Prey 2 Officially Cancelled by Bethesda

Brittany Vincent

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Oct 1, 2014
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Prey 2 Officially Cancelled by Bethesda



After a long stint in development hell, development on Prey 2 has been announced as suspended.

Bethesda Vice President Pete Hines confirmed yesterday during PAX Australia that Prey 2 has officially been cancelled. Hines stated that the cancellation was due to failure of the product to reach quality standards.

The continuation of the story of U.S. Marshall Killiam Samuels in Prey (which was itself subject to almost 9 years of development hell before its eventual release in 2006) was announced in 2011 with a rather eye-catching trailer. However, new information about the game eventually trickled to a stop and it had long been assumed that the game was no longer in active development.

As for the future of the Prey series, Hines stated that Bethesda was not giving up on the series and would be trying to figure out the proper way to develop it.

He explained that Prey 2 was the "game [Bethesda] believed in, but [they] never felt that it got where it needed to be," lamenting that the decision to cease development "wasn't easy, [...] but won't surprise many folks."

Source: CNET [http://www.cnet.com/news/bethesda-confirms-prey-2-cancelled/]

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Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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I'm not surprised, but then stranger things have happened in the gaming world than a game seemingly forever in development hell getting a release date. This is not one of them, and I wasn't really impressed enough with the first game to continue playing past the first 20 minutes. So I didn't really see a sequel making it anyway and thus is why I am not surprised.
 

Trishbot

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May 10, 2011
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In a post-Guardians of the Galaxy world, this would have been incredible to experience.

So, this gets cancelled, but WET gets released by Bethesda... oooookay.
 

Dr.Awkward

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Mar 27, 2013
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Sure, let's ignore the whole Human Head debacle then, shall we Pete? When Bethesda had disagreements with how that studio operated and then got frustrated enough with Human Head to move production over to Arkane, you essentially condemned the game from seeing completion because you should have known Arkane would have needed to rebuild the game from the ground up. Bethesda should also know that it's a double standard when you're patient with your own in-house studio that needs several years to make another epic-scale game, but not with one you've inherited from another publisher.

Besides, Pete Hines' mouth has done more damage to Bethesda games than Bethesda Studios. I really wish they'd get rid of the guy.

(and it's kinda sad too - Dawasi Tawodi was the sort of diversity we need now, but don't deserve...)
 

Absolutionis

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Sep 18, 2008
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I guess Bethesda couldn't convince Human Head studios to shoehorn in Horse Armor DLC.

On a more serious note, this cancellation only makes sense. The game looked cool, but it was obviously a prerendered scene that the actual game wasn't going to even come near; Bethesda avoided an Ubisoft here. Also, calling it "Prey 2" seemed a bit strange considering it wasn't the most popular IP to begin with, and it had little to do with the original game aside from perhaps a cameo and the existence of "The Sphere".

This sort of open-world SciFi cyberpunk with aliens bounty hunting game could exist just fine as a different IP. Perhaps the assets could be salvaged into something else.

I just hope Bethesda avoids Horse Armor.
 

legend forge

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Mar 26, 2010
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Good. This has been dead in the water long enough that closure was called for.

I might be more upset if the game remotely resembled the first Prey game...
 

EHKOS

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Feb 28, 2010
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Well, Prey 1 wasn't very good, seemed more of a niche thing. What we should REALLY be upset about is that there was no news about which continent the next Elder Scrolls will be on.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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EHKOS said:
Well, Prey 1 wasn't very good, seemed more of a niche thing. What we should REALLY be upset about is that there was no news about which continent the next Elder Scrolls will be on.
It had some neat weapons, spirit world mechanics, and portal architecture, but it sure wasn't worth the decade long dev cycle, neither to players nor to the publisher's bottom line. It was a miracle Prey 1 came out. They spend so long on that portal/gravity physics and graphics updates that the game was almost going to overshadow Duke Nukem Forever as the vaporware poster child.

I'm surprised it took this long to officially axe Prey 2. You'd think they'd want sellable results for an already lukewarm franchise that might pass out of common knowledge sooner.

Who cares where the next Elder Scrolls is set. I want to know when it's coming out so I can plan my vacation.
 

Aggieknight

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Dec 6, 2009
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Well, considering the condition that most Bethseda games are in when they launch...
Hines stated that the cancellation was due to failure of the product to reach quality standards.
...says A LOT.

Sad that this one is dead. The trailer and concepts looked pretty cool.
 

Piorn

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Dec 26, 2007
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aaaaaw. How unfortunate.
Looked promising, but it's death isn't really a surprise at this point.
 

laggyteabag

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This was the one thing that Bethesda owns that I was looking forward to. Huge shame, although I would much rather not have a game than have a game that was a waste of money. Good move, but sad move.
 

Scrythe

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Jun 23, 2009
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Working on an MMORPG seems to be a death knell for any other project that studio is working on.

Remember Starcrat: Ghost? Ultima X? Privateer 3? Command & Conquer: Generals 2?
 

VoidWanderer

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Sep 17, 2011
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As much as I wanted this game, I am glad they conceded that it wasn't ready. I am just waiting to hear the same thing about 'The Last Guardian'
 

BloodRed Pixel

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Jul 16, 2009
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A Shame. With Guardian of the Galaxy being so close to what Prey could have been.
It's amovie, ok.

I really hope they do something with the IP.
 

michael87cn

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Jan 12, 2011
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aw man, was really looking forward to this. they really shouldn't release trailers for games until they have a good idea it will be made.
 

JCAll

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Oct 12, 2011
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I thought the first Prey was pretty fantastic, and was looking forward to Prey 2.
But hey, 20 years of development managed to produce 1 game, that's gotta be a record, right?
 

softclocks

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The first Prey was an excellent game and it's only "flaw" in my opinion was a relatively short length and slightly wonky multiplayer.

It's a shame to see this game get cancelled, but I think most people already assumed that it wasn't going to happen.
 

Snotnarok

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Prey 2 must have been pretty bad looking for Bethesda to give it the axe considering they launched several games that were broken on launch and that unfinished mess that was WET. Nothing like a Q.T.E. for a final boss eh?