Devs Say They "Did Not Want To" Call Their Game 'Prey', But Were Forced To
Topics: Bethesda
Featured Image Credit: Bethesda Softworks
Topics: Bethesda
Remember Prey? No, not the Predator prequel that came out in July. And no, not the game that came out in 2006. Prey (2017) was developed by Arkane and published by Bethesda, and was considered to be a reboot of the original 2006 title, which was developed by Human Head Studios. That’s a lot of different things with the exact same name, so stay with me here.
Arkane also developed Deathloop, which is joining PS Plus Extra's library of games on 20 September - take a look below.
It turns out that the Arkane devs weren’t too pleased about the decision to re-use the name, either. As reported by PC Gamer, in a recent interview with Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the founder of Arkane Studios, Raphaël Colantonio, revealed that he thought calling the 2017 game 'Prey' was "a mistake", and was a "a kick in the face” to the developers of the original title.
“I did not want to call this game 'Prey',” he said. “I had to say I wanted to anyway in front of journalists, which is not my pleasure. I hate to lie. And those are sales lies, it's not like a personal lie or whatever, but it still felt bad that I had to support a message I did not want. Not only me, but nobody in the team wanted to call this game 'Prey'. Our game had nothing to do with Prey.
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“I'm grateful that a company will give me the means to make a game and trust my ability with so many millions of dollars, I'm grateful of that - but there is a bit of the artistic, creative side that is insulted when you tell this artist, 'your game is going to be called Prey.' You go like, I don't think it should, I think it's a mistake,” he continued. “It's a sales mistake, because we're going to get the backfires from the [original Prey fans], these ones are not going to be happy, then the ones who didn't like Prey, they're not even going to look for our game, they're not going to find our game.”
Colantonio added that this was part of what convinced him to leave the studio, as he no longer felt in control of his “own boat”.