Hideo Kojima has finally addressed the never-ending Abandoned conspiracy theories, 18 months after fans became convinced that he was linked to Blue Box Studio's survival horror.
The developer sat down with Geoff Keighley on the latest episode of his podcast Brain Structure and part of their discussion was game rumours (thanks VGC). Kojima brought up the persistent rumours that he's somehow involved in Abandoned, with fans convinced that he's secretly the lead developer Hasan Kahraman and the game is actually a new Silent Hill.
"Users just keep sending me pictures of this 'Hasan.' They still send me collages and deep fake images like 20 a day. It's really quite a nuisance," he said. Later in the podcast, he said: "I have never spoken with Hasan, the game is yet to be released. I don't think there's much he can do or say at this point, but if he releases the game, people might understand, so maybe he should just hurry up and release it."
Kojima also said that he wouldn't pull the same trick twice, referring to the way that Metal Gear Solid 5 was initially revealed under the pseudonym of developer Moby Dick Studios. "When we did that Moby Dick thing, you were in on the whole thing, and that was pretty fun," he said to Keighley. "But people should know I wouldn't do the same thing twice."
We want to thank @Kojima_Hideo for addressing the conspiracies openly. It has been a burden and not cool for both fans and developers. We hope everyone can close this for good. We are working hard on Abandoned and we would like to thank you all for your patience!💙 https://t.co/RX88KyQyUVNovember 4, 2022
Blue Box Studios responded to Kojima's statement in a tweet, the first bit of activity from the studio since early April. "We want to thank @Kojima_Hideo for addressing the conspiracies openly," it read. "It has been a burden and not cool for both fans and developers. We hope everyone can close this for good. We are working hard on Abandoned and we would like to thank you for all your patience!" The developer also asked "fans to stop harassing Hideo Kojima regarding Abandoned messages," adding: "This is not acceptable and is not entertaining."
Although Abandoned was revealed with relatively little fanfare back in April 2021, Silent Hill fans became convinced in the months after that it was secretly a Silent Hill game in disguise. An entire subreddit, The Blue Box Conspiracy, has been dedicated to documenting every move of both Kojima and Kahraman. The studio said in October last year that the rampant conspiracies had led to members of the team receiving death threats, "online but unfortunately also physically."
Development on Abandoned has been rocky. Blue Box had to clarify that its game wasn't cancelled back in March after the studio deleted most of its tweets with game details, including one about an upcoming playable demo (that still hasn't happened). A further report in June suggested that the project was in disarray, with team members calling Kahraman "duplicitous and prone to mood swings," with the game allegedly wildly swinging from concept to concept.
