Hideo Kojima is still being harassed over Silent Hill conspiracies

Yesterday Hideo Kojima went to his Spotify podcast to talk about the Blue Box Game Studios controversy. He said fans were still pestering him about the unfounded rumors that he was working on a new Silent Hill game and that he had nothing to do with the studio. Today the developers thanked Kojima for publicly denying the rumors, probably because they too got their share of it Death threats from angry fans. It turns out that not all advertising is good advertising.

It all started last year when Blue Box Game Studios tweeted a teaser of their current game project Leave,

a horror game for the PlayStation 5. It was so cryptic that many fans thought they were working the closest silent Hill Game. The Kojima connection came later when fans realized he shared the same initials as game director Hasan Kahraman. This coincidence combined with a Kojima tweet which included the words “quiet” and “hill” led some to conclude that the two directors were one and the same. It didn’t help that Kojima had done it before invented a fake studio to pet them Solid metal gear community. Public anticipation of this rumor got so out of hand that Kahraman had to show his face to prove he wasn’t Kojima. Still, that didn’t stop people send death threats to Blue Box Game Studios. my box asked if the studio was still taking death threats, but received no response at the time of publication.

Although Kojima was not responsible for what happened, he still suffers a setback from the incident. “Users kept sending me pictures of this Hasan. They keep sending me collages and deepfake pics. Like 20 a day. It’s really quite annoying,” he told Geoff Keighley on the Brain Structure podcast. “It’s been like this for almost two years now [sic] now.”

As frustrating as it may have been for him, Kojima didn’t seem upset with Kahraman for what had happened. “Now that it’s garnering attention and things have gone viral, you should capitalize on it. When you create something good and share it with everyone,” he said. “Fake news is a bad thing. But now that we’ve both gotten attention from all of this, let’s boost morale and create something good.”

Today, Blue Box Game Studios thanked Kojima for speaking out on the controversy. They also assured fans that the game is still in development.

That last time we heard about it Leave, there seemed to be a pretty good chance that the game…had been abandoned. But as long as the game stays in the public domain, Kojima will likely continue to receive strange emails about a guy he’s never met. For the sake of both of you, I hope so Leave coming to PlayStation soon.