A big video game-related conspiracy has been brewing this year, and it involves Japanese video game designer Hideo Kojima, the Silent Hill horror game series and an indie video game outfit known as Blue Box Game Studios.
You see, when Blue Box released a trailer for their upcoming game Abandoned earlier this year, some people quickly tied this to Kojima and Silent Hill.
This is because Kojima has used this sort of trickery in the past to promote his games, most notably Metal Gear Solid V. For the 2015 game, Kojima setup a fake studio (Moby Dick Studios) who was led by a guy named Joakim Mogren, who later turned out to be an actor wearing bandages…
And people still believe that Blue Box Game Studios and Abandoned are a front for another Kojima game, another entry in the Silent Hill series they claim.
Leading some credibility to this is the fact that Konami does appear to have multiple Silent Hill games in development, one of these apparently being made by a top-notch Japanese studio, which more recently Gematsu (via GamesRadar) has claimed is none other than Kojima Productions.
It does seem strange, though, that Kojima would want to partner with Konami for a game after the way he was kicked out of the company back in 2015. His relationship with Konami soured as he was finishing his game Metal Gear Solid V, and he had to leave the Japanese company by the back door…
However, Kojima himself has kept the conspiracy theories running with some of his tweets, most notably one this summer (via Game Rant), in which he seems to be referencing both Konami’s Silent Hill series and Blue Box studio’s Abandoned game.
People have pointed out that the rabbit in the image (an animatronic rabbit) could be a reference to Silent Hill’s Robbie the Rabbit. In Silent Hill 3, protagonist Heather encounters Robbie on a bench when she visits the Lakeside Amusement Park.
Meanwhile, the title of the book Kojima is showing in this tweet (“The Murder Case of Abandoned Amusement Park”) contains the word “Abandoned”, and is set in an amusement park too.
斜線堂有紀著「廃遊園地の殺人」の豪華プルーフいただきました！実は斜線堂さんのミステリーは未読。昨年に「楽園とは探偵の不在なり」を何度も手に取ったのですが、表紙に蝙蝠男？のようなものが描かれていて、読む機会を逃してしまいました。確かベーやんも勧めていたかと。楽しませていただきます???? pic.twitter.com/3vuEfBC7Zr
— 小島秀夫 (@Kojima_Hideo) August 12, 2021
Of course, this could all be a coincidence but this is Kojima after all, a guy who’s fond of trolling, easter eggs and hiding secret messages in his games, so his social posts containing some form of secret message is entirely plausible.
There’s also the fact that Kojima’s mysterious summer tweet came out on August 12, exactly the same day when the demo for his cancelled Silent Hills game came out.
P.T. was a playable teaser for Silent Hills, so was Kojima implying with this tweet that he is indeed working on a Silent Hill game for Konami as Gematsu has claimed recently?
Maybe not, as others have said this claim is bogus and Kojima and his team are not laboring away on a Silent Hill game. Rather, according to Xbox Era’s Nick Baker, the veteran Japanese designer is working on an Xbox exclusive game, which would be a sequel to an “existing IP”.
The mystery is, though, if it’s not Kojima Productions which is working on Konami’s next Silent Hill game, then who is? Rumors say two Silent Hill games are in the works now, and one of these is being made by European studio Bloober Team.
The other is apparently being made by a high profile Japanese studio, which could be Kojima Productions if rumors are to be believed, this game being connected in some way to Blue Box Game Studios’ Abandoned game.
Time will tell, then, if Kojima is involved in anything Silent Hill-related and if Abandoned has anything to do with this or not, something we can only wait to find out.
Read more: Will PS5 exclusive Abandoned turn out to be a Hideo Kojima game?