After multiple delays and apparent technical issues, the Abandoned Realtime Experience app launched on PS5 yesterday.
- READ MORE: ‘Hell Let Loose”s lead developer on how hardcore games can do more to welcome new players
Originally referred to as a ‘trailer app’, the Realtime Experience app is designed so that players can see gameplay of Abandoned running in-engine using PS5 hardware rather than being compressed into video form so that “what you see is what you play”, according to a now-deleted tweet from Blue Box Game Studios (as reported in GamesRadar).
The app was meant to launch in June but had been delayed for three days “due to localization issues” only for no news to emerge until July. The app was finally available to pre-load earlier this month, with a patch due to go live on August 10, 8pm BST, with the developer teasing 13 minutes beforehand, “Are you ready?”
Are you Ready? pic.twitter.com/4oI5FjgDFE
— BLUE BOX Game Studios (@BBGameStudios) August 10, 2021
Eager fans were however greeted with the same black screen on the app with a message to “Check back soon”, as a patch had not launched at the intended time, as a result of “technical issues”.
Last night (August 13), the app was finally updated. Fans expecting to finally get a glimpse of what to expect from Abandoned were however met with very little.
Currently, the app has multiple blank boxes, each referring to a trailer or gameplay demo that will be “available soon”. The only clip available is the Introduction, which turns out to be the same five-second clip tweeted by the developer.
#PS5Share, #AbandonedRealtimeExperience pic.twitter.com/KKbUxNRg51
— Sam Loveridge (@apacherose3) August 13, 2021
Abandoned and Blue Box Game Studios have been the subject of conspiracy theories that it is secretly a Kojima Productions project, which the developer has previously clarified.
The latest development has however had some people digging deeper into the studio’s history. Reddit user TicTacPaul shared a timeline of other projects Blue Box Games had previously announced only to suffer delays and then disappearing, including Rewind, later retitled Whisper and then The Haunting, a horror game which has ideas similar to Abandoned, including a “playable teaser” that sounds similar to the Realtime Experience app.
While it may be indicative of a studio with a track record for development issues, others are less generous, going as far as calling the studio a “scam“.
Scepticism has also come from those in the industry, after a now-deleted tweet from Blue Box explained that the delay for the app’s patch was due to “multiple engine issues that occurred last minute after we spotted a graphical glitch”, to which NightDive Studio’s Dimitris Giannakis (going by ModernVintageG on Twitter) responded, “This is simply not how things work”.
This is simply not how things work https://t.co/fdxDXF8TNE
— MVG (@ModernVintageG) August 12, 2021
Elsehwhere, players of the Battlefield 2042 technical playtest have been sharing footage online.
The post ‘Abandoned’ Realtime app launches with just a five-second teaser appeared first on NME.
