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Arkane Studios is developing a reboot of troubled sci-fi shooter Prey 2, alleged leaked emails from the studio’s CEO appear to have confirmed, despite prior comments from Arkane and parent company Bethesda to the contrary.
Kotaku claims to have received internal emails sent by Arkane CEO Raphael Colantonio to his studio’s staff back in May, which reference Prey 2 by name and reveal that Arkane “Austin has officially been green lit” for the project.
“For the ones who were not at last week’s company meeting: Austin has officially been green lit for its own project!”, reads an email dated May 27, 2013 and carrying the 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,” the email continues. “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.”
Kotaku first reported that Arkane Austin is developing a “rebooted” version of Human Head’s Prey 2 project on May 31, but said that, though it believed it to be true, it had “not been able to confirm” the rumour.
Bethesda’s vice president of marketing Pete Hines later denied the rumour, telling Rock Paper Shotgun that he had “no idea where it came from. The Human Head Prey 2 thing is the Human Head Prey 2 thing. Arkane is over here, and they’re doing their thing, and that’s for them to work on. We’ll be ready to talk about what they’re working on when it gets closer to release.”
Colantonio also denied any involvement in the project, later telling Rock Paper Shotgun that Austin was not developing Prey 2. “We’ve been looking at where that rumour came from, and I really don’t know.”
Nevertheless, a second email allegedly sent by Colantonio to his staff 90 minutes after Kotaku’s initial report, said:
“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.”
But who’s telling the truth? Bethesda allegedly chose not to clarify the situation when contacted by Kotaku over its story, saying: “We aren’t talking about what Arkane is working on and we have no new information to share on Prey 2.”
Arkane previously developed Dishonored, and is thought to be working on two projects across its Austin and Lyon studios.
Bethesda declined to comment on Kotaku’s report when contacted by VideoGamer.com this morning.
Source: kotaku.com
