It’s been alleged that Blue Box Game Studios’s latest Abandoned teaser, which overtly references Metal Gear, uses premade 3D assets that you can purchase for the low-low price of $30. Strangely, the pose used in the teaser seems to be the same as the sample picture on the model’s product page. This means Blue Box could have simply lifted the image, making this saga even more strange.
Why is Blue Box allegedly using a premade 3D model for its Abandoned teaser?
If Blue Box is using a premade asset for the Abandoned teaser, it wouldn’t be the first time it happened. The initial reveal of the game included models from the UE4 marketplace. It’s not unusual for studios to use premade models as placeholders, especially early in production, but there’s something odd about this situation. The Abandoned Realtime Experience demo is set to launch in around two weeks, which is supposed to showcase scenes from the game on PS5 in-engine. Does this continued use of outside assets indicate the studio doesn’t have any work to show or is it just holding its cards that close to its chest?
https://twitter.com/HasanEKahraman/status/1420199831776157702
Hasan Kahraman, Abandoned’s game director, has refuted the allegation that the studio used purchased assets for the teaser in the following statement:
“Theories like these are what makes it real hard for us. Do we have to defend the art we make now? Any model with a eye patch would look like the character in our teaser. Why would we get a character model from the internet and then promote a realtime experience for that?”
https://twitter.com/fakecryo/status/1420158556167356418
Though it appears that the model in question from Free3D is similar to the one used as the background in the Abandoned teaser, I think there are enough visual differences between the two that one could argue that they’re not the same. For example, the ears appear to be closer to the head, the lips seem fuller, and the eyepatch is at a slightly higher angle on the eye.
Alternatively, if the face on the Abandoned teaser is this premade model, it may be intentional. According to Blue Box, “Abandoned” isn’t the game’s final name, so it likely refers to a concept surrounding it. Metal Gear was “abandoned” by Konami in the wake of Kojima’s departure, with the only title produced since then being the “imitation” Metal Gear Survive. Metal Gear also has themes of abandonment and imitation with the Les Enfants Terribles project that spawned Liquid Snake, Solid Snake, and Solidus Snake.
The controversy and conspiracy theories surrounding Abandoned and Blue Box Game Studios continue to grow, and the less we know about the game, the more people are trying to fill in the blanks for themselves. Hopefully, we’ll finally get some answers and see if this is just an indie horror game that got a bunch of free publicity or something more when the Abandoned Realtime Experience launches on August 10.
