Studio Founder Says Bethesda Forced Arkane to Name the Game Prey
While Bethesda and Arkane Studios' Prey has seen much critical acclaim and has even been hailed as some of the developer's finest work to date, it's hardly secret that it never sold all that well. While the exact reasoning behind its commercial performance hasn't been officially quantified up until now, the fact that the game effectively took over an existing IP may have had something to do with that.
Namely, Prey was also the title of the unrelated 2006 FPS that was supposed to get a sequel, only for it to get canceled by Bethesda in 2011. The 2006 title's fan base was understandably confused when Arkane Studios announced its 2017 immersive sim would be Prey, too. However, a recent interview with studio founder, Raphael Colantonio, reveals that the whole confusion was caused by Bethesda, who forced the title upon Arkane's then-unnamed game.
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Colantonio left Arkane Studios after Prey launched in 2017 and was free to discuss his experience working on the game with Bethesda as part of his recent interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. «I did not want to call this game Prey,» he said. «I had to say I wanted to anyway in front of journalists.» Colantonio said that he hated lying about the matter to the press, but that he was effectively forced into doing that by Bethesda. According to Colantonio, the publisher's insistence was «very, very hurtful,» and was one of the reasons why he ended up leaving Arkane.
Most notably, Colantonio was also aware of the adverse effects of naming Arkane Studios' new flagship after the game that Bethesda canceled years ago. «It was never our intention to steal their IP,» he said, describing the whole ordeal
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