…except it’s not so silly according to leaked emails from Colantonio to Arkane staff. He refers to Pre 2 as an ”interesting opportunity” if they reboot it, and so they did.
Apparently their ”spiritual successor to System Shock 3” pitch to Bethesda for the Prey 2 project went down a treat with higher ups. Arkane Austin wanted an established IP.
”For the ones who were not at last week’s company meeting: Austin has officially been green lit for its own project!” began CEO Raphael Colantonio’s email to staff, which is dated May 27th, 2013, with subject line ‘Prey2’.
”This is super exciting of course. Doing a new IP was not a possibility because it’s adding risk to the challenge of growth, so after going back and forth with Todd, Harvey, Ricardo, we decided that Prey 2 presented an interesting opportunity if we could reboot it. Zenimax accepted our pitch which was ‘the spiritual successor to System Shock 3’.”
”So there you go,” Colantonio continued. ”This year is going to be intense and exciting: growth, design, handling 2 projects. It’s a new chapter to the super Arkan adventure, let’s make it awesome.”
Both Bethesda and Arkane were keen to downplay if not outright kill the rumour of Prey 2 passing from original developer Human Head to its new home. A second email has leaked revealing how Colantonio really didn’t want this getting out, reports Kotaku, which was created 90 minutes after the initial story broke in May.
”Now that the news is out, We’ll be contacted left and right by press sneak f**ks who will want to know more. Please don’t answer to any of their requests,” it read to staff.
Arkane is most recently known for their highly lauded title Dishonored, but two other projects are said to be operating across their Austin and Lyon studios. ”We aren’t talking about what Arkane is working on and we have no new information to share on Prey 2,” Bethesda told Kotaku.
The reason for Prey 2’s troubled development had to do with ‘expectations not being met’, according to Bethesda, who in turn were accused of ‘sabotaging’ the project to try and weaken Human Head for acquisition. Drama!