Hasan Kahraman, director of controversial indie game Abandoned, has reiterated that it has not been canceled, and said more content will come this year – including the game's Prologue, which will be a paid, standalone project.
Speaking to IGN's Destin Legarie, Kahraman explained that the recent decision to delete a number of tweets relating to the game's future plans was a mistaken attempt to keep information about the game relevant and up to date – but it instead led to rumors that the still-mysterious horror game was cancelled.
"I did not see that coming," he explained. "I didn't think that the community would respond that way. Basically, the tweets were deleted because some of the concept has changed, and I figured maybe just deleting the tweet and then tweeting more relevant information would be a better idea – which was actually not a good idea. I have learned now just to keep them. Even if the information or concept changed, just keep the older information because people eventually will see for themselves what the difference is and then see what's more actual."
Kahraman's studio, Blue Box, was forced to put out a statement saying that the game was still in development, and apologized for the lengthy silence around new information. The team said it had "underestimated our development roadmap" and delayed the reveal and release of the promised Prologue.
However, Kahraman says that Prologue is still planned for this year, and explained a little more about it for IGN. He made clear that it will be a paid, standalone game, not just a demo. It will come with a full set of PlayStation trophies, including a Platinum trophy – and it's being made to 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? 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 also explained more of what the Prologue will be as a playable product: "It's not an early access, but it's more like an... It's actually more like an opportunity for gamers to get introduced to the story of the game, to the gameplay, because it's different. It's our version of saying, 'This is what we believe how a realistic survival shooter should be like.' It's actually a good way to showcase the visuals of the game. I don't claim to be a AAA developer, but what we do is we spend time making sure the environment looks realistic and that it actually... With Unreal Engine 5's power, that we can actually deliver something that is close to real life, to the real thing, right?"
Alongside the Prologue, Kahraman said that the team has plans to add new content for Abandoned's long-dormant Realtime Experience App throughout 2022, and that, "sometime after the Prologue, we will actually start releasing, bit by bit, more footage, more trailers of the base game."
Kahraman, perhaps understandably at this point, didn't say exactly when any of this new content would arrive, and explained that he's in something of a dilemma about how to reveal the game.
"The reason why people haven't seen anything of the game yet, any development of the game yet, is because simply, and to describe it in one word, is that I'm scared. I'm not going to lie. The reason why I'm scared is because it's a personal work. It's something personal. I'm not working for Ubisoft. I'm not working for a AAA publisher who tells me what to do, who basically tells me what game I should make. It's something personal. And the development progress, not everyone might get it because gamers don't see, don't understand what 'in development' means. Gamers don't care about that.
"The gamers only care about what they're seeing at that moment. And I'm between these two choices where I either [...] decide to actually show some development [now], the progress, to share with the world the development progress of Abandoned – and between the choice of whether I should wait just to do a proper reveal. I'm still in between choices because if I do the first scenario, I'm afraid that people might be... It's just scary. That's just basically what I'm trying to say. I'm confused if I am going to eventually show development footages of the game, that it's a matter of presentation of how you present it to the world. And that's where I'm looking at right now. If I'm able to present it in a good way, then I might put it up on Twitter, yeah."
Kahraman and Blue Box have garnered deadlines thanks to heavy suggestions that the studio was a front for a new Silent Hill game. There was even an Internet conspiracy that Kahraman wasn't a real person, forcing himself to post a video to prove his own existence. Missed trailer launches and other marketing snafus have only contributed to doubts around Blue Box and Abandoned.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.