Prey 2’s Canceled Prototype Shows What Bethesda Buried

Prey 2 was supposed to be the genre-bending sequel that let you hunt aliens across a neon-drenched dystopia. Instead, it got shelved, ghosted, and buried under a reboot that—while solid—wasn’t the bounty-hunting sandbox fans were promised. Now, over ten years later, raw gameplay footage has clawed its way online, and it’s everything we hoped for before the plug got pulled.

The Footage: Parkour, Plasma, and Pure Potential

Five clips dropped like a forgotten E3 demo reel:

• A cinematic intro that sets the noir tone
• Gunplay that’s surprisingly fluid for a prototype
• A flythrough of the Undercity that oozes atmosphere
• A chase sequence that blends parkour with alien pursuit
• A ten-minute demo that feels like a playable pitch deck

It’s rough, sure. But it’s also a glimpse into a game that was dangerously close to greatness.

What Happened to Prey 2?

Originally teased as a follow-up to 2006’s Prey, the sequel pivoted hard—from corridor shooter to open-world bounty hunter. Human Head Studios had it in development, and by 2011, it was reportedly near alpha. Then came the internal drama, contract disputes, and eventual cancellation. Bethesda’s official line? “It wasn’t up to our standards.”

In a statement on the cancellation of Prey 2, Bethesda’s Pete Hines (retired) explained:

It was a game we believed in, but we never felt that it got to where it needed to be –– we never saw a path to success if we finished it. It wasn’t up to our quality standard, and we decided to cancel it. It’s no longer in development. That wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s one that won’t surprise many folks given that we hadn’t been talking about it. Human Head Studios is no longer working on it. It’s a franchise we still believe we can do something with — we just need to see what that something is.

Translation: it didn’t fit the roadmap.

The Reboot That Rewrote the Franchise