Announced back in April, Blue Box's Abandoned (which is just the codename for the game) is a first-person survival horror with realistic survival elements. However, it's also a game that has become part of a conspiracy theory which paints it as either Hideo Kojima's next game or a new Silent Hill game.
Created back in 2015, Blue Box Game Studios (the Blue stands for Best Level User Experience based on an old screenshot of their site) is one that doesn't have much of an online presence or well-known history, along with owner/director Hasan Kahraman. Those attempting to check the studio's site will find a "we'll be right back" page for their home page. When they first dropped the trailer for Abandoned back in April, many fans were quick to assume that there's more to the trailer and studio than was being let on. This Reddit post has a whole grocery list of reasons fans suspect that Abandoned will be a new Silent Hill game and/or Hideo Kojima.
Why do people think Abandoned and Blue Box are connected to Silent Hill and/or Kojima?
- The latest round of rumors started up when Blue Box made a teasing tweet about something that starts with S and ends with L. They later posted another tweet apologizing for the tweet and clarifying that Silent Hill is owned by Konami, not Blue Box.
- Kojima has made up fake studios for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and P.T before revealing the true developers.
- Blue Box's only other game, The Whisperer, being completed by another studio and featuring a black handprint for its icon, just like Death Stranding.
- Blue Box's logo is similar to the PlayStation Studios logo.
- A picture of Kojima with what some consider a "blue box."
- "Blue box" is a term for phone scams.
- 49 seconds into the announcement trailer, a tree is blocking out the letters P and T on grafitti reading "Kill the trespasser."
- The banner for Blue Box's YouTube channel is full of hills. Silent ones, perhaps.
- Hasan mentions 50+ people working on Abandoned, an amount similar to Kojima Productions staff
- Hasan Kahraman and Hideo Kojima have the same initials. In addition, Kahraman translates to Kojima from Japanese to Turkish.
- Hasan has a PSN account (SneakyWarrior) with 1238 trophies, the same for the Silent Hill 4 commercial. He also had a YouTube channel called 'Twentyseven27,' and Silent Hills was canceled on April 27th.
Why Abandoned and Blue Box Studio probably aren't connected to Silent Hill or Kojima
Despite all the above evidence, there's little solid proof that there's actually a Kojima/Silent Hill project in the works. Here's a brief rundown of that:
- Much of the evidence is highly circumstantial, relying on leaps of logic.
- Blue Box Studios is a registered Dutch Company as checked by developer Rami Ismail - in particular a type of company that you cannot hide your identity with.
- Another Reddit post from the Blue Box Conspiracy subreddit contains a list of debunked evidence about the Blue Box conspiracy theory.
- The hills seen on Blue Box's YouTube channel are from Waverly Hills Sanitorium.
- A leaked trailer from a supposed Blue Box Discord server was debunked.
- A Hasan Kahraman who can be found on the Apple app store is a different person from the one behind Abandoned. This means the connection of a Physical Trainer app that had a PT shortform that folks were assuming was a connection is not one
- Blue Box confirmed that a supposed YouTube account for their game was not actually theirs.
It's clear that there are some odd coincidences and not much history with the studio, but it's doubtful Silent Hill or Hideo Kojima have anything to do with it. What this all brings to mind is the human tendency to create patterns where there aren't any, which is called Apophenia, as people seek meaning in random information.
A teaser app for the game is releasing soon, so we'll likely learn more about it then.
