Abandoned will get its first gameplay reveal in “a few months,” according to its creator. Its first cinematic trailer – which was controversially not added to the game’s much-touted Realtime Trailers App – will follow sooner, but developer Blue Box doesn’t want to commit to specific dates after recent release issues.
After a delay, the Abandoned Realtime Trailers App went live last week, but only included a four-second teaser that had previously been shown on Twitter. Speaking to IGN, Blue Box founder Hasan Kahraman explained that a planned cinematic trailer will be released soon:
“What we had in mind was actually a 30-second teaser with more content in it, but then we had engine issues. And we had to make sure that we could solve this in time, but we didn't have enough time. We realized that this was going to take much longer than just three days, because our initial plan was to release it before the weekend. So we had to cut down everything and then just leave it with just four or five seconds of footage.
“We're still hoping to correct the opening teaser with the original footage. We will also put some content in there that we haven’t announced. It's definitely worth keeping an eye out. Should people keep the real-time experience on their console? I think it's best people keep it, but if you need storage just delete it and we will inform on Twitter once there are any new updates.”
With questions surrounding the studio as a whole, Kahraman is also aware that Abandoned needs to show off what it will actually be come release. “We have to show gameplay, because people are nervous. You have a lot of mixed feelings. You have people who are angry. You have people who are looking forward to the game. There's people who are skeptical. They're like, ‘No, the game doesn't exist.' It's completely fine to say that because you haven’t seen anything of the game, let's be honest.”
But Kahraman insists that a first full showing is in the works: “We're working on the gameplay reveal. But right now, it is not ready for the public to see – if you show off the very first impression of the gameplay, that is the most important footage. We want to make sure that that is polished and good enough to showcase.” So when might that appear? “I'm not going to give a specific date because that is the first mistake [we made], making a very tight deadline. We're hoping just in a few months, really, it won’t take too long. It's not going to take a quarter or something like that.”
Kahraman also told IGN that the gameplay reveal will be accompanied by the release of an entirely separate, free game, The Haunting. The Haunting was a game previously worked on by Blue Box, but has been passed onto a group of developer friends, and will now be published by Kahraman's company on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.
I asked Kahraman why the company chose not to simply delay the app again, given that he admits the release has been a 'disaster'. “That was actually a necessity because people were getting frustrated. I knew that the moment we just put this out with this short amount of footage it was just going to make people disappointed, but we are also working on getting more content out there.”
The developer also addressed how the team didn’t know about the problems ahead of launch: “We had shader issues that we discovered at the last minute. [...] We had black spots in multiple areas that we saw last-minute. We wanted to quickly do a last-minute patch, but once we solved the shader issues, then we got an engine problem. It was actually multiple issues. That's basically where it went wrong. It was announced too soon, and there were the engine issues. That's definitely something we learned for the future.”
Abandoned was announced for PS5 in April, and has been the subject of conspiracy theories ever since, with Kahraman having to prove he's a real person to those waiting for the game. The game is scheduled for release in 2022.
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.
