Is Prey 2 announced?
11718979#16
The success of the original "Prey" led to the announcement of a sequel "Prey 2" in August 2006, with continued development by 3D Realms. However, the project faced a number of issues, including the transfer of the intellectual property (IP) rights to Bethesda Softworks (under ZeniMax Media) sometime by 2011. In March 2011, Bethesda announced that "Prey 2" would instead be developed by Human Head Studios using a modified id Tech 4 engine.
Prey (2017 video game)
50794712#1
Though "Prey 2" was announced by 3D Realms in 2006, a few months after release of the first game, development work at Human Head Studios did not begin in earnest until 2009, after the rights for "Prey" had transferred from 3D Realms ultimately to ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda. Bethesda formally announced their title in early 2011, which revealed a change of the player's main character and of gameplay to a more open world game. Human Head quietly ceased development on the game in late 2011 for unstated reasons despite having progressed to a near alpha release state. Subsequently, several industrial rumors circulated that "Prey 2" had been cancelled or changed developers, including evidence that Arkane Studios had taken over development. Bethesda formally cancelled the game in 2014, stating it was not meeting their expectations. Later in 2016, Bethesda announced that a reboot of the franchise, "Prey", was set for release in 2017 and was under development by Arkane, who had taken the concepts and thematic elements of "Prey" but scrapped any previous work that had been done by Human Head.
Prey 2
50794712#5
In June 2007, Miller co-founded a brand-management organization Radar Group, which was designed to help fledging development studios bring their games to publishers and distributors. "Prey 2" was one of three titles that Radar Group announced it was backing in March 2008, along with "Earth No More" and "Incarnate". At this point, "Prey 2" was described to be a narrative sequel to "Prey". In the game, Tommy abandons Earth as he is accused of the disappearance of his family and his girlfriend. At this point in development, "Prey 2" would have continued to be a first-person shooter using the portal/gravity-based gameplay as from the original game.
Prey 2
50794712#8
Bethesda re-announced "Prey 2" in March 2011 for a planned 2012 release. Human Head Studios would continue to be the developer of this game. The announced game had several major changes from what had been described before while it was under development at 3D Realms/Radar Group, including the game in gameplay style as an open world game, and the shift of narrative from Tommy to Killian. Though the team had access to the newer id Tech 5 engine, they had been working since 2009 on a modified id Tech 4 engine that they opted to retain that engine. Project lead Chris Rhinehart said ""Prey 2" will provide gamers the opportunity to explore a new facet of the "Prey" universe, one that offers fast-paced action in an open, alien world. We're excited to show gamers the title we have been working on and hope they will be as excited by this title as we are." According to Pete Hines, the vice president of public relations and marketing at Bethesda, the current version of the game is what the developers wanted to make and not what has been announced before by the Radar Group. Human Head shared footage of their version of "Prey 2" with the Strong National Museum of Play in March 2018.
Prey 2
50794712#14
Bethesda announced at their press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016 in June that they would be publishing a reboot of "Prey", also titled "Prey" to be developed by Arkane Studios. This game will not use any of the materials developed for "Prey 2", outside of the IP and the franchise concepts. Arkane Studios CEO and director Raphaël Colantonio said that at the time of completing "Dishonored", they sought to do a second project alongside "Dishonored 2", one that was "in first-person, with depth and simulation and narration", and that they opted to use the "Prey" narrative as it matched these thematic concepts well, but otherwise greatly different in gameplay. Hines added that when considering the core concept of the original 2006 "Prey" was about aliens chasing after the player-character, they felt the name worked well for the game that Arkane had pitched, and they did not have to be beholden to retain anything else about the original game. This gave Arkane's team the freedom it needed to do to complete their game without needing to consider the franchise's past history.
Prey 2
1801485#35
Shortly after the game's release, 3D Realms' Scott Miller confirmed that a sequel named "Prey 2" was in development. On March 17, 2008, Miller's brand-management group Radar Group was launched, along with the announcement that it was managing "Prey 2", slated for release for PC and Xbox 360. The game was being developed in cooperation with Human Head Studios.
Prey (2006 video game)
50794712#4
The first "Prey" game was released in July 2006; it had been developed by Human Head Studios, under contract with 3D Realms, and published by 2K Games. The game was considered successful; it had received Metacritic aggregate scores of 83 and 79 for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows versions, respectively, and by October 2006, over one million units had been sold according to 3D Realms' Scott Miller. Miller announced as early as August 2006 that development on a sequel, "Prey 2", had started.
Prey 2
11718979#18
On 12 June 2016, Bethesda officially announced the "Prey" reboot at its E3 press conference. The game's development was led by Arkane Studios CEO and director Raphaël Colantonio and his team in Austin, Texas. The new "Prey" is not a true sequel but instead "a re-imagining of the IP", according to Colantonio. The teaser trailer shown during E3 2016 showed the game's protagonist in something like "a space horror version of "Groundhog Day"", according to CNet's Seamus Byrne. Bethesda's vice president of marketing Pete Hines explained that the new game has no elements from the cancelled "Prey 2" outside of the player facing against aliens.
Prey (2017 video game)
50794712#7
According to Human Head's associate producer Matt Bisenius, all the previous work on the game up to its acquisition by ZeniMax/Bethesda was "bouncing ideas around" rather than any detailed development, believing 3D Realms/Radar Group had announced this sequel too early. As they started more in-depth planning and development for the game, the team came to an idea of a bounty hunter, and decided to take the core ideas from "Prey" while providing a game with more activities for the player do, partially inspired by the then-recent release of "Red Dead Redemption". Bisenius noted that "We didn't look at "Prey 1" and pick out mistakes as much as look at it and pick out the core themes of "Prey"."
Prey 2
1801485#24
"Prey" was officially announced in a press release by 2K Games on April 26, 2005. On April 28, 2006, a July 10 release date was announced (although 3D Realms claims that is not the formal release date since it did not come from them or Human Head). On May 19, 2006, 3D Realms announced that a demo of "Prey" would be released on June 22, 2006—the PC demo was released on this date, but the Xbox 360 demo was delayed until June 30. On June 28, it was announced that "Prey" had officially gone gold. A playable single and multiplayer demo of the game was released on June 22, 2006, for Microsoft Windows, and a downloadable Xbox 360 demo was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace on June 30, 2006.
Prey (2006 video game)