Prey 2 reboot sequel might be in dev, and Human Head might be involved

Arkane Austin, the dev team behind 2017's Prey reboot, is working on a new unannounced game. It could be a Prey sequel, and the original series developers could be involved.

In a recent interview with Spanish website Vandal, Dishonored and Deus Ex series designer Harvey Smith confirmed Arkane's Austin, Texas-based studio is making a new game. This isn't really surprising news as game devs are always making new unannounced projects (it's their job after all). Arkane Lyon, the other UK-based studio, is working on Deathloop.

"Raph stayed in Austin and worked at Prey with Ricardo Bare and Susan Kath and the people I'm working with now. At the end of Dishonored 2 I went back to Austin. I'm not in Deathloop , I'm in something else, working with the guys who made Dishonored and Prey," Smith said.

Things get interesting once we consider recent events. Back in November 2019, Human Head Studios, the original designers of the Prey series, went defunct. Bethesda offered the entire Human Head dev team jobs and Roundhouse Studios was born. Back then I speculated that Human Head (now Roundhouse) could be helping Arkane make a Prey sequel.

"We reached out to our friends at Bethesda for help, and they saw that same creativity and passion in our team. With the formation of Roundhouse Studios, Bethesda offered every employee of Human Head a position at the new company. We are excited our team will remain together, pursuing the work we love, as part of a company we already know and admire,"Roundhouse Studios creative director Chris Rhinehart said at the time.

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Arkane Austin worked on the original Prey reboot. Roundhouse worked on the original original Prey game, and on the Prey 2 sequel that never saw the light of day. What if both of these studios are teaming up to work together on an ambitious new Prey game? It'd be old meets new, a merging of two talented teams to help broaden one of the most interesting sci-fi franchises ever made.

Also remember that Microsoft owns Bethesda and all of its subsidiaries now. So that means Arkane Austin and Roundhouse have more creative freedom thanks to Microsoft's billions. The Xbox division did pay out $7.5 billion for ZeniMax, after all, so there's lots of development funding to play around with.