Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s terribly sad that all we seem to hear of Human Head’s ambitious, semi-free form, Blade Runner-inspired shooter Prey 2 is the occasional murky rumour and contradiction about its troubled status. Not so long ago word abounded that it had been taken down the bottom of the garden and shot by Bethesda, which after slightly too long a wait was then officially disputed. We’ve just heard the exact same song and dance again, which I shall report purely because we don’t know owt else about Prey 2′s state of play.
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Do you remember where you were when you first heard that Prey 2 might be dead? Me neither. But I remember where I was when I heard it emerged from the wreckage with a few bumps, bruises, and a sizable slip out of 2012  - mostly because that was yesterday. Bethesda chalked it up to the fact that “development has not progressed satisfactorily this past year, and the game does not currently meet our quality standards.” But why? Incredibly long national holiday, perhaps? Or maybe a hypnotically mesmerizing butterfly? And while those two options sound extremely plausible, Shacknews has a potential contender for third place: a full-on strike at Human Head.

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Word has finally emerged regarding the fate of Prey 2 and the ambitious shooter is apparently still on the run. It won’t be out this year, as previously planned, but it hasn’t been cancelled. Bethesda have this to say on the matter:

Development of Prey 2 has not been cancelled but the game will not be released in 2012 as planned. The delay is due to the fact that game development has not progressed satisfactorily this past year, and the game does not currently meet our quality standards.

The full statement is below. I haven’t actually played the game but since seeing it in action and speaking to Chris Rhinehart about Human Head’s plans, I’ve been looking forward to hunting bounties in space.

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With official confirmation still lacking as to whether Prey 2 is currently bleeding out by the bins out the back of Bethesda HQ or if the great hunt will yet continue, one of the many additional questions is what might become of developer Human Head. Sounds like they’re pondering a resurrection of their first game, viking-based brawler Rune. The 2000 Unreal-powered stabbing’n'jumping title is, apparently, a “cult hit classic”, and its official Facebook page has raised the possibility of it getting the sequel treatment.
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A NeoGAF poster has spotted that an announcement about the cancellation of Prey 2 seems to be in the pipeline. No official word from Bethesda yet, but tweets from a Human Head employee seem to back it up. I’m honestly really surprised by this. After Dishonored this seemed like Bethesda’s most promising title, as evidenced by our interview from late last year. It’s hard to tell what’s happening behind the NDA’d doors of a developer, of course, but this will be a terrible thing if it turns out to be true.

Yes, it’s that oldest of all the jokes. But I’m afraid a screenshot of Tommy’s actual back is all we’re getting from Human Head today. Given exactly thirty-two in every five hundred and twenty-eight people on the internet were vocally distressed to discover that Prey 2 would be ditching the first game’s Native American protagonist Tommy in favour of a white soldierdude named Killian Samuels, you’d have thought the first unveiling of Tommy’s NPC appearance in Prey 2 would have a little more hullabaloo. But no, just his back. And a bit of his nose, admittedly. Will he be purely a talky character, or will you fight alongside him somehow? I don’t know these things. I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got this picture of his back, and that’s all. Stop looking at me like that. What do you want from me?

So there you go. There’s the picture of a man’s back. That’s my story. We’ll always remember this moment.

Mercy, this E3 is turning out to be a generous one. Next up we’ve finally got some in-game footage of alien bounty hunting sim Prey 2. It turns out that the excellent CG trailer we saw last week was actually hugely faithful to the game proper, and not at all the flight of fancy it could have been.

The following footage also solves the mystery of why this radically different sequel even bears the Prey name. Because it explores both sides of the predatory/prey relationship, of course! Oh, game developers. Never change.
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There’s some stuff you hope will never happen when you are trapped on a plane. This is one of those things. Nothing of the game is shown, of course, but for a live-action vignette to say a bit about how the game is going to be I think it works. Aliens get shot.

For a more in-depth reason to be interested, check out Alec’s preview of the game. Open-world space bounty-hunter has me intrigued…
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So we already know the broader picture of Prey 2 – a sandbox ‘alien noir’ world, with you as a bounty hunter taking on contracts – and how it’s a far cry from the first game, but what about the details? Let’s ask Prey 2 developer Human Head’s project lead Chris Rinehart and chief creative officer Jim Sumwalt for a closer look at just how the missions, the morality and the money-making works – as well as why they decided to leave the first game’s play style behind, why the themes are similar even if the lead character is not, whether it’s all urban or if things get wilder, and why the hell he’s called ‘Killian Samuels…’
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I’m very surprised. Good surprised, not bad surprised. Prey is not a game I feel anything about, to be completely honest. I know it has its fans, but for me it remains part of that mass of id Tech 4-based stodgy shooters which went heavy on bio-mechanical corridor-pounding gloss at the expense of play I found truly engaging, despite early-game experiments with big ideas. Prey 2? More corridors, more textbook murderous aliens, more blamblamblam, no thank you ma’am.

Except it’s not. I was not expecting a game where you spend a significant time without a gun taking up half your screen. I was not expecting an open-world game, inspired more by the likes of Red Dead Redemption and STALKER than by Quake and Call of Duty. I was not expecting a game where your interaction with funny-headed aliens is as much about making moral judgements as it is shooting them. I’m surprised.
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The first Prey 2 trailer has dribbled onto the internet, like a splodge of molten entertainment. You’ll find it contained after the jump, but be forewarned- it’s an entirely live action affair, containing actual humans actually reacting to imaginary stuff. Thanks to RPS reader Gabe “Fear Factory” McGrath for sending this in.

EDIT: Oh, snap! This isn’t useless at all. It corroborates what Kotaku was saying about you playing not a Native American, but a Federal Marshal, and if that’s true- well, in the same post Kotaku say Prey 2 will be an open-world game with you playing a bounty hunter on an alien planet. This game just got very interesting. More details after the jump.

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