The word on the grapevine that Marvin Gaye was so fond of is that Arkane Austin (of Dishonored and alliteration fame) may be taking over the reins of the much-troubled Prey 2, rescuing Human Head's ambitious open world sci-fi thingy from a fate worse than death: permanent hiatus. Kotaku and premature Prey 2 fansite Alien Noire have been stuffing that grapevine with the juiciest of rumours, including the startling not-quite-news that the Dishonored devs will be scrapping all of Human Head's work and re-creating the entire game from scratch. (You know, if any of this is true.) Arkane Austin devs have apparently been told to "just treat it like a new System Shock," and-dammit, I just spat beer all over my keyboard.
I'd be quite disappointed if that ends up being true, because I was rather impressed with what little we got to see of Human Head's presumably now-Dodo-like take on the Prey sequel. Obviously, however, the existence of another System Shock-like game from the talented devs behind Dishonored just about makes up for it - so consider me conflicted on the subject.
Other noteworthy nuggets from the rumour mill include reports that Arkane didn't seem too interested in working on the game, at least at first. Here's a quote from the Kotaku story:
"Bethesda had been trying for a few months now to convince Arkane to work on the game. Last week, the tipster says, Bethesda finally forced their hand: Arkane would develop Prey 2, scrapping all the work that Human Head has done and starting from scratch.
"Some people at Arkane Austin are upset about this decision, but higher-ups at the company are telling the team to forget that it's called Prey 2 and just treat it like a new System Shock."
If this is all true, Prey 2 now has a planned release date of 2016, which is so far away I can't even imagine it. I just tried again and - nope. So far Bethesda, Arkane, Human Head and Tommy from Prey 1 are keeping schtum on the matter - we'll update as soon as we know more.
