Prey 2 ‘would have been one of the best looking games of the previous generation’

Human Head maintains that Prey 2, its cancelled sci-fi shooter sequel, would have been one of the most visually impressive games on Xbox 360 and PS3 had published Bethesda not pulled the plug.

Bethesda announced the game was officially cancelled last October, three years after the game had been officially announced. At the time, the publisher claimed the game’s quality did not meet its standards.

In an interview with Develop, the studio reiterated its claim that the quality of Prey 2 wasn’t the problem.

“We have our own perspective on the matter that differs from the reasons [Bethesda] stated,” said Human Head’s development director Tim Gerritsen. “As we said in October, we feel that the quality of the game was well represented by the materials we displayed in numerous public demonstrations on behalf of Bethesda and we are disappointed that fans won’t be able to see our vision come to life.

“We remain proud of the work that we did.”

Project director Chris Rhinehart told us Human Head had been working on Prey 2 for nearly two years, before stopping work at the end of 2011. By this point the game was “very close to an alpha state”.

“We were at that point in a game where you can step back and see the whole picture and shift from developer to editor, deciding which elements to cut and and which elements to emphasise and polish.”

Rhinehart’s colleague Norm Nazaroff added: “We had a great deal of content created, some of which was shown publicly but a lot of which was not.

“Our tech had progressed significantly past the live demo we ran at E3, Gamescom and PAX and was even more impressive. It’s my personal opinion that we would have been counted among the best looking games of the previous console generation.”

Bethesda has said it hopes to continue the Prey franchise in the future.

You can find the full interview here.