We got to see footage of Prey for the first time at Quakecon this year, and it looks good so far. It’s a sci-fi take on Dishonored’s immersive sim toolbox, it’s set in a fully explorable space station, and hey—you can transform into a coffee cup and bobble around.
But why is it Prey? The original game from 2006 was fun, but after all the years since Prey 2 failed to materialize, is the Prey name worth resurrecting? How did this happen?
“We started thinking about the next game that we wanted to do, and Arkane specialises in one kind of game: we make first person immersive sims, games with depth,” Prey’s lead designer, Ricardo Bare, told PC Gamer. “We wanted to do something with science fiction. Our brand of game, but in a science fiction setting on a space station with aliens, and so that seemed a really good match. Bethesda has this name: Prey. And it’s a really great name and it matched the concept we were thinking of, so yeah.”
So, yeah. It is a bit disappointing that the themes from the original Prey will be left behind. On the other hand, it’s refreshing to hear this kind of transparency. Prey was a name that Bethesda owned, and now it’s been pasted over the top of Arkane’s new sci-fi idea.
Now that Prey is the name, Bare says, the new game isn’t going to borrow any elements from the old game. “No, in terms of a high level concept it’s like aliens, on a space station, survival kind of stuff, so it was a good fit,” he said. “But there’s no fictional connection and no universe connection if you want that.”
So that's it. Prey is not Prey 2 and has nothing at all to do with Prey. As for what happened with Prey 2, all we really know is that it didn't work out.
