The utterly bizarre speculation surrounding upcoming PlayStation 5 exclusive Abandoned and its tenuous links to game creator Hideo Kojima simply aren't going away. After initially denying claims Blue Box Game Studios is simply Kojima in disguise and apologising for a recent tweet linking Abandoned to Silent Hill, fans of the Metal Gear Solid designer are now drawing up long lists of evidence linking him to the PS5 project in question. We suggest you buckle up for this one because we're about to go down the rabbit hole and then some.
This Reddit post collects all of the "proof" under one roof, so we'll be working from that. The list begins with a few random and potentially unrelated occurrences, including the fact Blue Box Game Studios' YouTube page features hills (Silent Hill and potentially Death Stranding references) and one recent tweet from Kojima himself including "silent" and "hill". Fans have also noticed the letters P and T are covered by trees in the Abandoned PS5 teaser trailer. What's the relevance? The famous P.T. demo, of course. The first section of claims is then rounded out by general chatter of how Hideo Kojima has done this once before. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was originally announced by Moby Dick Studio before it was revealed to be Kojima behind the entire thing.
But here's where things get really unusual. In the past couple of days, fans have been really digging into the backstory of Blue Box Game Studios and the people behind it, uncovering some strange links and odd happenings in the process. The original teasers for P.T. made mention of "Snowflakes of Blood". A tweet from two days ago mentions that same phrase as a "gameplay fact" for Abandoned alongside the usual console specs. Next up, the developer was founded roughly one year after P.T. launched on PlayStation 4 and between then and now, it has only made one other game. The logo for that title is a black handprint, a lot like you would see in Death Stranding. Along the way, one of Blue Box Game Studios' cancelled games was named Lost Tapes — also the name of the fourth soundtrack for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
The head of Blue Box Game Studios, Hasan Kahraman, has played a game on his PSN account named Demon Blood, which isn't available on the PS Store. This simply could be a code name for Abandoned, but investigators have picked up on the icon associated with it. It displays the text: "Siren Head". This is being used as another link to Silent Hill due to the famous enemy Pyramid Head. One other interesting suggestion is that the developer's Twitter account posts in the very early hours of the morning in its local time of the Netherlands. Fans have picked up on this, and since Japan is seven hours ahead of the country, have now linked this to Kojima firing off some tweets in the late morning in the east.
Fast forward to today and Geoff Keighley answers a question about the Abandoned studio, revealing Blue Box Game Studios asked him if he could help them reveal the game. He says "there will be more to share on this title", but that Hasan Kahraman actually privately messaged him about it a "little while ago". Keighley then shared evidence of this Twitter DM, but due to the way the social media site documents those messages, Keighley had either screenshotted it immediately after receiving it or had only just had it appear in his Twitter inbox. It begs the question: if it's the former, why would you screenshot DMs from a random developer you'd probably never heard of?
And that's where we're at at the time of writing. Our next update could arrive on Sunday when the "Abandoned Realtime Trailers app" arrives on the PS Store. This will supposedly allow you to experience "gameplay reveals in realtime on your PS5". Even this raises some questions since such a thing hasn't been done on PS5 before, so why would an unknown indie developer be the first one to do so?
Anyway, after all that, where do you stand on this bizarre situation? Do you believe Hideo Kojima really is behind all of it or is this simply a small indie studio desperate for some attention and is buying into anything it can do to get eyes on Abandoned? Have your say in the comments below.
[source reddit.com]
Comments 94
I can't believe I wrote all that. I need to go to bed.
It does sound silly written down but there are just too many coincidences to not be more to this.
It does feel like Kojima, hopefully, it's real and he finally gets to do his horror game. I might nope out of it myself if it's too creepy, but I hope for fans of Silent Hill it's true.
Me personally, I just hope the remake of MGS is true.
@JechtUltima Update to the article: "Push Square user JechtUltima notices the name of the site's Assistant Editor shares a few letters with Hideo Kojima himself. Could this further fuel claims the famous creator is the one behind Abandoned? The plot thickens even further."
I don't have a clue and I'm not even a Kojima fan at all, but boy am I caught up in the intrigue with every update! lol
Either way it goes, it's gonna be interesting in different ways.
All I know is this would go great with some popcorn.
Yeah I'm just wait for the reveal at this point instead of theorizing about it and ending up disappointed.
Something else I discovered on Playstation Lifestyle's article on this, if you translate Hideo to Turkish it translate to Kahraman.
Either Kojima is up to his old tricks or some random dev has gone to obsessive lengths to mimic him.
If anything, this whole story is pure quality entertainment. Looking forward to the release of this game just to read the news.
I'm hoping for the app to be a p.t now but i'll bet it's not.
It’s gonna be a long few days of speculation until this thing is revealed.
I Want To Believe
@AdamNovice Though weirdly only if you write "Hideo" in English. If you actually write it in Japanese, as Kojima would, it doesn't translate to anything.
This is his name: 秀夫 - but when you write "Hideo" in English, it actually shows the word 英雄 below - which is "eiyuu" and means "hero". Kahraman is Turkish for "hero". Not sure what's going on there.
Of course, it's still one hell of a coincidence - just odd that it only works if you write his name in the wrong alphabet and only then because Google Translate turns it into "eiyuu".
if this game doesn't cure cancer, end world hunger and completely abolish racism and sexism with how many conspiracies are surrounding this game i will be extremely disappointed
june 22nd can go in one of two ways
All these coincidences are pretty strange but watching the trailer it just doesn’t feel like a Kojima game. With TPP it was the trailer itself that first got people talking, if you watch this trailer without knowing anything it doesn’t feel like Kojima.
This is a lot of fun. I like it.
The studio's Twitter has said the BLUE in their name stands for something that isn't the color, as in B.L.U.E. Whoever guesses it gets early access to its alpha and people are guessing blue for PlayStation which does not really fit but the account said someone's close and they'll announce a winner in 24 hours. Yea, something's happening, even if its just one Turkish man's publicity stunt.
@Janeo99 Blue Box tweeted on June 15th that the footage we have seen so far has nothing to do with the actual game. It's just development overview. They haven't shown the actual game.
Conspiracies are fun, especially if a dead game I was excited for comes out of it. But the big hitch, for me, is that Abandoned's trailer really doesn't match the quality of PT.
I'm not talking graphical fidelity, that's top notch, but more art direction things. Things like how the writing on the sign looks like someone just searched "paint font" and chose the first free result. Or how the smoke effect on the fire - if you can even call it that - makes a game like Phasmophobia look like fine art.
The whole thing looks sloppy. And if Kojima is one thing, it isn't sloppy.
(I also realize it was an early in development tease for the game, but like... So was PT)
Confident prediction: the speculation surrounding this game is going to be infinitely more interesting than the game itself.
I almost (they are fueling this themselves) feel really bad for the Studio if the game isn't related to Kojima or Silent Hill in anyway, Is going to get shredded to pieces otherwise. I personally don't think it is as it looked way to amateur to be Kojima (unless he intentionally made it look like a amateur project).
If you rearrange the letters in Abandoned, it spells Silent Hill Reboot. Doesn't take a astro-librarian to figure this stuff out.
@AdamNovice that's so freaking true!!! It s hideo in Turkish!!! Case is closed. Everything else is just nonsense.
@LiamCroft there is that page which suggests this company was founded in late 2015, however its Twitter account joined in January 2015 and there is a kickstarter which puts them in 2014, long before Kojima left Konami. Personally I just don't see Konami licencing this to Kojima, nor would it make sense for it to have seemingly happened practically at the point at which he left the company. Its a bit of fun whilst we wait I suppose and there does seem to be something very odd about this developer
I'm 99% sure this is a kojima game, it's like mgs v moby dick studio phantom pain game. This game either Silent Hill Abandoned or spiritual successor to silent hill / pt made by kojima 😃
Hasan Kahraman‘s initials are HK; Hideo Kojima
It’s quite clearly not what it’s selling itself as; at this point that’s obvious. Whether it’s Silent Hill or we’re being trolled into a new IP by Kojima, not sure.
@ChromaticDracula maybe hideo kojima has been Hasan kahraman in a flesh mask, the entire time. But Hasan is actually a lizard person with a Hasan flesh mask, underneath the hideo mask. And they're here to steal all our red rocks. So they can bask in the sun on one.
Either way some people are playing mind games.
I just hope it's 3rd person perspective alright. Since they ask which we prefer there is a chance..
@LiamCroft
“FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON DRAGON BALL Z”
Twice they've gone out of their way to say they are not working on Silent Hill and are not Hideo Kojima, despite previous messages alluding to Hideo Kojima and Silent Hill. The game name tweet in particular. But yeah, if it is just a small studio riding the hype then they will get torn to shreds by the conspiracy theorists.
@CKFilms Three times, if you count an interview with a Dutch website. It's not Kojima, they've made that clear enough.
@TheFrenchiestFry
Even if it did all of those, I imagine there some that would be at least one "No Covid cure? I'll wait for a deep discount or PS plus monthly!"
Lol this is mad. Reminds me of going to Reading Festival in 2008. There was a band called the FF'ers playing on what is now the bbc introducing stage. There were no pictures of the band, but on their My Space page (yes, my space lol), they listed a number of Foo Fighter songs as being among their inspirations.
So of course fans put 2 and 2 together and made 5. 3000 people showed up around this tiny stage calling for the Foo Fighters. Someone even came out to assure us it wasn't the Foo Fighters.
So when this unknown band came out, they got hurled with abuse and the majority if the crowd turned their back on the band and sat in the floor. Pretty sure lots of bottles were thrown too.
At this point i am almost convinced this isn't Silent Hill, and Kojima isn't behind this. But my goodness i'm excited for the reveal and to see the reaction. My popcorn is ready
I smell Kojima...
Wow. Imagine if these people put their time into actual problems. Oh, yeah, despite there also being too many coincidences in such investigations they'd be called conspiracy theorists and dismissed, even when stuff they say turns out to be true.
I went down this exact Rabbit Hole yesterday..and I still havent recovered, but I do wish I could download PT on my PS5
Heh I liked this article haha, regardless of what the truth actually ends up as. Should maybe look for similar conspiracy theories in gaming haha.
Before reading this I would have said no.
Now...
Blue box could be PlayStation, green box Xbox and Red box Nintendo. Or maybe bluepoint is doing a SH remake and is going to be a 1st party studio.
I love it, just the sort of thing the games community needs to get our heads scratching.
To much marketing spoon feeding going on these days, maybe if it's true Mr Kojima is testing himself to see if the internet can be fooled in 2021 (surprise answer = Of course it can!)
It is one of the strangest marketing cycles ever... and imagine the fun if it is actually Kojima and/or Silent Hill
"--"Siren Head". This is being used as another link to Silent Hill--"
Both begin with SH.
Plus all those other 'coincidences' you don't have to be a Zodiac Cryptographer to figure out these clues.
But much kudos to "aidthisfellowuser" on Reddit for pulling it all together. Surely the person needs an award - even if it's all wrong - to provide us with such a delectable arrangement of connections
@Janeo99 That's the thing, it might not of even been the real game that was shown, the VO was odd + the framerate was awful, why would they purposely show that off
I do wonder how some people actually find the time to play games!
I am the furthest thing from a conspiracy theorist but this is BLOODY brilliant! and whoever is doing this is a genius.
Either it will get a lot of publicity to a new studio and their game, and hopefully not backfire too badly (all publicity is good publicity... to a point) OR, as is likely, Silent Hill is coming back to PS.
The strange thing is that that rumour was around all of last year already (along with Bloodborne remastered) yet has gone cold for a while. This wouldn't be a huge surprise on it's own. But the potential presence of Kojima and the masterful way this is being drip fed (and we are being led hook, line and sinker) is engrossing.
Bravo whoever you are Puppetmaster!
This is what happens when people have to much time on there hands.
My only hope that this will be a good game.
There is a logical leap when thinking siren head means pyramid head.
I think some people really want this to be true, but it doesn't seem to be.
This is a case of looking too hard.
There's going to be people angry no matter which way this whole thing falls... but gods damnit if it isn't fun to fall down rabbit holes like this, especially when people on both sides get a bit frothy over it all.
even jason shreier believes it to be kojima.
Isn't the tree stump in the video the same one from the PT promo shot? I think that was an area in Japan that translated to silent hills, so while that's not indicative of the actual game it's a nod to the area Kojima was referring to before.
Pretty sure he's up to his tricks again.
Siren Head is especially interesting, as didn't the OG Silent Hill team go on to make the Siren series??
If nothing else this stupidity gives a small title visibility/publicity on a continuous basis, so that's a silver lining for the developers. Must suck to have the project you're working on reduced to the next Kojima conspiracy, though.
Our wives have murder documentary conspiracy entertainment, we NEED this.
just a good bit of fun I hope Twitter acts mature about it doubtful!
Not mentioned above, Hasan and Hideo have the same initials. Thats it, MGS6 is confirmed 😂😂😂😂
Unpopular opinion: I hope Kojima doesn't have anything to do with it, because then it might be a decent game! 😳
Oh no he di'nt!
Oh ye he did!
Has anyone tried to call the phone number listed on the crunchbase.com page?
Desperate times here.
It's already been established that the founder of the company is in fact a real person and the name cannot be legally faked.
They stated they have no association with Kojima ,Silent Hill, or Konami.
No quite sure what else people need here apart from being massively disappointed in the future.
https://youtu.be/gtHKK8BPAGk
I'd watch the MBG video before you all totally dismiss it
@PhhhCough I'm liking where you're going with this. I'll start examining the sun's exact route across the sky in a attempt to track down where it may cast a shadow that will point to the solution lord. The solution lord must have answers. That or I'll have to fight him to gain access to level 2.
@Paranoimia That very rough and amateur trailer they put out tells you it might me a decent game?
There is no way Kojima played Modern Warfare for 147 hours.
Bluebox is the name of phone redirecting technology that obscures / redirects the name / identity of the caller:
"First developed during the 1960s or possibly earlier, blue boxes allowed private individuals to call one number normally and redirect the call to a second number, with billing registering only the first number"
@Dan_ozzzy189 just seen that ,the head of bluebox Kahraman,if you translate that name to Japanese he said it says hideo,I've tried this it doesn't,it says saklanmak,however the meaning of saklanmak in Turkish means to hide oneself ,which is a bit weird.
@vapidwolf it's far too elaborate with too many coincidences to be totally fake imo
@vapidwolf I just tested this in Google Translate and it's the other way around. Translate Hideo from Japanese to Turkish. Which if you translate both Hideo and Kahraman to English they both translate to hero. Interestingly if you translate Kahraman to back to Japanese you get Hīrō.
Bluebox claim to be located in the Dutch city of Leiden. Which does indeed exist. However, it's also German for "Suffering".
Which could be a clue.
@vapidwolf "the meaning of saklanmak in Turkish means to hide oneself"
hide oneself
hide oneself
😲
🤣
I am 100% convinced this is Kojima's next project and that it will be a horror game for sure.
I love this! Kojima is a treasure
@LiamCroft You know, working remotely you don't have to leave the bed to write.
There becomes a point a series of coincidences cease to become coincidence…
Why keep playing games lol, they literally said it starts with S and ends with L, after being accused before of making silent hill, at this point common sense needs to kick in, obviously there's 0 chance of that being an accident and yet they apologized for that misconception...like really? Some people actually thing that was some accidental flub?
Don't forget one page before the screenshot Geoff Keighley also said, "Just to set expectations, I honestly don't think this is what you guys think it is". Keighley loves Kojima's schemes so it could go either way in my opinion.
EDIT// The more I read into to everything outside this article the more I'm on board with the theory.
https://twitter.com/BBGameStudios/status/1406057599339044867?s=20
Interesting tweet from Blue Box.
@Dubbicakes oh my goodness, that is trolling to the highest degree if this is not all a smoke screen
@AdamNovice
Holy *****, you're right
@Paranoimia yeah I saw that 😂 bit weird
If anyone cared, it wouldn't have been laid out in a single article by a "reporter" but followed by fans. That virtually no one knew of this besides the broad strokes of PT, Silent Hill and Kojima says most don't care and are only interested because internet told them to. If it is in fact a Silent Hill by Kojima, his marketing needs to be a lot less esoteric to appeal to more than the handful of fans who follow this stuff. Also shows how far in advance he's thinking (if it's him)
deadly premonition 2 on the Nintendo switch.
I think another point that’s somewhat being missed is the bizarre death stranding director’s cut trailer last week with MGS references. It seems to me that a Sony x Konami x Kojima relationship is back in the works.
@jdv95 Jason now says he's "no longer sure." 😵
@CKFilms I'm still like 60/40 against it, but my goodness is it odd. The fact that a nobody of a studio with a very poorly rated delisted horror game under their belt has been working with Sony since 2015 after a mysterious investor approached them, and he can't say why or how, while also getting a spot on the Playstation blog, a first of its kind experimental app on PS5 for their real time interactive trailers, and Geoff Keighley's full support on a first name basis with Hasan is too odd. Hasan also works for a game studio called CreateQ and refers to that studio as "us" and Bluebox as a third party. I feel delusional just talking about it, it's such a weird rabbit hole.
I feel bad for this studio if they aren't Kojima. The only reason this game has any attention is because of Kojima and once it comes out he's not involved this game will fail out of their spite. That's not even accounting for all the harassment they'll receive.
The only thing worst than Hideo Kojima is the Hideo Kojima fans.
@Dubbicakes That's the biggest point I'm taking from all this: if it isn't Silent Hill then the backlash this studio will get will be awful. I don't think they're prepared.
@GigaGaia I like Kojima's games...
meh not bothering with the advertising. just give me the release date all im interested in.
I'll buy it its kojima.
FLMAO LOLOLOLOL
Personally I can't stand Kojima. I'll never deny his genius with the original MGS but he needs to learn how to reign it in with his psycho ideas so that they are digestible for consumers.
Why would this guy go this far to disguise himself behind a dutch game studio?
It’s either obviously something to do with Kojima and silent hill (or a spiritual successor) or someone at this game studio is intentionally leading into the theories and has created something that’s only going to end catastrophically if people are wrong and it has nothing to do with Kojima and pt/silent hill/Konami
I'm just following along to soak in the entertainment, but if this turns out to be the Silent Hills remake, that'd be cool!
@Pete_Stooge are you familiar with Kojima? He does this kind of stuff. He has gone to greater lengths to conceal his games.
I seriously doubt it will be SH but it's fun to think about.
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