Bethesda has announced that Prey 2, the planned sequel to 2006’s fairly well-received Xbox 360 (and later PC/Mac/Linux) game, Prey, has officially been canceled. Speaking at PAX Austrailia, Bethesda Softworks’ vice president Pete Hines had this to say in regards to Bethesda’s cancellation of Prey 2:

“It was 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.”

He’s right that many probably won’t be surprised, considering it has been over three years since we last heard anything about it, but its cancellation pains us all the same.

For those unfamiliar with the game’s planned narrative, the plot centered around an amnesiac U.S. Marshal who was abducted by aliens, and who subsequently started working as a bounty hunter on the alien world “Exodus.” However, over the past few years, news and announcements concerning the title eventually grew silent, causing many members of the gaming community to speculate that the game had been silently canceled, or at the very least having been moved to the back burner, which has turned out to be true.

An impressive trailer for the game debuted at E3 of 2011, of which you can find below. This is one of my favorite trailers for any sci-fi game, and one that will no doubt serve as inspiration for future titles.