10 DUMBEST Video Game Controversies That Went Too Far

3. PS5's Abandoned Fiasco Leads To Death Threats

PS5 Abandoned Realtime Experience
Blue Box Game Studios

The saga of PS5 exclusive Abandoned: Realtime Experience is one of the most bizarre gaming stories in recent years.

Officially unveiled on the PlayStation Blog in April 2021, the game was touted as a new IP from an unknown studio, but in the weeks that followed, fans began to suspect that there was more to it than met the eye.

Specifically, they began to suspect that the game was in fact connected to Hideo Kojima and Silent Hill, a theory that truly blew up when developer Blue Box Game Studios tweeted that Abandoned's real title started with "S" and ended with "L".

An entire timeline of unusual shenanigans followed, and the internet became convinced that Abandoned was hiding something huge. Sadly though, after all the hype, the game's "grand reveal" landed with a whimper, teasing PS5 players with a nondescript clip of a man walking across a wooden floor.

This whole thing has been a mess, from Blue Box leaning into the Kojima angle and potentially setting false expectations, to fans getting way too excited over a game they know nothing about. But what really took things too far was when the gaming community started sending death threats towards Blue Box, which - frustrating though this situation may be - is simply unacceptable.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!