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Prey 2 stopped development in 2011 just months after its E3 reveal

Prey 2 stopped development in 2011

We only finally discovered that Prey 2 had been officially cancelled in October 2014. But despite rumours that the game was being passed around from studio-to-studio and gradually worked out, the truth is that all development work on the game actually finished in late 2011. Within months of its well-received announcement trailer at E3, Human Head had been pulled from the project and Prey 2 was dead.

“We stopped working on Prey 2 near the end of 2011, and had been working on it for close to two years,” said project director Chris Rhinehart in a talk with Develop. “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.”

Also interviewed by Develop was business development director Tim Gerritsen, who disagreed with Bethesda cancelling the game due to not being up to the required quality standard: “As we said in response in October, we feel that the quality of the game was well represented by the materials we displayed in numerous public demonstrations on behalf of Bethesda and we are disappointed that fans won’t be able to see our vision come to life. We remain proud of the work that we did.”

The announcement trailer was lauded by gamers and the press alike, praising its distinct art style and sense of fun. And whilst looking stunning in the trailer, Human Head had managed to crank out even more impressive visuals.

“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,” said Norm Nazaroff, one of Human Head’s project leads.

Human Head are now working on Minimum, which itself was originally created by the ill-fated TimeGate, the developer behind Alien: Colonial Marines.

Thanks, Videogamer.