Abandoned Will Be Free for Those Who Purchased Blue Box's Most Recent Unfinished Game

Another development has been added to Abandoned's saga, though this one might not be too reassuring to those who've put stock in some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the game. Abandoned developer Blue Box Game Studios said it plans to give the new game away for free to those who purchased The Haunting which was the developer's most recent release prior to Abandoned. The big catch there is that The Haunting isn't currently available to purchase since its early access version was pulled from marketplaces with plans to release a finished and full product in the future.

The connection between Abandoned and The Haunting came to light in an IGN interview where the outlet talked to Blue Box boss Hasan Kahraman. The Haunting released in 2020 in early access in an "alpha version" according to Kahraman. He said this mean it had "placeholders and involved animations and character models," but he said the reason it didn't do well was because people "didn't get that" and didn't understand that it was an early access game.

"We've learned that if you are making a story game, a single-player game, you shouldn't do an Early Access because people didn't get that," he said. "People assume that, 'Hey, there's this game out there, let's buy it and play it and we'll see some production quality stuff right there', but the truth is that it's actually an Early Access game. And that is the reason why it didn't go well because it wasn't received well because people saw that it was broken, that it wasn't finished."

Regardless of whether people didn't appreciate the early access nature of the game or if they just didn't like it, the result was that The Haunting was pulled from the store instead of being updated to the point that it was a finished product. It's now being worked on by CreateQ, a four-person team of developers said to be friends of Blue Box.

And then comes the tie-in to Abandoned – if you purchased the broken game The Haunting when it was in its early access form, you get Abandoned for free. Rather, you get a "complete bundle" for Abandoned, though it's unclear what else is in that bundle. All you have to do is provide proof of purchase through a form Blue Box plans to make available.

This "have Abandoned for free" deal probably doesn't inspire much confidence in those who still think this is a big blockbuster game masquerading as a small indie project. The underwhelming "Realtime Experience App" already did its part in that regard, too, but it seems unlikely now that if this was some big game connected to Hideo Kojima, Silent Hill, or Metal Gear Solid, that it would be given away for free for purchasing an unfinished game.

Kahraman committed to releasing everything in the Realtime Experience App and said the developer does not intend to abandon Abandoned.