Prey 2 Officially Cancelled

Prey 2 is officially cancelled and is no longer in development at Human Head Studios, says Bethesda vice president Pete Hines.

First announced in March 2011, Prey 2 was a sci-fi FPS set on an alien planet in which you play as former U.S. Marshall turned-bounty hunter, Killian Samuels.

Since it was first revealed, the game has been subject to numerous delays and rumours have circulated suggesting that development had been handed off to Dishonored creator Arkane.

This particular rumour was debunked by Hines last year, but regardless, the game was still clearly in trouble and Hines put the blame squarely at Human Head’s feet.

“We spent years and millions of dollars and a ton of effort trying to help Human Head make a great Prey 2 game,” said Hines in June, 2013. “What we said the last time was that it’s not up to our quality standards.”

Despite this, Hines still said that the game would come out eventually. Now it seems that’s no longer the case.

Speaking to CNET, Hines confirmed that Bethesda has given up on the hope of Human Head turning the project around. Prey 2 has been officially cancelled. 

"It wasn't up to our quality standard and we decided to cancel it,” said Hines. “It's no longer in development. That wasn't an easy decision, but it's one that won't surprise many folks given that we hadn't been talking about it.”

Hines did not comment on exactly when the project was cancelled, adding only that Prey is “still a cool universe worth exploring”.

In June last year, documents emerged suggesting that Arkane was indeed working on a version of Prey 2, conceived as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. You can read more about that through here.