Prey 2 was the much awaited sequel to 2006’s Prey – a first person shooter set in a world where aliens abduct humans so they can feed off of them. Something along the lines of War of the Worlds, but without crazy turned Scientologist Tom Cruise.
Developer Human Head Studios shares some insight on why the game was never meant to exist – it was actually scrapped way back in 2011, 3 years before Bethesda officially announced the title’s cancellation.
“We stopped working on Prey 2 near the end of 2011, and had been working on it for close to two years. It was very close to an alpha state, with all major content pieces represented. We were at that point in a game where you can step back and see the whole picture and shift from developer to editor and decide which elements to cut and which elements to emphasis and polish.” – Chris Rhinehart, project director has stated for Develop.
Prey 2 was officially revelead in March of 2011, but by the end of 2011 Bethesda was not pleased with the quality of the game, announcing in October of 2014 that the game – ” […] wasn’t up to our quality standard and we decided to cancel it. It’s no longer in development. That wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s one that won’t surprise many folks given that we hadn’t been talking about it.”
Both developer and publisher have some contradictory views. While Bethesda is saying that the quality of the game was poor, and it lacked several key features, Human Head Studios are stating that – ” Our tech had progressed significantly past the live demo we ran at E3, Gamescom and PAX and was even more impressive. It’s my personal opinion that we would have been counted among the best looking games of the previous console generation.”
At this point, we really don’t know who to believe. It’s true, the demo that ran at E3 was brilliant, and we saw how much work was put into the Prey universe, but on the other hand, it was just a demo, and everything was scripted.
We will never know what Prey 2 could have been, but we are glad that the guys and girls behind Prey weren’t utterly destroyed by the cancellation of their 2 year project. They managed to get up like a Phoenix from its ashes, and help Irrational Games’ Bioshock: Infinite with level designers, system designers, programmers, artists and animators. Small teams from the studio also went on to create mobile free-to-play title Fort Courage, while other employees where put to work for Trion World’s MMO Defiance – art, level and character design.
Now the studio is hardly working on Lost Within – a survival horror game set inside a haunted asylum filled with monsters, where the player is tasked with confronting a famous killer who has been locked inside. It is rumoured to be released this Spring, or Summer – no official date exists at this moment. Lost Within is designed for smartphones and tablets. Published by Amazon Game Studios especially for their Fire devices, the game will also appear for iPhone and iPad. A trailer can be watched right here.
