According to Raphael Colantonio, no one at Arkane wanted to use the Prey title, but Bethesda gave him no choice – which is partly why he left.

If you loved Raphael Colantonio-led Arkane’s immersive 2017 simulation game Prey, you might be baffled by the decision to reuse the title. Developer Arkane has explicitly stated that the game is not a sequel or remake and has “no ties with the original” – and that the 2006 game was not a hit to the point of having unalterable PR value.

In fact, this was quite a widespread point of confusion, not only among gamers but also at Arkane. In fact, the studio’s founder Raphael Colantonio, who left the company in 2017, said in a recent interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences that Bethesda’s insistence on using the name “was very, very hurtful” and ultimately helped convince him that it was time to leave.

“I did not want to call this game Prey,” Colantonio 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.”

“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. 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.”

“So that was part of, ah, I gotta go at this point, because I’m not in control of my own boat at this point.”

It was also a slap in the face for the original game’s developers, as well as fans who had been eagerly awaiting a proper sequel. Bethesda did indeed announce it in 2011 with a very cool cinematic trailer but pulled the plug a few years later, saying it “wasn’t up to our quality standards”. However, interest in the cancelled sequel has persisted over the years, reflecting a genuine enthusiasm for what could have been.

Arkane’s Prey famously didn’t sell well, despite being an excellent, immersive simulator, and the confusion surrounding the title and the connection (or lack of) with the original game certainly didn’t help. However, in his interview with MinnMax 2021, Raphael Colantonio reflected on the other marketing challenges facing the game and ‘immersion simulators’ in general, which, despite being widely regarded as a corner game, remain a relative niche interest.

Since Raphael Colantonio’s departure, Arkane has moved away from immersion sims.

Having published perhaps more digestible games such as Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Deathloop and Redfall (which is not actually due out until 2023, so any judgement on that is reserved for now), Raphael Colantonio has taken a very different approach to the form with Weird West and has largely succeeded. Weird West patch 1.04 is expected to be released in September.

Source: EuroGamer