Prologue will actually be used to fund the development for Abandoned, right? 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.”
Kahraman further clarified that the Prologue will give players an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the story of Abandoned. It will also be a way for Blue Box Game Studios to “showcase the visuals of the game” that includes realistic “close to real-life” environments powered by Unreal Engine 5.
Last week, Blue Box Game Studios was caught deleting some of its older tweets that were made months back to highlight the content roadmap of the game. The deletion was taken as an attempt to scale down the scope of development, convincing many that the developer was backtracking on its promises.
“I did not see that coming,” admitted Kahraman on the matter. “I didn’t think that the community would respond that way.”
He explained that the tweets were deleted because “some of the concepts have changed” during development. He did not clarify which concept in particular but noted that the developer will “just keep the older information because people eventually will see for themselves what the difference is and then see what’s more actual.”
Abandoned was originally believed by fans to be a new Silent Hill game. The developer even went out of its way to suggest that the game was a secret project of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima.
