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Game News Rumor Roundup: Arkane Studios, Prey 2 and System Shock 3

Infinitron

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Tags: Arkane Studios; Bethesda Softworks; Prey (Arkane Studios)

Back in 2006, a first person shooter by the name of Prey was released by developers Human Head Studios. Although it was originally a notorious 3D Realms vaporware project, under Human Head, Prey turned out to be a pretty decent game, and while it was not a huge commercial hit by today's standards, a sequel was quickly greenlit. Flash forward to 2009, when due to corporate shenanigans beyond mortal ken, the Prey IP found itself in the ownership of the nice people at Zenimax Media, the corporate alter ego of Bethesda Softworks. A couple of years later, the independence-minded Human Head Studios and Bethesda got into a little tiff, and by mid-2012 it seemed like the Prey sequel was permanently dead - although Bethesda never admitted that it was actually cancelled.

Flash forward again, to May 2013, when the folks at Kotaku received a tip that a rebooted Prey 2 was now being developed by Arkane Studios, of Arx Fatalis and Dishonored fame. What does an open world first person shooter with aliens have to do with a developer that specializes in Looking Glass-style immersive sims, you ask? Not much, apparently, as Arkane's employees were told to "forget that it's called Prey 2 and just treat it like a new System Shock". A few months later in August, in two separate interviews with Rock Paper Shotgun, both Bethesda PR boss Pete Hines and Arkane's own Raph Colantonio denied that Arkane had anything to do with Prey 2. Hilariously, just a day after the latter interview, the tipster struck again by leaking a pair of internal emails that unambiguously stated otherwise, turning the phrase "press sneak fucks" into a minor meme in the process.


Since then, we've heard little from Arkane, other than a rather dubious "Dishonored 2" leak back in March. Until today that is, when two Prey 2 "concept documents" were leaked to the site All Games Beta. They're actually Powerpoint presentations, apparently created by Colantanio, outlining the game's basic design principles and also suggesting four possible story pitches. As expected, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Prey other than the name. See for yourself:


The game's codename is "Project Danielle", with two of the four story pitches mentioning a female character named "Danielle Sho" - an obvious Shodan reference. My theory is that Bethesda have some kind of contractual obligation to use the title "Prey 2" for this game, and that they'll change it to something else for the final release, if they can. The target release date, by the way, is Q3 2016.

So, it looks like while Harvey Smith continues to work on the Thief-inspired Dishonored franchise over at Arkane Lyon, Raph's Arkane Austin is going to take on the legacy of System Shock. Those two Looking Glass fanboys have certainly come far! That's assuming all of this is actually real, of course. We can't be sure if these presentations are legit, but hey, they were as good an excuse as any to do this sum-up post.
 

Jack Dandy

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Might just be a coincidence, but on top of being an obvious anagram, in hebrew "Shodan hi ell" literally means "Shodan (she) is a god". +M

I really gotta get around to play the SS games sometime...
 
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Fuck off, Arkane. Dishonored was a dumbed down Thief and anything they crap out beyond that will be dumbed down as well... that and they're owned by fucking Bethduh so how good can System Shock 3 be anyway? Fuck that shit. Fuck it hard.

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:d1p:
 

Jack Dandy

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Already got that file stashed away safely on my comp- But you know how it is, backlog and everything..
 

potatojohn

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I feel stupid for talking about system shock and recommending it to people for years. If nobody talked about it it could have sunk into sweet oblivion like Hexen or something

Now the momentum is being used to create hype for retarded "spiritual successors"
 

SCO

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System Shock is in license hell, so it's only a 'spiritual successor'

I also don't give a damn about system shock, it being mostly a fps, without even the saving graces of bloodlines or deus ex. The 'verticality' is intriguing though.
 

felipepepe

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11139_500.png


Every game should take heart to these level design recommendations.
 

Gragt

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LEAVE SYSTEM SHOCK ALONE! Stop fucking raping good old franchises just for a buck.

System Shock is left alone. Assuming a crappy game called System Shock 3 comes out, System Shock 1 & 2 will still be the same games. Fallout 3 didn't change the first 2 games and they are just as good or bad as they have always been. It may have legions of fanboys that hails it over its predecessors but that's a problem of critical thinking.
 
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Jaesun

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LEAVE SYSTEM SHOCK ALONE! Stop fucking raping good old franchises just for a buck.

System Shock is left alone. Assuming a crappy game called System Shock 3 comes out, System Shock 1 & 2 will still be the same games. Fallout 3 didn't change the first 2 games and they are just as good or bad as they have always been. It may have legions of fanboys that hail it over its predecessors but that's a problem of critical thinking.

This is true, however I fucking hate this new shitty publisher trend of releasing shit dumbed down console garbage with the name of a beloved classic game just for a buck. Just pisses me off.

But I don't think they can use the actual name System Shock™ unless they are going to pay Meadowbrook, Inc. for that right. Which would seem odd for Bethesda to do.
 

felipepepe

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Is that hipster feeling where you don't want a bunch of retarded journalist even mentioning one of your favorite games.... how they will point out they have been playing PC games since the 40's, loved the original, but now it's unplayable, horribly dated and surpassed in everything by the new game...
 

ghostdog

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Well if it's not called system shock, it's fine by me. I enjoyed Dishonored, despite its popamole shortcomings, and if half of their developing goals are met I'll enjoy this one too. I'm pretty certain it will be far better than Dead Space, which was also called spiritual successor to SS2 (puke).
 

commie

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LEAVE SYSTEM SHOCK ALONE! Stop fucking raping good old franchises just for a buck.

Eh, it's not rape if we want it....right?

Anyway, I don't care, they can call it whatever the fuck they want so long as it at least partly approaches such a game. Dishonored was a Thief 3 Lite type of thing, and worked as well as it could, and if you played it with the hardest Achievements in mind, it was a very good stealth type game in its own right. I don't think it's raping for a buck anyway. It's not like 5Hitman or Thi4f made much to make the name link worthwhile.

I used to care about sticking the names of beloved franchises onto shitty games, but after 'Thief' there isn't any lower it could go. Hitman was fucked and ironically System Shock was already raped when they added a 'Bio' in front of Shock, so what's the point of whining now?

I'm all for Arkane making such a game. Lets face it, from the big publishers, it's about the best hope we have for making a big(ish) budget game of this type. Otherwise it's KS for stuff that may or may not be even made or which falls well short of lofty initial goals.

Dead Space, which was also called spiritual successor to SS2 (puke).

that shit was called a spiritual successor? Fuck me, lucky I didn't know this at the time!
 

Gragt

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This is true, however I fucking hate this new shitty publisher trend of releasing shit dumbed down console garbage with the name of a beloved classic game just for a buck. Just pisses me off.

Well, I admit it annoys me a bit too, especially when I know that some moron will think that the new one is so much better than the old crap, but then my misanthropy kicks back, I forget the moron, and I remember what made the old ones good.
 

Vibalist

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LEAVE SYSTEM SHOCK ALONE! Stop fucking raping good old franchises just for a buck.

System Shock is left alone. Assuming a crappy game called System Shock 3 comes out, System Shock 1 & 2 will still be the same games. Fallout 3 didn't change the first 2 games and they are just as good or bad as they have always been. It may have legions of fanboys that hail it over its predecessors but that's a problem of critical thinking.

I don't know... The setting of Fallout, especially the first one, feels like it has been cheapened the more they've expanded the general Fallout lore. Case in point: I can't play Fallout 1 without remembering that Fallout 2 turned all the vaults into a social experiment. This poor (imo) decision now affects the way I feel about the vaults in the first Fallout, in a negative sense. I liked them better when they were just shelters and didn't have all this Big Brother-esque conspiracy stuff attached to them. I know that technically I could ignore all of this when I play FO1, but my brain simply wont let me. Sometimes, things do retroactively get ruined by their sequels, at least if you're like me. I can't watch bring myself to watch The Matrix again either due to the god-awful sequels. As soon as I knew that everything would become shitty later, it no longer worked as a self contained story.

You can probably imagine how much Fallout 3 has ruined things retroactively for me, as well.
 

Azalin

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I enjoyed Dishonored enough for me to get this one if they actually make it

:d1p:
 

Gragt

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I don't know... The setting of Fallout, especially the first one, feels like it has been cheapened the more they've expanded the general Fallout lore. Case in point: I can't play Fallout 1 without remembering that Fallout 2 turned all the vaults into a social experiment.

That's extra-diegetic when it comes to Fallout 1. If you only consider the first game the status of the vaults as experiments is plausible but there is no evidence in the game itself to support it, or invalidate it for that matter. You can pick what you want in this case, though Occam's razor would tell us the vaults are just shelters. It's only when you play Fallout 2 that you have to accept the vaults are all part of an experiment — even then, is the information reliable or could someone be fucking with you? Just because it's stated in the design documents doesn't mean it is true in the game.

I can't watch bring myself to watch The Matrix again either due to the god-awful sequels. As soon as I knew that everything would become shitty later, it no longer worked as a self contained story.

The Matrix didn't need sequels to reveal how awful it is. Same thing with Star Wars or Indiana Jones.
 

Paul_cz

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Both Dishonored 2 and Prey 2 are among my most anticipated games. I adored Dishonored and its story expansion.
 

Vibalist

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I don't know... The setting of Fallout, especially the first one, feels like it has been cheapened the more they've expanded the general Fallout lore. Case in point: I can't play Fallout 1 without remembering that Fallout 2 turned all the vaults into a social experiment.

That's extra-diegetic when it comes to Fallout 1. If you only consider the first game the status of the vaults as experiments is plausible but there is no evidence in the game itself to support it, or invalidate it for that matter. You can pick what you want in this case

Yes, but my point was that I'm unable to do this. My brain is wired in such a way (and I imagine I'm far from the only one) that I can't ignore information like this once it's been revealed, even if I have the "choice" to do so. It doesn't matter that it isn't strictly part of FO1. Whenever I go back and play it I automatically think of the vaults as experiments regardless. And the same thing goes for a lot of other things that were introduced after the first game.

though Occam's razor would tell us the vaults are just shelters. It's only when you play Fallout 2 that you have to accept the vaults are all part of an experiment — even then, is the information reliable or could someone be fucking with you? Just because it's stated in the design documents doesn't mean it is true in the game.

Maybe not, but I was just using the vault experiments as an example. I could as easily have used Megaton or another dubious addition to Fallout lore.

The Matrix didn't need sequels to reveal how awful it is. Same thing with Star Wars or Indiana Jones.

Once again, that was just an example. Exchange Matrix for any other movie you liked that had an awful sequel. There are plenty.
 

GlutenBurger

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LEAVE SYSTEM SHOCK ALONE! Stop fucking raping good old franchises just for a buck.
On the other hand, if somebody made a hash of a System Shock 3 there could be a thread about how bad it was, in which somebody could post an image of the boxart with the caption "What's the matter, lover? Don't you like my new look?"It would be very funny.
 

jdinatale

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LEAVE SYSTEM SHOCK ALONE! Stop fucking raping good old franchises just for a buck.
On the other hand, if somebody made a hash of a System Shock 3 there could be a thread about how bad it was, in which somebody could post an image of the boxart with the caption "What's the matter, lover? Don't you like my new look?"It would be very funny.

Yeah I'd imagine fucking autists such as yourself would get a kick out of that.
 

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