Source: Human Head hasn't worked on Prey 2 since November
More details are surfacing over the delay of Prey 2. Apparently developer Human Head has not been working on the game since late last year.
News that Prey 2 had not been cancelled, but rather delayed, was relieving to fans of the original. However, why has there been such secrecy surrounding the project over the last several months?
According to a Shacknews source who asked not to be identified, Human Head was not happy with the terms of its contract with ZeniMax, and deliberately stopped work on the game in November so it could try to negotiate a more favorable deal. While doing that, many on the development team were laid off, with the hope they would be rehired if the contract issue was resolved favorably. The process seemed to be gathering some positive momentum until January when ZeniMax's responses all but stopped, causing some of the laid-off Prey 2 team to wonder if the game would ever see the light of day.
By March 1, the source said, things had progressed a bit, leaving the Prey 2 team hopeful that they would return to work soon. But that quickly soured the following day. The source could provide no further first-hand details after March 2.
When contacted for a response, an official at ZeniMax responded that "we aren't commenting on the game's development beyond what was said in the statement that was released this morning."
In light of the new information, the official stance that "the delay is due to the fact that game development has not progressed satisfactorily this past year, and the game does not currently meet our quality standards" seems to throw Human Head under the creative bus. With development stalled for months, it's no surprise that the game would be unable to meet so-called "quality standards."
It is unclear at this point what ZeniMax will do with the title now. A new developer certainly looks likely, and it would not be the first time Bethesda had changed developers on a game, namely shifting Rogue Warrior from Zombie Studios to Rebellion in 2009.
The source did say that one thing that kept the Human Head studio in a positive frame of mind was that they were working on a new high-profile project and negotiations for that game were going quite well. While they didn't give us any further details, the developer did recently admit they were "considering" a sequel to Rune.
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Shacknews
replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Source: Human Head hasn't worked on Prey 2 since November.
More details are surfacing over the delay of Prey 2. Apparently developer Human Head has not been working on the game since late last year.-
Ouch, hope they end up ok.
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makes sense, im sure after Rage failing, they are more apt to taking the reins from a developer who isn't going in the right direction.
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RAGE let me down bad. Bought into the hype, John Carmack's return, etc, etc...paid 24 Queen Head's for the game on pre-order, played it for 4 hours, decided it was shit, uninstalled.
Waited in vain for a high-res patch to fix the ugly ass thing, no such thing ever appeared. Carmack said "Yeah, we'll bring one out". Now that the game is all but forgotten someone released a Twitter post or something saying "Actually, that High-Res patch, no can do."
So small no one noticed.
What a crock of shit.-
Also the original Prey was a great game, finished it twice, really enjoyed it. Not a groundbreaking FPS, but a highly enjoyable one none the less.
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For what it's worth, the confusion surrounding the "high-res patch":
The "high-res" textures are already there, in a manner of speaking. I mean, the game is like 23GB installed. The issue was how the textures were presented - they tended to be dithered down to the point of being mud. A patch February enabled the ability to turn off this dithering (that might not be the right word for it) provided you had the hardware.
It's been said the real "high-res" textures would be on the order of 150GB, so that ain't gonna happen.-
No, textures you saw were presented as detailed as they were. The patch uses some tricks to make them look better but there's not much that can be done.
I found some screenshots here, it really doesn't make much difference from what I saw when I played it:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?278942-RAGE-patch-1.2-texture-fix-
Yeah, it was basically a sharpening filter, and on my GTX 285, it cut the framerate in half.
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Rage failed?
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As much as I hate to resort to memes...I am disappoint.
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Sometimes only a meme can capture our truest feelings.
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Devil's advocate part two: if the terms of the arrangement are really bad, why agree to it in the first place?
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Good point, although part of the answer might be that they weren't too smart when they took the deal and now that they wised up they decided to do something about it.
But it's also entirely possible that Bethesda is in the right here and Human Head are just being greedy or something. My point was that the anger over "fire a bunch of people" is based on the assumption that the game industry is a normal industry when it comes to labor practices. It's not. That's why most people bail before they hit 40. -
Devil's advocate part three: the terms they wanted to negotiate were most likely the penalties associated with a big delay from there expected completion window. They probably found themselves far behind where they thought they would be in Nov and could tell they would need an extended delay to finish it. Instead of eat whatever penalties were in their contract they tried to renegotiate.
That's my guess anyway...
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And then Bethesda lied through their teeth about quality standards.
What a joke, these companies are disgusting. -
So are Human Head still involved at all? Or are they being replaced?
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I bet everyone on that dev team has at least 5yrs more experience than whatever "manager" is making this decision. Leave the making of the game to the professionals and stay out of the way. You'll get a chance to share in the profits soon enough. Besides, if you hand it over to another dev and then it's STILL not successful, you have that many more people you have to share the lack of money with.
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