Abandoned for Free as Compensation for Buyers of Blue Box's Unreleased Game
Hasan Kahraman from Blue Box Game addressed the recent controversy surrounding Abandoned. The creator also promised that the game will be available for free - as long as we bought the (yet) unreleased The Haunting: Blood Water Curse.
- Hasan Kahraman, the head of Blue Box Game studio, announced that the buyers of, now withdrawn from sale, The Haunting: Blood Water Curse will receive Abandoned for free;
- The Haunting will also be released as a free-to-play game;
- Kahrman also explained the reasons behind the studio's cancelation of the previous projects and assures that it was not due to ill will.
Abandoned still remains a mystery, and issues with the companion app somewhat dampened the enthusiasm of players waiting for the mysterious project to be revealed. Especially when internet users rummaged through the developers' history and found information about multiple canceled projects (via Reddit). Not without connection to these revelations, Hasan Kahraman, head of Blue Box Game, announced that buyers of one of these titles will receive Abandoned for free.
The promise was made as part of an interview with IGN, during which past canceled projects were brought up. Kahrman claims that so many false starts were due to the small size of the team, with little experience in developing games. Most of these projects were canceled fairly early on with the exception of The Haunting: Blood Water Curse. This survival horror inspired by the Fatal Frame series was the only title to go on sale in early access. It is the buyers of this title that will receive Abandoned for free. What's more, for the sake of balance The Haunting: Blood Water Curse will be released for free along with the first gameplay trailer for Abandoned "within a few months".
Kahrman also took some time to debunk conspiracy theories that his studio would intentionally rip off players for money. Blue Box Games' boss assures that all funds donated by investors of past projects have been returned. This includes a refund for the removal of ads in the mobile, free and very short-lived The Whisperer.
The very practice of canceling or extending work on a project - often without notice - is the daily bread of independent studios that can't count on support from large (read: wealthy) publishers. Everyone who's been waiting for the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong for over two years knows this. Nevertheless, it would probably be better if Blue Box Games soon has something more tangible and related to Abandoned to show than the current teasers, with a strong emphasis on "soon".
