Hot on the heels of announcing a sequel to Rune, Human Head Studios have announced another game that’s mighty surprising. Survived By [official site] is a 100-player bullet hell shoot ’em up MMORPG, which is a description I don’t believe I’ve applied to any game before. It’ll have players exploring, dodging swarms of bullets, killing, levelling, looting, and crafting. Then dying permanently. Oh, but don’t worry: you’ll pass a little of your power onto your descendent to continue the action. It’ll be free-to-play and published by Digital Extremes, the makers of Warframe. Hey, here, have a look: Read the rest of this entry »
Human Head Studios have dusted off their horned helmets and announced a sequel to Rune. The studio might be best known for their work on Prey No The Old Prey Not The New Prey and its cancelled sequel but before all that, they had a load of Vikings murder each other to bits in their third-person action-adventure from the year 2000. Now they’re sharpening their axes again for Rune: Ragnarok [official site], which they’re calling “a sandbox, open-world RPG set in a dangerous Norse universe during the end of days.” Ah, the ends of days – will they ever end? Read the rest of this entry »
2006’s original Prey came a full eleven years after 3D Realms began its production. Eventually completed by Human Head Studios, although using some of the original concepts (primarily the portal tech), it was released to rave reviews. Which is odd, because it’s a colossal pile of shit.
Though there have been murmurings (and indeed alleged leaked emails) that much-anticipated but much-troubled open world shooter Prey 2 had been snatched away from original dev Human Head and entrusted to the tattooed hands of Dishonored dev Arkane, Bethesda have now stated that the game is as dead as Zhora after three bullets in the back.
Funny how games get passed around sometimes. After TimeGate Studios took over a lot of development on Alien: Colonial Marines from Gearbox, well, it was a bit of a mess for everyone involved. When TimeGate went bankrupt last year (CM wasn’t their only problem, mind) they were still working on Minimum, and so publishers Atari drafted Human Head Studios to finish it up. (Human Head, in turn, may or may not have had Prey 2 taken away and given to Arkane.)
The MOBA-ish multiplayer shooter is nearing the finish line at Human Head though, as last night the beta launched onto Steam Early Access at £14.99.
Minimum is not the reason TimeGate dropped off the face of the earth. Not by a long shot. That would be a series of unfortunate events (and decisions) that forced the partial Aliens: Colonial Marines developer to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and close up shop. It was kind of an implosion. Among others, a jilted pizza place was involved. One would assume, then, that its final project, Minecraft-influenced shooter Minimum, ended up as collateral, given that Atari now owns the license and dubiously discarded Prey 2 steward Human Head is on development duties. What does all of that mean for the game, though? You can find out this weekend.
Where once Prey 2 burned as bright as an exploding star, it’s now nearly blipped out of existence. Strikes and stall-outs allegedly sidelined the promising sequel for many moons, and talk of cancellation wrapped a rapidly tightening noose around its neck. But then, a twist: rumors rushed from the Internet’s every exceedingly awkward orifice door that Dishonored developer Arkane had taken the reins on the beleaguered bounty hunter because, well, Bethesda got kinda pushy about it. However, as part of an interview during QuakeCon, I asked Bethesda’s Pete Hines about the situation, and he told a very, very different tale.
Here at RPS, we’re not often in the business of reporting rumors, but this one’s too much of a doozy to leave inside the colossal organic womb ship from which all rumors are born. Prey 2‘s been MIA since time immemorial, with various rumblings of strikes, stall outs, and near-cancellation the only things even vaguely resembling a warm trail for us to follow. Now, however, according to Kotaku and Prey 2 fansite Alien Noire, Dishonored developer Arkane has – allegedly somewhat reluctantly – taken the reigns. THE PLOT THICKENS. Watch it ooze and burble after the break.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
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.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Following the story of US Marshall Killian Samuels, acting as a bounty hunter on an alien world, Prey 2 promises freedom of choice in an alien city. At the Eurogamer Expo we got to see two parts of the game in action, an early level with lots of shooting and a later area, about a quarter of the way through the game, that showed a mission in action. There was also time to see the downtime between missions, with Killian involving himself in random street crime and doing some shopping. We caught up with project lead and Human Head studios co-founder Chris Rhinehart to find out what freedom really means in Prey 2, how much of a rotter you can be, whether we can expect additional stuff and release date parity for the PC version, and what failing missions entails. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Quakecon has come and gone, gibs have been aged, the Great Lord Carmack hath spoken, and yet again nothing was mentioned about Doom 4. But what have appeared are Bethesday-based screenshots. There’s no point in reposting the Rage pics, as they’re all the same ones we had a week ago for our hands on, so you can see them there. But below there are the latest batch from Prey 2.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
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…’ Read the rest of this entry »
