There are games that get stuck in development hell for a long, long time, with no real signs of ever coming out. One such title is Bethesda's Prey 2. The game's insanely long and troubled history with development (let alone release) has been a concern for most fans, while other have already forgotten about the game, as if it was never mentioned. However, it seems like Bethesda is not so easily giving up on the game. Bethesda's Pete Hines was more than eager to talk about the title at this year's QuakeCon.
RockPaperShotgun asked Hines whether Arkane Studios - the ones responsible for 2012's smash hit Dishonored - was now working on Prey 2. To this, Hines answered,"All of that stuff, I have no idea where it came from. The Human Head Prey 2 thing is the Human Head Prey 2 thing. Arkane is over here, and they're doing their thing, and that's for them to work on. We'll be ready to talk about what they're working on when it gets closer to release."
However, even if the studio for the game has indeed been changed, what is the reason for this massively long delay for the development of the title? Hopefully, Hines had an answer.
"It just wasn't where it needed to be," Hines clearly admitted. "It wasn't meeting expectations that we had and - in some respects - Human Head had. We're not just gonna proceed with a plan of putting this thing out until that gets addressed in a way that we feel like will be worth all this time and attention."
"Yes, we could ship it and put it in a box and be done with it, but it won't meet anybody's expectations. Not ours, not yours, not the consumer's. It'd just be like, 'What happened to this?' Well, that's what we would like to know. It's not fun to make a call to pull back the reins on something like that and say it's not coming out this year. It's certainly not an easy decision, especially after you spent years and millions and millions of dollars creating it."
Prey 2 had got a lot of fans excited over a past few months, only to be disappointed later with little or no news, and eventually forgotten. Hines, on a similar note, was asked if he was planning still to pursue something resembling that vision, or something entirely different. Hines stated that it "probably doesn't help me to define that any further."
"The reason that it got delayed the way it did is because it was not hitting the quality bar that it was supposed to and needed to. That was ultimately the problem. It had nothing to do with what it was trying to do. It just didn't hit the quality bar. It's kind of like Wolfenstein, which is getting delayed to next year because it's showing promise, but it needs more time and polish to hit the quality bar we expect. Prey 2 is not the first time that we've moved something because of that. It's gonna come down to quality," he concluded.
However, Hines still didn't answer if we will ever see the game anytime in the future, but by the looks of it (and Hines' comments), the game won't be around anytime soon.