New report hints that the development of horror Abandoned has stalled
"He would fail to show much of anything, often even missing self-imposed deadlines."
More reports have surfaced suggesting upcoming PS5 game Abandoned is "not actively being worked on" and "there is no game" in development.
The claims come from GameSpot , which alleges it has information directly from a private Discord server through which Hasan Kahraman of Blue Box Game Studios, Abandoned's director, communicates with a handful of selected fans.
In exchange for access to "screenshots, animations, and even a page of the game's script", the members are required to sign a NDA, so some would only speak about the project under strict anonymity. Should any member of the server press Kahraman - who is described as "duplicitous and prone to mood swings" - for clarification or more details, they risk being banned from the small community.
In interviews with "more than half a dozen people who have had close contact with Kahraman since September 2021", GameSpot reports the game is"in disarray" and the director "promises a lot, including paid work for fans, but delivers very little".
"Kahraman used to tell the group he was actively working on Abandoned, but as time went on, he would fail to show much of anything that seemed genuine or compelling, often even missing self-imposed deadlines," the report states. "For instance, after saying he had a reveal planned for a day of the week, that day would come and go without a new development."
The report further alleges that Kahraman has privately admitted that Abandoned is "on hold and he first needs to fund its development with a playable prologue, which our sources indicate he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to create".
The report follows claims a vocalist spent 50-60 hours working on music for Abandoned but has since only received emails from Blue Box acknowledging and apologising for delays.
"It all started August 2021," they said. "[I] don't know how to get help."
Blue Box denies the allegations and said in a statement to PC Gamer : "It is in development, all of this is just out of context resulted by angry fans who did not see the game, the article written by GameSpot is just based on what these angry users speculate. One of them is pretending to be an [sic] business partner.
"The Prologue will be released whenever we are ready. We are not letting speculation force us to 'prove' the game."
Following confusion over the project's future, the director recently opened up about why developer Blue Box deleted various tweets about the game, the status of the game's prologue and his own "heartbreak" about the situation now surrounding the game's release.
Kahraman said the developer had removed older tweets about the game in a bid to keep information surrounding Abandoned up to date. "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," Kahraman said.