Abandoned Will Be Free For Players Who Purchased Blue Box's Previous, Unfinished Game

Blue Box Game Studios is looking to put the minds of gamers at ease by offering up a free copy of the studio's upcoming PlayStation 5 game Abandoned to those who purchased an unfinished, early access version of the studio's previous game, The Haunting: Blood Water Curse.

The news, via an IGN interview with Blue Box head Hasan Kahraman, comes in the wake of the studio releasing a "realtime experience app" for PS5 that didn't go exactly as planned. When the highly anticipated trailer (after multiple delays) didn't actually turn out to be a trailer at all but instead just a gif of a man walking that had already been shared on Twitter, skeptical players began to renew their investigations into Blue Box's history.

What they found, as illustrated by Reddit user TicTacPaul, is a history of cancelled and unfinished games dating back to 2015, with multiple cancelled Kickstarter projects and games pulled from sale while still in early access and seemingly, ahem, abandoned.

That's the case with The Haunting, Blue Box's most recent game, which released last year in early access. The game was later pulled from sale, with Blue Box announcing a different, unknown indie studio called CreateQ would be taking over development. Kahraman says CreateQ is a four-man team composed of friends of Blue Box, who are working on The Haunting as a side project.

Kahraman says those who purchased the early access version of The Haunting originally will soon be able to fill out a form and provide proof of purchase on the Blue Box website to receive a free copy of Abandoned. When asked about offering refunds for The Haunting, Kahraman says the team would work on it should there be a demand.

Kahraman goes on to say the current plan is to release The Haunting for free upon its completion on PlayStation, Steam, and Xbox along with the first gameplay trailer for Abandoned. That will happen in "a few months," according to Kahraman.

Given the history of the studio and everything that has transpired thus far, exactly how much of what Kahraman is planning will see the light of day seems up for debate. But it's the idea that some believe Blue Box is intentionally misleading people that bothers Kahraman the most.

"If I were a gamer and if someone else was doing exactly the same thing, I would be really hyped to see a realtime experience, and if it wasn't coming, I would be disappointed," Kahraman tells IGN. "But they're labeling us as scammers--that hurts. I still respect everyone really, and I'm hoping to see them still looking out for Abandoned, [despite] what they say. I do understand and I have nothing against them really. It only hurts."

It's just the latest piece in the ongoing Abandoned saga, which has also seen the game become a hotbed for Hideo Kojima and Silent Hill related conspiracy theories, in part thanks to a lack of details on what the game is even about. Abandoned was slated for a late 2021 release but will now arrive later.